Ryan from Reason to Believe posted this review of Generation Ex:
I live in the United States where the divorce rate hovers between 50 and 60 percent. Tragically the rate of divorce for those who claim the name of Jesus is the same as those whom do not.
Another way to look at it is like this; as summer rolls around and the wedding season gears up, you may be invited to several weddings. At each and every wedding you attend, as the couple begins to recite their vows of love and commitment for each other, pull out a small coin from your pocket and flip it into the air. Heads the couple will stay together and tails they won’t.
I'm not trying to be cynical, rather that is the sad reality of our culture. But what is even more devastating is the impact that divorce will have on their children. As we move from a generation where a divorce was a cause for public shame, to a generation where divorce is accepted and oftentimes encouraged, we are just now beginning to see some of the consequences the decision to divorce has.
“Adult children of divorce” (ACOD) is the term given to those whose parents have divorced (when they were children or adults) and are now adults preparing for, or are already in a committed marriage. Many of these ACODs are just now beginning to see the traumatic effects their parents divorce have had on them.
From the back cover:
Finally, a book for adult children of divorce, written by an adult child of divorce.
One of the hardest truths about divorce is that every split – no matter when it occurs – will have lifelong effects on the children caught in the crossfire. While most people acknowledge our pain during our parents’ parting, few of us realize that our most significant insecurities, questions, and doubts may not show up until years later, when we seek our own intimate relationships as adults.
In fact, millions of adult children of divorce feel lost, displaced, or unwanted years after the ink has dried on their parents’ divorce decree. Like them, you may fear abandonment, betrayal, or failure in your own marriage. Despite outward successes, you may doubt your emotional abilities. You may notice that your parents’ divorce affects you more each year, not less.
You are not alone!
Through research, interviews, and personal stories, Generation Ex will help you understand the effect of your parents’ divorce on your identity, faith, and relationships and will give you the tools you need to create a dramatically different legacy.
Includes: questions for reflections.
This book is not a “quick fix” or a “self-help” rather it is designed to help you unlock the doors of your painful past, with the help of someone who knows how you are feeling, and allows you to begin the healing process.
If you are an Adult Child of Divorce, are married to an ADOC, are contemplating a divorce, or have already divorced, I HIGHLY recommend this book. I’d also recommend this book as an addition to pre-marital counseling curriculum when either person is from a divorced home.
You can purchase the book through Family Life by CLICKING HERE.
Monday, August 30, 2010
Book Review: Families.com (Valerie Nelson)
I really appreciate this review from Valerie Nelson of Families.com. When I was writing Generation Ex, I did so with some trepidation about what divorced parents would think--especially my own! At the same time, I wanted to be an advocate for all the other children of divorce who weren't able to express their own feelings. I realized that what I would say would be difficult for parents to hear, but also necessary for reconciling divorced parents and children. So I wrote as honestly and graciously as I could. I'm so happy that Ms. Nelson got that.
Book Review: Generation Ex
by Valerie Nelson
Divorce affects each person differently. In her book called Generation Ex, Jen Abbas explains the effects that divorce has on children and how we tend to carry them through to adulthood. Since the 1970's when no fault divorce laws were adopted, over a million children per year have been affected by divorce. Currently, nearly half of all children's families will experience divorce before that child reaches adulthood.
The author's catchy title "Generation Ex" stems from the understanding that the first generation (or largest up to that time)of children of divorce that grew up in the 70's and 80's are now into adulthood and oftentimes taking with them the emotional scars of divorce.
Jen tells us in her book that she seems to be more affected by her parents divorce each year, not less, and that divorce is not just a bump in the road that is easily overcome. Listed on pages 11 & 12 of the book are some of the effects of divorce that carry into adulthood:
I agree with a lot of what the author said, and found the book intriguing because my parents divorced after I was married. I thought that their divorce did not affect me because I was already an adult living my own married life. The book helped shed some light upon the truth that the divorce, and maybe more so the bad marriage prior to the divorce, did have an effect on me and still does today.
As a woman who has gone through divorce, and still wants the very best for her children, some parts of the book where the author posed tough questions and honest thoughts were difficult for me to read. For example on page 12, Jen writes:
If our parents' decision to divorce were truly a healthy one because it offered the potential for a happier home, then why do so many of us still struggle decades later with issues of abandonment, trust, commitment, and making our own marriages work?
Divorce is often the defining event of our life, and the implications of our parents' choice continue to ripple throughout our life.
Ouch, that hurts. So does divorce. It hurts all parties involved at some level.
Even though some of the book was difficult to read, I stil recommend it because it is written from the viewpoint of an adult who has grown up in a family that experienced two divorces-both her parents, and then her mother and step father's breakups. In addition, Jen Abbas is open and honest about the wide range of emotions due to divorce that she and many others feel throughout their lives. I think the book could be an important communication tool to utilize as our children grow and potentially experience some of the same difficulties discussed in the book.
Book Review: Generation Ex
by Valerie Nelson
Divorce affects each person differently. In her book called Generation Ex, Jen Abbas explains the effects that divorce has on children and how we tend to carry them through to adulthood. Since the 1970's when no fault divorce laws were adopted, over a million children per year have been affected by divorce. Currently, nearly half of all children's families will experience divorce before that child reaches adulthood.
The author's catchy title "Generation Ex" stems from the understanding that the first generation (or largest up to that time)of children of divorce that grew up in the 70's and 80's are now into adulthood and oftentimes taking with them the emotional scars of divorce.
