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Children of Divorce - New Study Explores the Nasty Effects
ZENIT News ^ | 10/15/05

Posted on 10/15/2005 6:41:32 PM PDT by madprof98

CHICAGO, OCT. 15, 2005 (Zenit.org).- A quarter of U.S. adults ages 18 to 35 have grown up in divorced families. The impact of divorce on them is the subject of a new book, "Between Two Worlds: The Inner Lives of Children of Divorce" (Crown Publishers).

Author Elizabeth Marquardt surveyed 1,500 young adults from both divorced and intact families, and conducted in-depth interviews with more than 70 of them. Her conclusion: "While divorce is sometimes necessary, there is no such thing as a good divorce."

Marquardt acknowledges that children in high-conflict marriages, or in situations where there is violence, benefit from divorce. Such cases, however, involve only around one-third of divorces, and the children of the other low-conflict marriages fare worse after divorce. And, while noting that most parents take seriously the decision to divorce, Marquardt urges them to try even harder to preserve their marriages, given the costs involved for their children.

Even if a divorce is amicable, and the couple maintains a good relationship after separating, and even if they continue to love and care for the children, this does not eliminate "the radical restructuring of the child's universe," the author contends.

The moment when parents split is only the start of this restructuring. Around two-thirds of the children of divorce surveyed by Marquardt say they felt they grew up in two families, not one. Growing up in two worlds creates a whole series of problems, starting with the fact that both parents are no longer "insiders," or a part of the family.

Parallel worlds

In marriage, Marquardt explains, parents often have differences, but they work together to bridge them and they manage to give family life a unity. But a divorce often encourages the former spouses to define themselves in opposition to each other. Hence the beliefs and values of the two parents, instead of achieving an equilibrium, exist in parallel, creating contrasts and conflicts, rather than unity, for the children.

After the split, the conflict between former spouses may no longer be open, but the conflict between their two worlds is still very much alive, Marquardt observes. A child in a united family, by contrast, does not have to spend so much time and effort in reconciling the differences between parents, and can concentrate on enjoying daily life.

Thus, children of divorced couples are forced to enter into an adult world of responsibilities and worries at a young age. Marquardt's survey revealed that even among those children whose parents had managed their divorce well (in terms of reducing the impact on the kids) around half agreed that they always felt like an adult, even when they were young. This proportion reached two-thirds among children whose parents' divorces were more problematic.

Following a divorce, many of the children felt they had a responsibility to protect their mothers, and a substantial number had to take on greater duties in caring for their siblings. This also happens in families where a parent dies or is seriously ill; the difference with divorce is that the children know it comes about as a result of a voluntary choice on the part of at least one parent.

The way in which a divorce comes about also often wounds children, recounts Marquardt. In an ideal situation, the parents would gather the children together and carefully explain everything, and reassure them about the future. Yet, the breakup of a marriage is often messy and chaotic, making it difficult for the parents to organize well the initial announcement to their children, the author reports.

Moreover, the adults are often vulnerable and in grief or shock. It can be hard for children to see their parents in this situation. And it also means that just when the children are in need of comfort they are less able to turn to their parents for support.

Further problems arise in the post-divorce period, when children have to deal with the conflicts and criticisms between the former spouses. The young adults who grew up in divorced families told Marquardt how they felt obliged to be careful what they said to each parent about the other. Such information could lead to hurt feelings or trigger criticisms about the other parent.

Forging values

Notably, Marquardt's book focuses on the impact of divorce on the moral lives of children. The children feel conflict as they experience different values and ways of life in each parent's separate household. The result is that the children now have to forge their own values and beliefs, the author contends.

Normally, children absorb their parents' values in a natural and gradual process, without having to make a conscious effort. Clearly, there are often differences between parents, but on the whole the children see their parents' values as complementary. And the parents normally work together, backing up each other's authority.

But the young adults studied by Marquardt rarely thought of their parents' values as unified. Differences on small matters such as household routines or disciplinary norms, or more important subjects such as moral values and ambitions for their children, grow wider after divorce. This leaves the children confused, and faced with the task of having to construct their own values in the midst of this conflict.

