Children of Divorce

When I read Divorce Busting by Michele Weiner-Davis, she shared how her parents divorced and how this created in her a passion for saving marriages leading to her to study marriage counseling in her university.

After finishing her studies and her internship and going into practice, she practiced counseling in the orthodox manner in which she was taught. She felt as many counselors did that many marriages were not meant to survive and that it was better to find a healthy way to dissolve those marriages rather than try to save them.

But, over time she became increasingly aware of the damage divorce was doing to the children and how adversely it affected the spouses as well. She mentioned studies done by Judith Wallerstein on the affects of divorce initially intending to prove that divorce was not really harmful, but Wallerstein's research would take her in a direction she never intended to go as the statistics unfolded before her eyes. She found that children of divorce were more susceptible to academic failure, depression, suicide, drug usage, violence, teen pregnancy, promiscuity, and other severe social ailments.

One problem many have spoken of is the need of young girls for a close relationship with their fathers. Although many talk about child abuse from fathers, statistically it has been proved that abuse of women and children is far greater with step-fathers and live-in lovers than with biological fathers. Furthermore, girls who have a healthy relationship with their biological fathers are more stable and secure and less likely to seek attention from other men and boys, less likely to give in to sexual requests or demands, less likely to use sex or pregnancy to hold onto a boy or a man, and they're far more likely to have successful marriages later in life.

Many claim a child needs his or her mother. Few are as inclined to say a child needs his or her father, and yet children need both. They need to experience and see modelled the differences between what it is to be a woman or a man and this helps them form their identity and self-image. Girls need that father who will protect her, a father who will make sure no boys can take advantage of her and get away with it.

Sadly, today, most of those filing for divorce are women, and it is not for reason of adultery or abuse, but for lack of attention or lack of needs being met. Supposedly. But, in truth, it is because people often do not have the courage and integrity or the maturity to stay the course. And, in a society where no-fault divorce laws lead judges and attorneys to pimp for the wayward spouse and the Internet has made it so easy to find a partner in unfaithfulness, these things are working together to destroy families of children for dishonorable and selfish reasons and turn this nation into a house of ill-repute.

So, if mothers are not faithful in marriage, how can they expect their daughters or sons to be more faithful? If the parents have a love-them-and-leave-them attitude, how can they tell the world of boys out there that it is not ok to do the same thing to their own daughters?

The legacy of divorce is not a pretty one.