Jen tells us in her book that she seems to be more affected by her parents divorce each year, not less, and that divorce is not just a bump in the road that is easily overcome. Listed on pages 11 & 12 of the book are some of the effects of divorce that carry into adulthood:
- Fear of falling in love, even with a strong desire to do so.
- Turning into a perfectionist.
- Fear that even if someone says, "I love you," ultimately that person might leave you.
- Trust comes in hard-earned degrees.
- You are not sure where home is, or you aren't so sure you want to accept the home that society has defined for you.
- You have holes in your history.
- You aren't sure what a healthy marriage looks like.
I agree with a lot of what the author said, and found the book intriguing because my parents divorced after I was married. I thought that their divorce did not affect me because I was already an adult living my own married life. The book helped shed some light upon the truth that the divorce, and maybe more so the bad marriage prior to the divorce, did have an effect on me and still does today.
As a woman who has gone through divorce, and still wants the very best for her children, some parts of the book where the author posed tough questions and honest thoughts were difficult for me to read. For example on page 12, Jen writes:
If our parents' decision to divorce were truly a healthy one because it offered the potential for a happier home, then why do so many of us still struggle decades later with issues of abandonment, trust, commitment, and making our own marriages work?
Divorce is often the defining event of our life, and the implications of our parents' choice continue to ripple throughout our life.
Ouch, that hurts. So does divorce. It hurts all parties involved at some level.
Even though some of the book was difficult to read, I stil recommend it because it is written from the viewpoint of an adult who has grown up in a family that experienced two divorces-both her parents, and then her mother and step father's breakups. In addition, Jen Abbas is open and honest about the wide range of emotions due to divorce that she and many others feel throughout their lives. I think the book could be an important communication tool to utilize as our children grow and potentially experience some of the same difficulties discussed in the book.
Rethinking Remarriage
Every so often I find an article that quotes my book or an interview I've given. In the article below, Lynn Barton wonders if it is right for Christians with small children to remarry; she writes from experience
One Sunday as I was staffing my church’s book table, a divorced mom asked me if we had any books for someone like her. She said she had been unable to find any that applied to her situation. Since there are now many Christian books on divorce, I was confused at first. But after talking a bit, she explained that she had decided she would not remarry until her child was grown, and she had not been able to find any books that address her particular conviction. I couldn’t help her: I couldn’t think of a book for divorced parents that didn’t assume remarriage.
As someone who grew up in a stepfamily, I think she has made a wise decision. I have been waiting for a Christian leader to at least suggest that divorced parents consider holding off on remarriage while their children are young, but to my knowledge it hasn’t happened. Although there are now a number of Christian books written to help divorced parents, they simply expect remarriage will occur. They all focus on managing the many difficulties stepfamilies encounter, without questioning the wisdom of creating one in the first place.
Dr. Laura Schlessinger, who never shrinks from controversy, is the only person whom I have ever heard tackle the conventional wisdom on this subject. Perhaps others hesitate because to explore this honestly might discourage those who are in the thick of stepfamily challenges already. So here I am, jumping in where most apparently fear to tread, and I feel it too. I have remarried friends I love and respect, and I don’t want to offend or discourage them, or anyone for that matter. As for what scripture says about remarriage, I leave that to our spiritual leaders. I only want to share my experience to help parents better understand what it’s like for a child to go through Mom and Dad’s divorce and possible remarriage. Perhaps I can equip parents to better help their children through the ordeal by discussing some long-overdue but hard truths.
The first is this: inevitably, divorce is a crisis where adult desires have been placed above the needs of children. I say this not to beat up on already divorced people, but because it bears on the question of remarriage. I do understand that sometimes divorce is unavoidable. There may be serious sin that breaks the marriage covenant. Divorce may be imposed by one spouse on the other. But when divorce happens, at least one of the parents has placed their own desires over the good of their children.
Not surprisingly, the world is right there to support that path. How often have we been told by marriage counselors, magazine article "experts" or our own friends, that "children are resilient?" That if the parents are happy, children will be happy too? Three decades of promoting this nonsense has resulted in the destructions of millions of families: it destroyed mine.
Much research has shown the damage that divorce does to children, and catalogued the lifelong issues they struggle with as they try to recover from the breakup of their family. Yet popular culture has not caught up with these realities, and no doubt does not want to. Saddest of all, those in the church divorce at the same rate as those outside of it. We Christians have apparently absorbed worldly lies in place of God’s truth, and our children have paid the price.
The central defining event of my life was my parents’ divorce when I was nine, the same age as my daughter is now. In her face, I see something of my own: I see unquestioning trust in her parents to protect and care for her. It amazes me. How could anyone believe that divorce would not traumatize children, or if it did, that they would soon bounce back?
To have your world shattered and your heart torn in two at such a tender age teaches many lessons about love, trust, forgiveness, marriage and family, all of them negative. Children of divorce will need to spend a lifetime unlearning them as their implications unfold in the different seasons of life, but especially when making their own decisions about marriage and family. For those wrestling with the emotional fallout of their parents’ divorce, or divorced parents who want to better understand their children’s world, I recommend Generation Ex by Jen Abbas. She writes,
As I entered adulthood anticipating my hard-earned independence, I was stunned to discover that my parents’ divorces seemed to affect me more each year, not less. Even though I was successful academically and professionally, I found myself becoming more insecure each year about my emotional abilities....when it came to love, I was paralyzed because what I wanted so desperately was that which I feared the most.
