Is divorce bad for children

[Eagledad]

Here is an article that for many reasons is close to my heart. I know, I know, but I feel the truth of divorce shouldn’t be hidden by the pop culture veil that children don’t suffer. Not only is my observation that children suffer into their adult years, I also think divorce is the number one indicator of the present culture.

 

“â€ÂIs divorce bad for childrenâ€Ââ€Â

“The guilt is a burden I have lived with for years. I’m reminded of it every day as I look into my children’s eyes and see a hardness and pain that I never had as a child. I lived carefree in the comfort of my parents’ love. This is a gift I never gave my children. Instead, I showered them with the curses of a divorced life, the mixed loyalties of remarriage, and the travails of a blended family that never really blends.â€Â

 

http://thefederalist.com/2014/05/14/is-divorce-bad-for-children/

 

I have been asked several times why I don’t agree with the homosexual lifestyle. And while there are many ways of answering that, this article on the whole gets to the main point and could have just as well been written about gay families. Yes, I see one as bad as the other. That our culture encourages one and trivializes the other is why most of our kids have little hope in my opinion of growing up living carefree in the comfort of their parents’ love.

 

Barry

 

[JasonG172]

I think its as equally as bad as staying in a relationship where there is fighting and drug abuse. But I agree I think everyone involved should work together to resolve the issues, sometimes though it can not be repaired.

 

I was lucky, my parents stayed together. Its just easier to get a divorce then sit down and work it out.

[LeCastor]

@Eagledad, I can't speak for any other children so I'll just speak for myself. My parents divorced when I was seven years old and it wasn't until many years later that I fully understood why. First, there was a 15+ year age gap between them and, second, my mother is a lesbian. So...things just weren't working out like they had hoped.

 

Do I think I turned out ok? Absolutely! Do I live carefree in the comfort of [my] parents' love? You're darn right I do! I have been loved from day one by my father and my mother. I've been pretty successful in my life to this point and I wouldn't change anything in my past--including my parents' divorce.

 

Now, I can definitely see how a male/female family unit can be nurturing to a child. Likewise, I can see--through experience--how a female/female family unit can be beneficial to a child. Sure, it's tougher when a single parent raises a child but I lived that life, too, and my mom is top-notch. To top it all off she's a retired pastor, too! I love her very much and I love my dad very much...

 

And I'm doing fine !

[Peregrinator]

I think its as equally as bad as staying in a relationship where there is fighting and drug abuse. But I agree I think everyone involved should work together to resolve the issues' date=' sometimes though it can not be repaired.[/quote']

 

I believe there are actually studies showing that children are better off when their parents stay together even if their parents have a bad marriage. Whether it is best for all involved is another question.

[SM bob]

My parents had a bad marriage that ended in divorce when I was young. At the time and later I was glad they divorced. Both my parents love me. I myself have fought with my wife and almost got a divorce. At the last monument my wife and I decided to work harder and stay married. Children are not blind or deaf. They see fighting, infidelity, loveless marriages, substance abuse. Living in that environment will scar them. Children will believe those types of situations is what marriages is supposed to be. That is the danger to children.

[walk in the woods]

So if we throw out the edge cases for now of abusive relationships, drug use, one parent deciding they are gay, etc. I think the biggest issue with the no-fault-divorce culture is it teaches children that rather than work at loving somebody if it just doesn't magically "work out" you can walk away. Tends towards the lazy.

[LeCastor]

I certainly am not an advocate for divorce and think a loving couple is the best possible world for a child. In fact, my wife and I agreed from the outset that we didn't ever want to get divorced and that we would work to make things work out. As a child of divorced parents, I personally think I'm ok.

 

But one of the reasons I volunteered to be a Scoutmaster is to help those young men who don't have fathers around. Scouting is good for guys like that...like me.

[Stosh]

As one who has been divorced.... I can safely say that there's nothing so bad in the marriage that divorce can't make it worse.

 

Yes, kids of broken homes sometimes grow up to be okay, some don't. I had hoped for more for my kids than just being okay.

 

2 of the three children have remained connected to the family, the third's whereabouts is unknown to anyone in the extended family. I was a grandfather for 6 months before I knew it. There was no marriage involved in that relationship.

 

Currently remarried to a divorcee. Between the two of us we fully understand the implications of divorce and will do anything it takes the make it work. Wish I was that committed 35 years ago when I was young and foolish.

 

I grew up with parents that were married for 54 years before my mother's passing. I wish my kids would have known what I know.

 

Stosh

 

[Horizon]

Classic correlation vs. causation issue. One problem is that divorced families have lower economics, and having money matters (up to a point - after awhile incremental dollars don't make a difference).

 

A metaanalysis in 1991 found that children in single parent divorced households score lower in well being. Separating out the reason for the divorce, however, is tough to measure. I think of one couple with a Scout that are still married. They are doing a GREAT job modeling an unhappy marriage. Their daughter won't date (men are not to be trusted, and I will never allow myself to be dependent), and their son is already a wonderful flavor of misogyny (women are worthless and good for nothing but cleaning up after me). But hey, they are still together.