The differences between the two households means more that just an uncomfortable social situation, where we don't want to offend someone, Marquardt comments. The conflicts are between the two most important people in a child's life -- and these crossed signals go to the heart of a child's identity.

One consequence is that of the children interviewed, 24% of those from divorced families say they do not share the similar moral values with their fathers. And 17% felt the same about their mothers. This compares with children from intact families, where only 6% say they do not share similar values with their parents.

Asked about where they got their sense of right and wrong, children of divorce will name mothers, but rarely fathers. Requiring such children to forge their own values, Marquardt concludes, might help to explain why they have higher rates of problems such as substance abuse, teen pregnancy and delinquency.

Another finding of the study is that today's young adult children of divorce are less religious overall than their peers from intact families. Sometimes the suffering caused by their parents' divorce leads them to question their belief in God. Others are motivated to seek answers to their doubts in religious faith, but the process can be a struggle.

Overall, the young adults from divorced families are less likely to feel religious or to practice their faith as those from intact families. They are also more likely to doubt the sincerity of their parents' faith.

Marquardt concludes by observing that children require strong, lasting marriages in order to have the secure home they need while growing up. They are not like property that can be divided, but need love, stability and moral guidance. This means making changes to our thinking about marriages. Parents, she pleads, must not just love their children but must also love and forgive each other, to sustain families that last a lifetime.


TOPICS: Culture/Society
KEYWORDS: divorce; psychology
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To: Constitutionalist Conservative
Unless, of course, mom is a lesbian.

...or an Episcopal priest turned gay. In that case we "celebrate" his new discovery and feed his newly acquired promiscuity with acceptance. (and of course we'll promote that priest to bishop asap)

21 posted on 10/15/2005 7:27:41 PM PDT by ThirstyMan (hysteria: the elixir of the Left that trumps all reason)
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To: madprof98


I grew up in a home with parents who fought at least every week. Massive scream fests that at time ended up violently. Me and my brother would sleep together those nights. He would wet the bed from all the trauma of listening to these battles.

I was never so happy as when they decided to get a divorce, unfortunately it wasn't early enough for us. Kids aren't alwasy better off with parents that stay together.


22 posted on 10/15/2005 7:28:02 PM PDT by SouthernFreebird
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To: ThirstyMan

I understand Gene Robinson's kids claim they are better off for having been abandoned. Perhaps they are.


23 posted on 10/15/2005 7:29:49 PM PDT by madprof98
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To: madprof98

Dont know that I agee with you about the way to show children that you love them, is to stay with them no matter what....

I worked for a woman who was married to a very abusive man...she remained married to him, as both parents were Catholic, married in the Catholic Church, and did not believe in divorce, for any reason...

But this man regularly beat my boss up, and when he got tired of smacking her around, he started in on the two boys...Now, ,this was during the mid 1960s and I dont know if even the police would have intervened in this mess...

One nite, he started in beating up this woman...then he physically picked her up, and threw her out of the house, keeping the two boys inside...she ran to her parents, seeking help, and fearing what had happened to the boys...shortly after that, the two boys appeared..apparently they heard their mom being thrown out, and quickly dressed, hoping to try to escape through a window, which they did successfully...but my boss says that when they arrived at her parents house, the younger boy, much shorter and thinner, than the older oby, was dressed in his older brothers clothes, and the older boy had crammed himself into his younger brothers clothes...the sight of her two boys, scared to death, ,crying, and dressed in each others clothing, ,convinced her, that regardless of what the Catholic Church thought, enough was enough, ,and she was going to get a divorce...

Which she did...both she and her boys did have to have intense therapy, but seemed to be managing and making progress...then she met a wonderful man, who loved her and her boys...she married him, and they remained married for decades...and her two boys, were ever thankful, that she took them out of that horrible situation, where she and they were regularly were beaten and abused by a man who thought of them as nothing more than punching bags...I dont think that either the wife of the children ever believed this man loved them, as much as he abused them...