As she describes her own experience with her parents’ multiple divorces and interviews many others, she shows that the past does not have to dictate the future, because "instead of choosing to focus on what we have missed, we have the incredible opportunity to embrace what we, as Christians, have gained." There is no hurt that God cannot heal, and her book helps point the way.
Let’s say, for whatever reason, a family has been broken apart by divorce. Now what? It’s very understandable that parents would look forward to remarriage. To be loved again after such painful rejection, to enjoy companionship instead of loneliness, to have help raising your children. But how do children feel about it? Listen to Charles, the protaganist in Barbara Park’s novel My Mother Got Married and Other Disasters, who describes it this way: "Stepfamily" means "stepping aside so that a man who’s not your father can hold your mother’s hand."
That’s exactly how I felt when my mother remarried a year after our parent’s divorce. My mom thought it would be good for us children to have a male role model, to grow up seeing how a marriage works. But I was still reeling from the breakup of my family and the relegation of my father to twice monthly visits. Now I lost my mom too. Suddenly her attention was focused on making this new marriage work. My two younger sisters and I had been replaced in her affections and priorities. We were now on the outside looking in. We each bore our grief and confusion alone, not understanding why we felt abandoned when our mom was still with us. It wasn’t until we were adults and began to compare notes that we discovered we each felt the same way.
We gamely tried to embrace what we were told: we were lucky. We would have a new dad! But we didn’t want a new dad. We already had one, and we missed him terribly. Now suddenly there was this new person in my house, someone to whom I had no particular connection and did not want one, someone who immediately assumed the full rights and authority of a father. It was a triple whammy. First I had lost my dad, now my mom and even my sense of home. My home had become his castle. There was a new sheriff in town.
My mother did not at all understand my unhappiness. It angered her that I clung to my dad who didn’t deserve my loyalty (since he left us) and had no gratitude toward the knight who had come to our rescue. The fact that our stepdad was willing to take on a wife with three young children made him a hero in her eyes (our dad was, of course, the villain). I could intellectually understand her point, but I still loved my dad. I soon learned it was dangerous to tell her how I really felt. Every time I tried, I was chastised severely. Eventually I decided I would never again tell her what was really going on with me. And I never did. You can imagine what that meant for my teen years. She would plead with me to talk to her, but I wouldn’t. I knew she didn’t want to hear what was in my heart. Besides, by that time I had learned to be angry too.
My mom and stepfather were well meaning people. They wanted a happy and healthy family. But they had no clue how their marriage affected us children. I now believe that behind the fierceness of my mom’s anger toward me was really fear, fear that my unhappiness would break up this new marriage. I understood clearly that my stepdad was her first priority, and that made me feel unloved, that she chose him over us. There is a truth to this. She did choose to focus her attention on him first, rationalizing that it was ultimately for our good too.
And that leads me to the reason why stepfamilies are so very difficult, the secret that no one seems to want to bring to the light: remarriage with children sets up conflicting needs that are impossible to avoid or fully resolve. There is no way around this.
When my mom put my stepdad first, she was doing the right thing. For an intact family. Healthy families are marriage centered, not child centered. The marriage came before the children arrived and will continue after they have grown and left home. When children understand their birth is a result of their parents’ love, they draw security from the priority of their parents’ commitment to one another.
But a stepfamily is totally different. Since the children were there first and the stepparent came later, they cannot help but feel they have been replaced.When my stepdad became first, we became last. Despite romantic hopes that we would be one happy family, reality was quite different. As Kevin Leman likes to say, stepfamilies don’t blend, they collide.
In a stepfamily, if attention and priority is given to the marriage, the children feel abandoned and unloved. If the children get priority, the marriage suffers. And that’s on top of all the difficulties created by the ongoing effects of the divorce itself. If both spouses bring minor children into the marriage, the challenges will be vastly more complicated.
What if remarried parents go on to have more children with the new spouse? More hurt for the first children, that’s what. Especially if it’s the noncustodial parent (usually dad) who has more children. The new baby gets to live with him, while the children from the first marriage just visit. How can they feel anything but replaced? It happened to Jen Abbas, who writes, "I doubted that my parents really wanted me to be part of their new families because I felt like the leftover reminder of the failure of their old one."
A recent issue of Focus on the Family’s Tween magazine (Feb/Mar 2007) illustrates the blind spot I’m attempting to address. In "Ask the Expert" a mother expresses confusion that her daughter was fond of her stepfather before they were married, but now sees him as competition for her mother’s affections and hurts him by "showing more interest in her biological father" and telling him "you’re not my real dad." Dr. Bill Maier offers some helpful practical advice, but no insight into how painful this situation is for her child. He says, "These issues are common in blended families." I suppose that is intended to reassure this mom. But isn’t the fact that these problems are so common a clue that maybe children are not so much the problem as the situation in which they have been placed?
