CHILDREN AND DIVORCE

Because personal peace, happiness and prosperity are the core values of contemporary life, a marriage and children are expendable. Personal happiness, peace and prosperity for the parents have not translated into happiness and peace for the children of divorce. Children pay the price!

In the little speeches divorcing parents give to their children, the authorities tell them to say, "Mommy and daddy can't live together any more because we can't get along, but we will always love you, we will always be your parents." On the face of it, it sounds good, but when a child is able to ruminate on it a while it is easy to come to the conclusion, "If mommy and daddy can't get along and so they can't live together, when I am bad they won't want to live with me." When a couple violates marriage vows, that they will break their promise to the child is a very real possibility to the child. Adding to this is being shuttled back and forth between parents. The kids have not a place to call their own, thus having less of a sense of permanence and significance.

Though we say that the best interest of a child comes first, children are commonly used in our culture to reward and punish adults. The custody battles reflect this. That there is psychological damage that results from this is not to be doubted. Yet the divorce literature says that our divorce speech to the children should "admit that this will be sad and upsetting for everyone" (American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry). Children have to pay the price for the parents' sins. Actually, a kind of role reversal is the result. Adults get to break the rules and be sad, and the children, when they are feeling sad, are supposed to remember how sad mom and dad are and be good! How twisted and dysfunctional is that?

If parents can be civil to one another, even if they are unhappy and can't get along, they should stay married. The children will fare and do much better. It is right to do it for the kids!

"Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it" (Proverbs 22:6).

Grace & Peace;
Tom