Of course, not all cases of family problems, or dysfunction are as extreme...and I do think that many people do divorce for the most trival and ridiculous of reasons...

But I just dont believe that we can make a blanket statement, that kids always benefit from the parents remaining together..sometimes the parents staying together causes greater harm to the children...


24 posted on 10/15/2005 7:30:06 PM PDT by andysandmikesmom
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To: SouthernFreebird
Kids aren't alwasy better off with parents that stay together.

The study doesn't claim that kids are "always" better off. But you wonder: What kind of people bring children into the world and then subject them to the kind of behavior you describe? How could people possibly do that--not only to one another but to innocent human beings whom they themselves chose to create? In my mind, the choices are (a) insanity or (b) pure evil.

25 posted on 10/15/2005 7:32:29 PM PDT by madprof98
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To: andysandmikesmom
But I just dont believe that we can make a blanket statement, that kids always benefit from the parents remaining together..sometimes the parents staying together causes greater harm to the children...

I responded to your point in post 25. But I think many people who contemplate divorce aren't even close to anything like you've described. Rather, if pressed, they insist that something more like "emotional abuse" on the part of their spouse is driving them apart. Sometimes (I know from watching it in family members) the so-called abuse consists in the wife/mother of the family getting older and flabbier and shorter-tempered than the hot chick at the office.

26 posted on 10/15/2005 7:36:15 PM PDT by madprof98
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To: madprof98



Actually they were just ordinary folks living day to day trying to raise children. They each came together with their own problems and together it was explosive. Nothing evil about it. This was during and after the Vietnam war. Times were scary and hard. Lots of changes going on in the world they were having to deal with.


27 posted on 10/15/2005 7:36:59 PM PDT by SouthernFreebird
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To: madprof98
Kids don't really care how their parents feel about each other. They care how their parents feel about THEM.

So very true.

28 posted on 10/15/2005 7:38:09 PM PDT by SuziQ
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To: Nothometoday
They survive, just fine.

The serious studies all show they indeed survive BUT the children are NOT just fine!

That is a fiction carried in the mind of a parent who would rather not bear any guilt over the divorce.

29 posted on 10/15/2005 7:41:59 PM PDT by NoControllingLegalAuthority
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To: madprof98

Yep, I get your point.


30 posted on 10/15/2005 7:42:50 PM PDT by ThirstyMan (hysteria: the elixir of the Left that trumps all reason)
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To: SouthernFreebird
Nothing evil about it.

You sound like a kind and forgiving person. But I refuse to believe there is "nothing evil" about parents engaging in "massive screamfests" that cause their small children to huddle together and pee the bed. And when we shrug off or rationalize the wrong that others do to us, we too often end up repeating the behavior in our own lives. That's what so often happens with many of the children of divorce: (stage one) I'm mad that dad had an affair; (stage two) now that I'm married myself, I understand why dad had that affair; (stage three) I really need to have an affair.

31 posted on 10/15/2005 7:45:26 PM PDT by madprof98
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To: madprof98

Trying to not be TOO persoal here, However, You would have to meet my childs father.
The best thing that ever has happened in my life is this child.
"at the time" we both wanted to be parents. " at the time" does not always last.
It should have little to know affect on the child.
If, at least one parent cares, Enough to parent.
Not an exact male/female ratio..But some parents DO choose to leave the nest.


32 posted on 10/15/2005 7:45:27 PM PDT by Nothometoday
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To: andysandmikesmom

Half of marriages end in divorce. You can't describe that many marriages as "abusive" relationships.


33 posted on 10/15/2005 7:47:11 PM PDT by NoControllingLegalAuthority
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To: madprof98


I certainly don't shrug off their behavior. I've always let them know how much that tore us up and how wrong it was for them to put us thru it. I've known them all my life, they are not evil and never intentionally hurt us.

We are all flawed humans, their flaws were in dealing with conflicts. They tried to out yell each other to be heard. One day they were teenagers the next they were parents raising kids and fighting wars. It happens, I can accept their failings without putting the devil in them.