This mom entered into remarriage with no idea of how it would impact her child, and after reading his answer she will still have no idea. He tells her to stop "treating your daughter more like a peer than a child" and "back your husband when your daughter acts up." While these things must be done, I guarantee that child will feel ganged up on and resent it. That is the challenge this mom faces. She needs to know that her daughter’s heart has been broken all over again. Her daughter may have liked the stepfather before he married her mother, but she’s a child. How could she know how differently she would feel once he moved in? If her mother keeps the focus on what her daughter is doing wrong, without acknowledging to her that she understands the pain she feels, she will confirm her daughter’s fear that she is now on her own, that nobody understands or even cares about how badly she hurts. This couple may be able to enforce outward conformity to the "new family arrangement" for awhile, but an explosion is coming. My heart breaks for that child, because no one does understand her. Dr. Maier, wise problem solver that he is, has focused on the outward symptoms and missed the heart of the issue.
This leads me to the second hard truth: isn’t remarriage really a continuation of the idea that children do best if adult happiness is put first? Could it be that just as that we divorce too easily, we also remarry too quickly, and in both cases, our children suffer?
Once children are born, we adults have a responsibility to place their needs above our happiness. Children with divorced parents if anything need more of them than they did before the divorce. Remarriage at the very least dilutes the parent’s time and attention which now goes also, and possibly primarily, to the new spouse. From the child’s perspective, this is a painful loss, not a gain.
Now I know that God has individual plans for people, so I am speaking about general principles, not specific situations which may be exceptional. Certainly nothing is impossible with God. And ours was not a Christian family, so we did not have access to God’s grace to help us. I can imagine that remarriage could even be good for children when there is little or no relationship with the biological father. In that case remarriage would not set up the same divided loyalties of having "two dads," and a loving stepfather could help fill the need every child has for a father. I would expect some bumps though, based on the natural feeling that the child will likely have that their mom has chosen their stepdad over them.
For those who have already remarried, my goal is to explain, not to criticize. I hope this may help you understand how your children most likely feel, whether or not they say so. I hope that you will make it safe for them to share their hearts, even if it’s upsetting. If you are the stepparent I hope you will make every effort to connect with your stepchildren, and don’t take rejection personally. If you are the biological parent, I hope you will continually reassure your children that your love and loyalty to them is unchanged.
My mom and stepfather stayed married through all the turbulence of our teen years and beyond. They had a happy marriage spanning three decades, until my mom passed away a few years ago. My two sisters and I all enjoy long term marriages. We each married men from intact families, which I strongly recommend for children of divorce. Even though our stepfamily never really blended, we all acknowledge that despite our parents’ mistakes, they also did many things right. But it was a very rough road.
Not long ago I asked a teenage girl I know how she felt about her mom’s recent remarriage. She said, "I’m really glad my mom is happy again." That’s very telling. I asked about her feelings, and she responded with her mom’s. She’s making the best of it. And I do believe her when she says she is glad to see her mom happy. I too was glad my mom found happiness with my stepfather. I just missed her so much.
Remarriage when children are grown is much easier for children. My dad did not remarry until we were adults, and our relationship with our stepmom has been wonderful. She has never had to fill the role of a parent, never had to bear our resentment for taking our dad away from us, but has instead become our friend.
So I support the decision of that divorced mom not to remarry while she is raising her child. I wish more divorced parents would consider doing the same. In a flash our children will be grown. While they are with us, we need to make the most of our fleeting time with them. How we do that will be different in an intact family than when divorce has occurred. Much as divorced parents might long to start over with someone new and create the family they always hoped for, children will most likely experience that as a loss and not a gain.
If divorced parents do choose to remain single, yes, their children will miss seeing what a marriage looks like from the inside. But a second marriage and a stepfamily is quite different than a first marriage and intact family. And the even higher divorce rate of second marriages (due to the emotional minefield created by stepfamilies) makes remarriage a very high risk indeed. A second divorce would reinforce the negative lessons taught by the first and make it that much harder for children to heal and to imagine that they might ever enjoy a permanent marriage themselves.
The decisions my parents made, first my dad’s to divorce my mom and then my mom’s to remarry while we were young, hurt me and my sisters. How much better would it have been if we had not had to spend so much time and energy and emotion working through the fallout from their choices. Still I can say with the psalmist, "It was good for me to be afflicted, so that I might learn your decrees." (Ps. 119:71). The adversity in my life brought me to God.
That’s the perfect theme with which to end: God’s grace. Lest I discourage the remarried, I remember that as Christians we know that even after trusting Christ we remain fallen creatures, so our mistakes and failures ought not to surprise or overwhelm us. Wherever we are, whatever we have done or not done, we can rejoice in hope, because through Christ we have God’s forgiveness and access to his love and wisdom for every need. So with confidence in God’s love and favor toward us, we can face the truth - even hard truth - wherever it leads.
Written By: Lynn Barton
As someone who grew up in a stepfamily, I think she has made a wise decision. I have been waiting for a Christian leader to at least suggest that divorced parents consider holding off on remarriage while their children are young, but to my knowledge it hasn’t happened. Although there are now a number of Christian books written to help divorced parents, they simply expect remarriage will occur. They all focus on managing the many difficulties stepfamilies encounter, without questioning the wisdom of creating one in the first place.
Dr. Laura Schlessinger, who never shrinks from controversy, is the only person whom I have ever heard tackle the conventional wisdom on this subject. Perhaps others hesitate because to explore this honestly might discourage those who are in the thick of stepfamily challenges already. So here I am, jumping in where most apparently fear to tread, and I feel it too. I have remarried friends I love and respect, and I don’t want to offend or discourage them, or anyone for that matter. As for what scripture says about remarriage, I leave that to our spiritual leaders. I only want to share my experience to help parents better understand what it’s like for a child to go through Mom and Dad’s divorce and possible remarriage. Perhaps I can equip parents to better help their children through the ordeal by discussing some long-overdue but hard truths.
