E Jane Dickson: A lesson in having a non-nuclear family Christmas

It’s not without irony that the onus is on parents to behave better when divorced

Last night I waved my children off for Christmas. It didn't feel right – it never does – but it's the way we , in common with countless other non-nuclear families, manage our lives. This year, the children will have a perfectly merry Christmas with their father and stepmother in Cornwall, while I celebrate the season with my partner in Paris.

The day after Boxing Day we'll scoop up the kids and take them to my parents' for Christmas Mark II. Santa, being a large-minded old chap, not much exercised by notions of social cohesion, doesn't mind organising a second drop. And if Santa can juggle his busy schedule to accommodate the children of divorced parents, I guess the rest of us can sort ourselves out without carping.

The "alternate Christmas" arrangement scarcely fits the Dickensian ideal, but then which aspect of modern (or for that matter Victorian ) family life ever did? A Cabinet Office study published this week told us what we already knew. "We see an increasing range of family structures," the paper pointed out, "to the extent that there is no longer a one-size-fits-all family in Britain today." For once, however, there was a humane rider to the bleedin' obvious. "This is diversity and not decline," the report continued. "Warm, loving and stable relationships matter more for our happiness and well-being than the legal form of a relationship."

Already I can hear, like the lowing of mastodons in the distance, the outraged response of the Right to this note of human sympathy. Maria Miller, Conservative spokesman for families, was quick to "welcome" the report by calling for state support for marriage and it's a matter of time before some eager backbencher is roused to rehearse the idea of divorce as an inexorable fast track to The Jeremy Kyle Show.

Once again, it will be pointed out that children from "broken" homes are statistically less likely to do well at school and more likely to commit crime than children who live with both parents and, once again, divorced parents – few of whom, we must assume, divorced for fun – will wonder what precisely they are meant to do with this information. As constructive policy goes, it's a bit like saying we'd all be less stressed if we were millionaires. Arguably true and staggeringly unhelpful.

The Cabinet Office report does not, in fact, shirk the "numerous negative effects" on children when their parents split up, but offers the much-needed encouragement that such effects are not inevitable. It was even more encouraging to hear the eminently well-balanced and successful Sarah Brown relate her honest experience of surviving parental break-up at this week's "relationships summit" at Westminster. On the practical side, £2.6m in funding has been allocated by the Government to the Relate counselling service to support their work with families in the throes of break-up, while a new booklet, Kids in the Middle will be rolled out to schools and doctors' surgeries to help parents to prioritise their children's needs. "We know that in the vast majority of cases where parents are splitting up they will always try to make sure that they put the needs of children first." said Ed Balls at Wednesday's conference, "but sometimes that just isn't possible."

Maybe, with or without government support, we just need to try harder. It is fashionable, and, I hope, realistic, to talk of a "good divorce" but this doesn't happen without previously unimaginable effort and A-levels in lip-biting from both parents.

It's not without irony that the onus is on parents to behave better to each other when divorced than they may have done while married. Because if parents split up and continue to argue, there's strictly nothing in the new deal for the kids. Much remains to be thrashed out at government level in terms of child care and financial support arrangements before we can live up to the New Labour ideal of successfully "reconfigured" families, but maintaining at least the appearance of civil relations between parents is something we can do for ourselves and, most importantly, for our children.

And it's not all bad. With enough goodwill and a following wind, the peculiar shared pleasure of parenting can be salvaged from a break-up. I'm glad that when my daughter scanned the faces at her school's Christmas concert, she saw me sitting with her father. I wouldn't (I hope) have been moved to comment on the shininess of her hair to anyone else and when our son sang his solo, it was good to know that at least one other person in the audience was holding his breath for the top notes.

Of course I'll miss them on Christmas Day (no more or less than their dad misses them when it's "my" turn), but it's not the worst thing that can happen. Because divorce is the end of a marriage. It needn't be the end of a happy family.