A rchive Date
[ 18-09-2000 ]
Category
[ International Relations ]
sub-Categoy
[ Marriage ]
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[DIVORCE / THE DEBATE
http://www.time.com/time/pacific/magazine/20001106/cover1.html
Should you stay together for the Kids?
A controversial book argues that the damage from divorce is serious and lasting, but many argue that the remedy of parents staying hitched is worse than the ailment
By WALTER KIRN
SEPTEMBER 25, 2000, VOL. 156 NO. 13
One afternoon when Joanne was nine years old she came home from school and noticed something missing. Her father's jewelry box had disappeared from its usual spot on her parents' bureau. Worse, her mother was still in bed. "Daddy's moved out," her mother told her. Joanne panicked. She began to sob. And even though Joanne is 40 now, a married Los Angeles homemaker with children of her own, she clearly remembers what she did next that day. Her vision blurred by tears, she searched through the house that was suddenly not a home for the jewelry box that wasn't there.
Time heals all wounds, they say. For children of divorce like Joanne, though, time has a way of baring old wounds too. For Joanne, the fears that her parents' split unleashed--of abandonment, of loss, of coming home one day and noticing something missing from the bedroom--deepened as the years went by. Bursts of bitterness, jealousy and doubt sent her into psychotherapy. "Before I met my husband," she remembers, "I sabotaged all my other relationships with men because I assumed they would fail. There was always something in the back of my head. The only way I can describe it is a void, unfinished business that I couldn't get to."
For America's children of divorce--a million new ones every year--unfinished business is a way of life. For adults, divorce is a conclusion, but for children it's the beginning of uncertainty. Where will I live? Will I see my friends again? Will my mom's new boyfriend leave her too? Going back to the early '70s--the years that demographers mark as the beginning of a divorce boom that has receded only slightly despite three decades of hand wringing and worry--society has debated these children's predicament in much the same way that angry parents do: by arguing over the little ones' heads or quarreling out of earshot, behind closed doors. Whenever concerned adults talk seriously about what's best for the children of divorce, they seem to hold the discussion in a setting--a courtroom or legislature or university--where young folks aren't allowed.
Views on Divorce
[My parents] tried to stick it out for an extra year. That year was horrible ... It's really devastating when your parents divorce. But it doesn't automatically mean that I wish my parents were still together. People who haven't gone through parental divorce don't really understand that.
-- Stephanie Staal, author of The Love They Lost: Living with the Legacy of Our Parents' Divorce
I think the kids are better off if divorce is handled intelligently--that is, if both parents talk to the kids, explain what it is. Let's say each party remarries. The children get the benefit of now four adults in their life, instead of two. If everything works well, the kids benefit
--Larry King, five-times-divorced TV talk-show host
Every marriage waxes and wanes ... So thinking about getting divorced when things are awful is in some ways a short-sighted view. You're cutting off your foot because you have an ingrown toenail.
-- Linda Waite, co-author of The Case for Marriage: Why Married People Are Happier, Healthier and Better Off Financially
I'm not suggesting that divorce be outlawed. But people move too quickly without trying to work through their problems in the relationship.
--Marshall Herskovitz, co-creator of TV's Once and Again
What most of the large-scale scientific research shows is that although growing up in a divorced family elevates the risk for certain kinds of problems, it by no means dooms children to having a terrible life. The fact of the matter is that most kids from divorced families do manage to overcome their problems and do have good lives.
--Paul Amato, professor of sociology, Penn State University'
Besides her conclusions on children's long-term prospects following divorce, Wallerstein makes another major point in her book--one that may result in talk-show fistfights. Here it is: children don't need their parents to like each other. They don't even need them to be especially civil. They need them to stay together, for better or worse. (Paging Dr. Laura!) This imperative comes with asterisks, of course, but fewer than one might think. Physical abuse, substance addiction and other severe pathologies cannot be tolerated in any home. Absent these, however, Wallerstein stands firm: a lousy marriage, at least where the children's welfare is concerned, beats a great divorce.
Them's fighting words.
The shouting has already started. Family historian Stephanie Coontz, author of The Way We Never Were: American Families and the Nostalgia Trap, (Basic) questions the value of papering over conflicts for the kids' sake. Sure, some parents can pull it off, but how many and for how long? "For many couples," Coontz says, "things only get worse and fester, and eventually, five years down the road, they end up getting divorced anyway, after years of contempt for each other and outside affairs."
Coontz doesn't believe in social time travel. She doesn't think we can go back to Leave It to Beaver after we've seen Once and Again. Unlike Wallerstein, whose investigation is deep but rather narrow (the families in her original study were all white, affluent residents of the same Northern California county, including non-working wives for whom divorce meant a huge upheaval), Coontz takes a lofty, long view of divorce. "In the 1940s the average marriage ended with the death of the spouse," Coontz says. "But life expectancy is greater today, and there is more potential for trouble in a marriage. We have to become comfortable with the complexity and ambiguity of every family situation and its own unique needs."