The first is this: inevitably, divorce is a crisis where adult desires have been placed above the needs of children. I say this not to beat up on already divorced people, but because it bears on the question of remarriage. I do understand that sometimes divorce is unavoidable. There may be serious sin that breaks the marriage covenant. Divorce may be imposed by one spouse on the other. But when divorce happens, at least one of the parents has placed their own desires over the good of their children.
Not surprisingly, the world is right there to support that path. How often have we been told by marriage counselors, magazine article "experts" or our own friends, that "children are resilient?" That if the parents are happy, children will be happy too? Three decades of promoting this nonsense has resulted in the destructions of millions of families: it destroyed mine.
Much research has shown the damage that divorce does to children, and catalogued the lifelong issues they struggle with as they try to recover from the breakup of their family. Yet popular culture has not caught up with these realities, and no doubt does not want to. Saddest of all, those in the church divorce at the same rate as those outside of it. We Christians have apparently absorbed worldly lies in place of God’s truth, and our children have paid the price.
The central defining event of my life was my parents’ divorce when I was nine, the same age as my daughter is now. In her face, I see something of my own: I see unquestioning trust in her parents to protect and care for her. It amazes me. How could anyone believe that divorce would not traumatize children, or if it did, that they would soon bounce back?
To have your world shattered and your heart torn in two at such a tender age teaches many lessons about love, trust, forgiveness, marriage and family, all of them negative. Children of divorce will need to spend a lifetime unlearning them as their implications unfold in the different seasons of life, but especially when making their own decisions about marriage and family. For those wrestling with the emotional fallout of their parents’ divorce, or divorced parents who want to better understand their children’s world, I recommend Generation Ex by Jen Abbas. She writes,
As I entered adulthood anticipating my hard-earned independence, I was stunned to discover that my parents’ divorces seemed to affect me more each year, not less. Even though I was successful academically and professionally, I found myself becoming more insecure each year about my emotional abilities....when it came to love, I was paralyzed because what I wanted so desperately was that which I feared the most.
As she describes her own experience with her parents’ multiple divorces and interviews many others, she shows that the past does not have to dictate the future, because "instead of choosing to focus on what we have missed, we have the incredible opportunity to embrace what we, as Christians, have gained." There is no hurt that God cannot heal, and her book helps point the way.
Let’s say, for whatever reason, a family has been broken apart by divorce. Now what? It’s very understandable that parents would look forward to remarriage. To be loved again after such painful rejection, to enjoy companionship instead of loneliness, to have help raising your children. But how do children feel about it? Listen to Charles, the protaganist in Barbara Park’s novel My Mother Got Married and Other Disasters, who describes it this way: "Stepfamily" means "stepping aside so that a man who’s not your father can hold your mother’s hand."
That’s exactly how I felt when my mother remarried a year after our parent’s divorce. My mom thought it would be good for us children to have a male role model, to grow up seeing how a marriage works. But I was still reeling from the breakup of my family and the relegation of my father to twice monthly visits. Now I lost my mom too. Suddenly her attention was focused on making this new marriage work. My two younger sisters and I had been replaced in her affections and priorities. We were now on the outside looking in. We each bore our grief and confusion alone, not understanding why we felt abandoned when our mom was still with us. It wasn’t until we were adults and began to compare notes that we discovered we each felt the same way.
We gamely tried to embrace what we were told: we were lucky. We would have a new dad! But we didn’t want a new dad. We already had one, and we missed him terribly. Now suddenly there was this new person in my house, someone to whom I had no particular connection and did not want one, someone who immediately assumed the full rights and authority of a father. It was a triple whammy. First I had lost my dad, now my mom and even my sense of home. My home had become his castle. There was a new sheriff in town.
My mother did not at all understand my unhappiness. It angered her that I clung to my dad who didn’t deserve my loyalty (since he left us) and had no gratitude toward the knight who had come to our rescue. The fact that our stepdad was willing to take on a wife with three young children made him a hero in her eyes (our dad was, of course, the villain). I could intellectually understand her point, but I still loved my dad. I soon learned it was dangerous to tell her how I really felt. Every time I tried, I was chastised severely. Eventually I decided I would never again tell her what was really going on with me. And I never did. You can imagine what that meant for my teen years. She would plead with me to talk to her, but I wouldn’t. I knew she didn’t want to hear what was in my heart. Besides, by that time I had learned to be angry too.
My mom and stepfather were well meaning people. They wanted a happy and healthy family. But they had no clue how their marriage affected us children. I now believe that behind the fierceness of my mom’s anger toward me was really fear, fear that my unhappiness would break up this new marriage. I understood clearly that my stepdad was her first priority, and that made me feel unloved, that she chose him over us. There is a truth to this. She did choose to focus her attention on him first, rationalizing that it was ultimately for our good too.
And that leads me to the reason why stepfamilies are so very difficult, the secret that no one seems to want to bring to the light: remarriage with children sets up conflicting needs that are impossible to avoid or fully resolve. There is no way around this.
When my mom put my stepdad first, she was doing the right thing. For an intact family. Healthy families are marriage centered, not child centered. The marriage came before the children arrived and will continue after they have grown and left home. When children understand their birth is a result of their parents’ love, they draw security from the priority of their parents’ commitment to one another.