 

http://psycnet.apa.org/journals/bul/110/1/26/

 

"

• Meta-analysis involved 92 studies that compared children living in divorced single-parent families with children living in continuously intact families on measures of well-being. Children of divorce scored lower than children in intact families across a variety of outcomes, with the median effect size being .14 of a standard deviation. For some outcomes, methodologically sophisticated studies yielded weaker effect sizes than did other studies. In addition, for some outcomes, more recent studies yielded weaker effect sizes than did studies carried out during earlier decades. Some support was found for theoretical perspectives emphasizing parental absence and economic disadvantage, but the most consistent support was found for a family conflict perspective. (PsycINFO Database Record © 2012 APA, all rights reserved)"
  

[Horizon]

Looks like Amato updated his research in 2001:

 

"

• The present study updates the P. R. Amato and B. Keith (1991) meta-analysis of children and divorce with a new analysis of 67 studies published in the 1990s. Compared with children with continuously married parents, children with divorced parents continued to score significantly lower on measures of academic achievement, conduct, psychological adjustment, self-concept, and social relations. After controlling for study characteristics. curvilinear trends with respect to decade of publication were present for academic achievement, psychological well-being, self-concept, and social relations. For these outcomes, the gap between children with divorced and married parents decreased during the 1980s and increased again during the 1990s. (PsycINFO Database Record © 2012 APA, all rights reserved)"
  

http://psycnet.apa.org/journals/fam/15/3/355/

 

[Tampa Turtle]

In my Scouter experience the PROCESS of divorce seems bad for some kids. While I know of situations where the kids were removed from a bad situation it seems so many adults can get 'crazy' for a while if it gets less amicable. It is discouraging when Scouting gets used as a bludgeon by one of the parents; I have seen when the dad supported it the mom seemed to go out of her way to schedule events at campout times. In any case if there is shared custody issues of where the uniform and book and who is helping the boy work on what comes up. I will say we have picked up a good handful of scouts because the single-parent household mom wanted their boy exposed to some male role models in scouts...

[gsdad]

My parents split up when I was a teen. It split our family in mutilple pieces. My mother was too busy trying to villify my father, my father was trying to figure out why everything he did to save their marraige failed, in the meantime we kids were left to fend for ourselves. Two of us turned out alright, one turned to dugs, my other brother passed away due to health issues, but at 29 he had no direction and was working a dead end job. I rarely speak to my brothers these days, and the way the divorce went down is the primary cause.

[King Ding Dong]

I don't see how this has any thing to do with the "homosexual lifestyle". I am not even sure what that means and how is it different that the "heterosexual lifestyle"? Last I checked the "gay agenda" is for marriage not divorce.

[JasonG172]

I think the biggest issue with the no-fault-divorce culture is it teaches children that rather than work at loving somebody if it just doesn't magically "work out" you can walk away. Tends towards the lazy.

 

 

+1 that's it in a Nut Shell

[Eagledad]

I certainly am not an advocate for divorce and think a loving couple is the best possible world for a child. In fact, my wife and I agreed from the outset that we didn't ever want to get divorced and that we would work to make things work out. As a child of divorced parents, I personally think I'm ok.

 

But one of the reasons I volunteered to be a Scoutmaster is to help those young men who don't have fathers around. Scouting is good for guys like that...like me.

 

I am glad to read that you are doing OK LeCaster, God bless you and all your family. But I feel your story is representative of the problem, not the solution. Not that I have a solution, but we as a culture seem to justify harmful behavior with examples of surviving victims.

 

Coincidently I just ran into a long time scouter friend at a café who I haven’t seen in about three years. I was the SM when his older son earned eagle. His younger Eagle son is now an ASM for the troop. When he noticed that I didn’t recognize the women he was with, he said, “You didn’t know? The boys’ mother left me for another woman. The boys are taking it very hardâ€Â.

 

It seems to me that our culture has reached a level where we glorify parents making personal choices even when in the back of our minds WE KNOW that friends and family will suffer from those choices for the rest of their lives. I am floored that our culture not only supports, but encourages mothers to abandon their children for their own personal happiness. And I mean abandonment to the extreme of even killing their unborn children. We seem to support being happy even at the destruction of those around us. Can anyone really say it is anything less? How can a culture survive when the parents are willing to accept their children as casualties of their personal happiness? How? What hope is there for my kids kids?

 

I know this topic appears pointedly judgmental, I don’t mean to make it so. I feel that our culture has an overall problem of feeling entitled to be personally happy and that feeling is being used to the extreme for political advantage. Divorce and parent abandonment is just a result of the much bigger problem. But it is a problem that feeds the monster and makes it worse. I do not think good parenting should be looked at as a noble, but it seems today that any parents who are willing to make a marriage work to the end are indeed noble.

 

I don’t have an answer, but I just wanted to remind ourselves that the problem is out there and our children are suffering as a result.

Barry