That's just a lot of fancy, high-flown talk to Wallerstein and her followers. Ambiguity doesn't put dinner on the table or drive the kids to soccer practice or save for their college education. Parents do. And parents tend to have trouble doing these things after they get divorced. In observing what goes wrong for kids when their folks decide to split, Wallerstein is nothing if not practical. It's not just the absence of positive role models that bothers her; it's the depleted bank accounts, the disrupted play-group schedules, the frozen dinners. Parents simply parent better, she's found, when there are two of them. Do kids want peace and harmony at home? Of course. Still, they'll settle for hot meals.
Wallerstein didn't always feel this way. Once upon a time, she too believed that a good divorce trumped a bad marriage where children were concerned. "The central paradigm now that is subscribed to throughout the country," says Wallerstein, "is if at the time of the breakup people will be civil with each other, if they can settle financial things fairly, and if the child is able to maintain contact with both parents, then the child is home free." Wallerstein helped build this model, she says, but now she's out to tear it down. "I'm changing my opinion," she says flatly.
The family-values crowd is pleased as punch with Wallerstein's change of heart. Take David Blankenhorn, president of the Institute for American Values. "There was a sense in the '70s especially, and even into the '80s, that the impact of divorce on children was like catching a cold: they would suffer for a while and then bounce back," he says. "More than anyone else in the country, Judith Wallerstein has shown that that's not what happens." Fine, but does this oblige couples to muddle through misery so that Johnny won't fire up a joint someday or dump his girlfriend out of insecurity? Blankenhorn answers with the sort of certainty one expects from a man with his imposing title. "If the question is, If unhappily married parents stay together for the sake of their kids, will that decision benefit their children?, the answer is yes."
We can guess how the moral stalwarts will answer such questions. What about ordinary earthlings? Virginia Gafford, 56, a pet-product saleswoman in Pawleys Island, S.C., first married when she was 19. The marriage lasted three years. She married again, had a second child, Denyse, and divorced again. Denyse was 14. She developed the classic symptoms. Boyfriends jilted her for being too needy. She longed for the perfect man, who was nowhere to be found. "I had really high expectations," says Denyse. "I wanted Superman, so they wouldn't do what Dad had done." Denyse is in college now and getting fine grades, but her mother still has certain regrets. "If I could go back and find any way to save that marriage, I'd do it," she says. "And I'd tell anyone else to do the same."
For Wallerstein and her supporters, personal growth is a poor excuse for dragging the little ones through a custody battle that just might divide their vulnerable souls into two neat, separate halves doomed to spend decades trying to reunite. Anne Watson is a family-law attorney in Bozeman, Mont., and has served as an administrative judge in divorce cases. She opposes tightening divorce laws out of fear that the truly miserable--battered wives, the spouses of alcoholics--will lose a crucial escape route. But restless couples who merely need their space, in her opinion, had better think twice and think hard. "If people are divorcing just because of choices they want to make, I think it's pretty tough on the kids," Watson says. "Just because you're going to feel better, will they?"
That, of course, is the million-dollar question. Wallerstein's answer is no, they'll feel worse. They'll feel worse for quite a while, in fact, and may not know why until they find themselves in court, deciding where their own kids will spend Christmas. It's no wonder Wallerstein's critics find her depressing.
Does Wallerstein's work offer any hope or guidance to parents who are already divorced? Quite a bit, actually. For such parents, Wallerstein offers the following advice; First, stay strong. The child should be assured that she is not suddenly responsible for her parents' emotional well-being. Two, provide continuity for the child, maintaining her usual schedule of activities. Try to keep her in the same playgroup, the same milieu, among familiar faces and accustomed scenes. Lastly, don't let your own search for new love preoccupy you at the child's expense.
Her chief message to married parents is clear: Suck it up if you possibly can, and stick it out. But even if you agree with Wallerstein, how realistic is such spartan advice? The experts disagree. Then again, her advice is not for experts. It's directed at people bickering in their kitchen and staring up at the ceiling of their bedroom. It's directed at parents who have already divorced and are sitting alone in front of the TV, contemplating a second try.
The truth and usefulness of Wallerstein's findings will be tested in houses and apartments, in parks and playgrounds, not in sterile think tanks. Someday, assuming we're in a mood to listen, millions of children will give us the results.
Reported by Jeanne McDowell/Los Angeles, Timothy Padgett/ Miami, Andrea Sachs/New York and David E. Thigpen/Chicago
 World Fact Book (CIA)]
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