But a stepfamily is totally different. Since the children were there first and the stepparent came later, they cannot help but feel they have been replaced.When my stepdad became first, we became last. Despite romantic hopes that we would be one happy family, reality was quite different. As Kevin Leman likes to say, stepfamilies don’t blend, they collide.
In a stepfamily, if attention and priority is given to the marriage, the children feel abandoned and unloved. If the children get priority, the marriage suffers. And that’s on top of all the difficulties created by the ongoing effects of the divorce itself. If both spouses bring minor children into the marriage, the challenges will be vastly more complicated.
What if remarried parents go on to have more children with the new spouse? More hurt for the first children, that’s what. Especially if it’s the noncustodial parent (usually dad) who has more children. The new baby gets to live with him, while the children from the first marriage just visit. How can they feel anything but replaced? It happened to Jen Abbas, who writes, "I doubted that my parents really wanted me to be part of their new families because I felt like the leftover reminder of the failure of their old one."
A recent issue of Focus on the Family’s Tween magazine (Feb/Mar 2007) illustrates the blind spot I’m attempting to address. In "Ask the Expert" a mother expresses confusion that her daughter was fond of her stepfather before they were married, but now sees him as competition for her mother’s affections and hurts him by "showing more interest in her biological father" and telling him "you’re not my real dad." Dr. Bill Maier offers some helpful practical advice, but no insight into how painful this situation is for her child. He says, "These issues are common in blended families." I suppose that is intended to reassure this mom. But isn’t the fact that these problems are so common a clue that maybe children are not so much the problem as the situation in which they have been placed?
This mom entered into remarriage with no idea of how it would impact her child, and after reading his answer she will still have no idea. He tells her to stop "treating your daughter more like a peer than a child" and "back your husband when your daughter acts up." While these things must be done, I guarantee that child will feel ganged up on and resent it. That is the challenge this mom faces. She needs to know that her daughter’s heart has been broken all over again. Her daughter may have liked the stepfather before he married her mother, but she’s a child. How could she know how differently she would feel once he moved in? If her mother keeps the focus on what her daughter is doing wrong, without acknowledging to her that she understands the pain she feels, she will confirm her daughter’s fear that she is now on her own, that nobody understands or even cares about how badly she hurts. This couple may be able to enforce outward conformity to the "new family arrangement" for awhile, but an explosion is coming. My heart breaks for that child, because no one does understand her. Dr. Maier, wise problem solver that he is, has focused on the outward symptoms and missed the heart of the issue.
This leads me to the second hard truth: isn’t remarriage really a continuation of the idea that children do best if adult happiness is put first? Could it be that just as that we divorce too easily, we also remarry too quickly, and in both cases, our children suffer?
Once children are born, we adults have a responsibility to place their needs above our happiness. Children with divorced parents if anything need more of them than they did before the divorce. Remarriage at the very least dilutes the parent’s time and attention which now goes also, and possibly primarily, to the new spouse. From the child’s perspective, this is a painful loss, not a gain.
Now I know that God has individual plans for people, so I am speaking about general principles, not specific situations which may be exceptional. Certainly nothing is impossible with God. And ours was not a Christian family, so we did not have access to God’s grace to help us. I can imagine that remarriage could even be good for children when there is little or no relationship with the biological father. In that case remarriage would not set up the same divided loyalties of having "two dads," and a loving stepfather could help fill the need every child has for a father. I would expect some bumps though, based on the natural feeling that the child will likely have that their mom has chosen their stepdad over them.
For those who have already remarried, my goal is to explain, not to criticize. I hope this may help you understand how your children most likely feel, whether or not they say so. I hope that you will make it safe for them to share their hearts, even if it’s upsetting. If you are the stepparent I hope you will make every effort to connect with your stepchildren, and don’t take rejection personally. If you are the biological parent, I hope you will continually reassure your children that your love and loyalty to them is unchanged.
My mom and stepfather stayed married through all the turbulence of our teen years and beyond. They had a happy marriage spanning three decades, until my mom passed away a few years ago. My two sisters and I all enjoy long term marriages. We each married men from intact families, which I strongly recommend for children of divorce. Even though our stepfamily never really blended, we all acknowledge that despite our parents’ mistakes, they also did many things right. But it was a very rough road.
Not long ago I asked a teenage girl I know how she felt about her mom’s recent remarriage. She said, "I’m really glad my mom is happy again." That’s very telling. I asked about her feelings, and she responded with her mom’s. She’s making the best of it. And I do believe her when she says she is glad to see her mom happy. I too was glad my mom found happiness with my stepfather. I just missed her so much.
Remarriage when children are grown is much easier for children. My dad did not remarry until we were adults, and our relationship with our stepmom has been wonderful. She has never had to fill the role of a parent, never had to bear our resentment for taking our dad away from us, but has instead become our friend.
So I support the decision of that divorced mom not to remarry while she is raising her child. I wish more divorced parents would consider doing the same. In a flash our children will be grown. While they are with us, we need to make the most of our fleeting time with them. How we do that will be different in an intact family than when divorce has occurred. Much as divorced parents might long to start over with someone new and create the family they always hoped for, children will most likely experience that as a loss and not a gain.