34 posted on 10/15/2005 7:52:38 PM PDT by SouthernFreebird
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To: madprof98
I understand Gene Robinson's kids claim they are better off for having been abandoned. Perhaps they are

I hear them but I don't know them, really. If I knew them and could vouch for their happiness then I'd still be concerned for their well being.
I remain a skeptic, unwilling to adjust my standards of right and wrong to match what these poor people deem as "better off."
I'm not so sure the whole trauma of what they've been involved with has dawned upon them completely yet.

35 posted on 10/15/2005 7:53:20 PM PDT by ThirstyMan (hysteria: the elixir of the Left that trumps all reason)
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To: NoControllingLegalAuthority
Half of marriages end in divorce.

Which is NOT to say that half the people who get married will get divorced.
You do understand the difference don't you?

36 posted on 10/15/2005 7:55:56 PM PDT by ThirstyMan (hysteria: the elixir of the Left that trumps all reason)
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To: andysandmikesmom
I have a friend, who because of her Catholicism wouldn't divorce an abusive, unfaithful husband. I think he did it because he knew she wouldn't leave. She finally divorced him but too late. They had 5 kids, the oldest is married and very successful, the next 3 are gay and the daughter(who mostly grew up w/o the dad) is great.

I personally think that divorce should be avoided but there are times when it is preferable.

37 posted on 10/15/2005 7:56:33 PM PDT by tiki
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To: ThirstyMan
I'm not so sure the whole trauma of what they've been involved with has dawned upon them completely yet.

You're right. I have no studies on this, but I have the impression that the children of divorce who fare best are those who really do grasp what has happened to them. That's very hard for young adults, though, because most young people really do want to look on their parents (both of them) as role models.

38 posted on 10/15/2005 8:04:57 PM PDT by madprof98
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To: Nothometoday

No many of us didn't have an ideal childhood. I came from a single parent family due to my father's death.

I did survive, and am successful. However lack of a father in my life has had some long lasting consequences in the way I deal with people and arrange my life. Now, I can intellectually look at some of these things and choose to let it be an issue - or not.

There are occasions when divorce may be the best of bad options. And how the child compensates has something to do with how old they are when the divorce occurs.

Two united parents are better than one. Sometimes life isn't ideal, and we have to do the best we can, but we shouldn't kid ourselves about it.


39 posted on 10/15/2005 8:17:28 PM PDT by not_apathetic_anymore
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To: madprof98

Thanks for your response...Why do people bring children into the world, only to subject them to awful situations?....I dont know that anyone has one answer for that...sometimes two people marry, things are ok for a while, and then for whatever reason, things go bad...Insanity and pure evil are two reasonsyou list as your personal choices...but I would just wager there are a whole bunch of reasons...

I was a military wife...I knew, going into my marriage, ,that being in the military, statistically raises the probability of divorcing...many women just cannot handle the rigors of having a husband in the army...its not easy having your husband deployed, or in the field, or gone for days, weeks, or months, never knowing for sure where they are or how they are...its not easy being transfered and uprooted all the time...for some women its just not the married life they envisioned, and they just cannot take it...and the hubby does not want to leave the military...and so they divorce...I dont know that I call that evil or insane...

And parents who have a child with a terminal disease, have a much higher incidence of divorce...its an ultimate stressor to have such a child...there is a lot of tension, guilt, blame, etc, and often it can and does destroy a marriage...My hubby and I were in this situation...and then our child died..and there it goes again, parents who suffer this loss, often wind up divorced...

So statistically, my husband and I, would be prime candidates for divorce...and I will admit, there were times, when being in the military, watching my child suffer, and then watching him die, were more than I thought I could handle...had we divorced, would that have been insane or evil?...

We are still married, and glad to be so...but had we divorced after what we had been through, I just dont see it as being necessarily insane or evil...I dont know what I could call it, but certainly not insane or evil..







40 posted on 10/15/2005 8:18:16 PM PDT by andysandmikesmom
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