If divorced parents do choose to remain single, yes, their children will miss seeing what a marriage looks like from the inside. But a second marriage and a stepfamily is quite different than a first marriage and intact family. And the even higher divorce rate of second marriages (due to the emotional minefield created by stepfamilies) makes remarriage a very high risk indeed. A second divorce would reinforce the negative lessons taught by the first and make it that much harder for children to heal and to imagine that they might ever enjoy a permanent marriage themselves.
The decisions my parents made, first my dad’s to divorce my mom and then my mom’s to remarry while we were young, hurt me and my sisters. How much better would it have been if we had not had to spend so much time and energy and emotion working through the fallout from their choices. Still I can say with the psalmist, "It was good for me to be afflicted, so that I might learn your decrees." (Ps. 119:71). The adversity in my life brought me to God.
That’s the perfect theme with which to end: God’s grace. Lest I discourage the remarried, I remember that as Christians we know that even after trusting Christ we remain fallen creatures, so our mistakes and failures ought not to surprise or overwhelm us. Wherever we are, whatever we have done or not done, we can rejoice in hope, because through Christ we have God’s forgiveness and access to his love and wisdom for every need. So with confidence in God’s love and favor toward us, we can face the truth - even hard truth - wherever it leads.
Written By: Lynn Barton
Sunday, August 29, 2010
A Reader Asks...Should I Stay in College?
Hi Jen,
I am wondering if I can get your take on a simple yet very important question I have. I am a college student in the wake of my parents divorce and I am having great difficulty forgiving them and avoiding resentment and anger towards my mother especially. Do you think it would be wise for me to take a year off from university to work on all of this and work to have a relationship with my parents again? Or, should I stick it out and finish my degree (I only have one year left)? What is better and what has worked better for previous adult children of divorce?
I want to do the right thing and I am looking for your expert opinion. Thank you very much.
I am wondering if I can get your take on a simple yet very important question I have. I am a college student in the wake of my parents divorce and I am having great difficulty forgiving them and avoiding resentment and anger towards my mother especially. Do you think it would be wise for me to take a year off from university to work on all of this and work to have a relationship with my parents again? Or, should I stick it out and finish my degree (I only have one year left)? What is better and what has worked better for previous adult children of divorce?
I want to do the right thing and I am looking for your expert opinion. Thank you very much.
- Jeremy
***
Hi Jeremy,
Thanks for writing. First of all, I'm so sorry you are going through this. Divorce is hard at any age. My mom and stepdad divorced at the end of my senior year of high school (after 12 years) and it was very difficult when leaving home meant the end of home.
I can understand your reasons for wanting to stop everything and focus on repairing your relationship with your parents--it's a good thing to be on good terms with your mom and dad! But, my advice would be to keep working on your degree. Something I have used throughout my life to help me with decisions like this is to ask myself, "If my parents were together, what would I do in this situation?" In other words, if your parents were still together, the right and appropriate thing for you to be doing at this point in your life is pursuing your degree and starting on your career. Divorce tends to disrupt our normal, healthy patterns of maturity. We have to overcome our tendency toward reverting backwards.
It is right for you to want to repair your relationship with your parents, but keep in mind that it is normal and natural (and necessary) at this point in your life to also create some independence. Mind you, I'm not talking about the total separation that often occurs when parents divorce at this age, but more, becoming comfortable and confident in who you are as an individual, and learning to relate to your parents as the adult you have become. It's possible that the physical distance that's part of being on your own, at school, will give you the emotional distance to start the hard work of forgiving and reconciling with your parents.
As you move ahead, here are a few thoughts on forgiveness to consider. (from Chapter 2 of Generation Ex)
Jen
Thanks for writing. First of all, I'm so sorry you are going through this. Divorce is hard at any age. My mom and stepdad divorced at the end of my senior year of high school (after 12 years) and it was very difficult when leaving home meant the end of home.
I can understand your reasons for wanting to stop everything and focus on repairing your relationship with your parents--it's a good thing to be on good terms with your mom and dad! But, my advice would be to keep working on your degree. Something I have used throughout my life to help me with decisions like this is to ask myself, "If my parents were together, what would I do in this situation?" In other words, if your parents were still together, the right and appropriate thing for you to be doing at this point in your life is pursuing your degree and starting on your career. Divorce tends to disrupt our normal, healthy patterns of maturity. We have to overcome our tendency toward reverting backwards.
It is right for you to want to repair your relationship with your parents, but keep in mind that it is normal and natural (and necessary) at this point in your life to also create some independence. Mind you, I'm not talking about the total separation that often occurs when parents divorce at this age, but more, becoming comfortable and confident in who you are as an individual, and learning to relate to your parents as the adult you have become. It's possible that the physical distance that's part of being on your own, at school, will give you the emotional distance to start the hard work of forgiving and reconciling with your parents.
As you move ahead, here are a few thoughts on forgiveness to consider. (from Chapter 2 of Generation Ex)
- Forgiveness is a choice. We can’t choose our past, but we can choose how to respond to past events. Forgiveness is the way we choose to move on.
- Forgiveness is between you and God, not you and the offender. Some make the offender’s request for forgiveness a condition to their granting it. Because sin by its very nature is an offense against God, He is the One who is responsible for exacting the consequences of that sin. When we forgive, we pass our hurt to Him.
- Forgiveness is a response, not an approval. You may be thinking, “How can I let go? When we condone something, we are saying it is okay. When we forgive, we choose not to hold a grudge. We extend forgiveness in response to our grasp of grace in our own lives.
- Forgiveness doesn’t mean the offense never happened. The offender will still have consequences, either here or hereafter, but that is between the offender and God.
- Forgiveness reveals the character of one’s heart. As believers, we are the recipients of God’s undeserved favor and love. As we grow in our faith, we grow in our ability to submit our will to God’s and our character better mirrors His.
- Forgiveness is unconditional. You cannot accept God’s grace and not share it with others. Once you forgive, you cannot take it back.
- Forgiveness doesn’t define the other by their offense. You forfeit the right to associate the offense with the offender. You are not the same person you were a year ago. You have made errors in moments of passion. You have learned from your mistakes. If you want to grow, you must allow others the same freedom.
- Forgiveness isn’t fair. Forgiveness is about grace, not justice.
- Forgiveness is a partnership with God in grace. We might think we need to be able to forgive fully before we can extend grace, but we need only to be willing to let go. God will do the rest. It will take time for our feelings to follow, but we can remind ourselves that feelings are not fact. In faith, make the decision to forgive with the acknowledgment that it is the first, most difficult step.
- Forgiveness is a way of life. We will continue to be hurt and to hurt others for the rest of our lives. When we embrace grace, we better bear the image of the Christ we claim.
Jen
Monday, April 20, 2009
Generation Ex is Five Years Old
My book, Generation Ex: Adult Children of Divorce and the Healing of Our Pain, released five years ago today. It's hard to believe that so much time has passed already, but when I think of all that has happened in that time, I'm amazed it's been that long!I wrote Generation Ex as a single career woman, living in Grand Rapids, Michigan in a townhouse with my dog. At the time, I wondered if I'd ever marry and if I did, if I would ever achieve the marriage of my dreams.
I'm writing this blog post as a married, stay-at-home mom, living in Canton, Ohio in a house with my husband, my son, and my dog. The man I married amazes me every day and I have no doubt that I have the marriage of my dreams.
Five years ago, when my book released, I was just a few short months removed from sustaining the head injury that killed my ability to write (among many other things). Most of that year is lost in the fog of forgetfulness. I spent more time in rehab than I did promoting my book, and so it wasn't a huge surprise that GE went out of print a year later, and that I was unable to fulfill my contract for a follow-up with another publisher. Fortunately, one of the interviews I did do was with Family Life. And conversations there led to another contract, a reprint of the book without the updates and revisions I had hoped for, but was physically unable to do.
It's been a good arrangement, and I think Family Life will keep my book in print for a long time. My book was never intended to be an instant best-seller, and other than occasional spikes on the Amazon rankings, I doubt it ever will be. What it has been, however, is a quiet word-of-mouth, pass-it-around life changer. And really, how can I complain about that? I've been humbled to receive emails almost every week from readers who tell me that the book has helped them find healing and restoration in their relationships. I know of about ten books that have quoted Generation Ex. I know of pastors who refer to it when they teach on divorce and remarriage. I know of a couple of marriages that have been saved in part because of it. I know of sorority groups that have gone through the book together. I know of counselors who recommend the book to both parent and adult child. I'm humbled and proud to have written a book that is making a lasting difference in people's lives.
It's been a good arrangement, and I think Family Life will keep my book in print for a long time. My book was never intended to be an instant best-seller, and other than occasional spikes on the Amazon rankings, I doubt it ever will be. What it has been, however, is a quiet word-of-mouth, pass-it-around life changer. And really, how can I complain about that? I've been humbled to receive emails almost every week from readers who tell me that the book has helped them find healing and restoration in their relationships. I know of about ten books that have quoted Generation Ex. I know of pastors who refer to it when they teach on divorce and remarriage. I know of a couple of marriages that have been saved in part because of it. I know of sorority groups that have gone through the book together. I know of counselors who recommend the book to both parent and adult child. I'm humbled and proud to have written a book that is making a lasting difference in people's lives. I still struggle with the loss of my ability to write. I still have the excel spreadsheet I had posted in my office in my townhome. I had one hundred book ideas, including eight series that I still believe would be marketable and successful today, and more so than GE because of their broader audience. Just reviewing the titles now stirrs my heart again with that old writing muse, and I'm encouraged by the occasional flashes of my "old head," but alas, my broken brain doesn't remember how to get started. There is a children's series on my list, and I hopethat maybe I can start there someday. I have a book I want to write for Daniel, about being a Dutch-American. Maybe I can start there. What I would give to be able to start again...
Wednesday, March 04, 2009
How About the Heart
Okay, I admit it. I watch The Bachelor. In fact, I've even dragged my husband into it. For the past few weeks, we talked about how much we liked this season because the women (especially the ones at the end) were likable and gracious. And of course, whenever there's someone from my old stomping grounds of Grand Rapids, we like to cheer the hometown girl.
Coincidentally, this season's finale lined up with the marriage series at our church. A certain phrase has come up in most places that got me thinking.
Follow Your Heart
This is one of the worst pieces of romantic advice out there. At least, for any one who wants a lasting relationship. Following your heart, as convincingly portrayed by our Bachelor Jason, can often be used as a "get out of jail free" card to give up on a relationship when it becomes difficult, challenging, boring, fill-in-the-blank. The Bible warns us to guard your heart because it influences everything you do (Proverbs 4:23). Not to be preachy, but that's just good advice.
I'm a new parent, so my husband and I often have conversations about our parenting goals and style. One nugget of wisdom that guides my interactions with my son is this: "Whatever you choose to do, ask yourself if you want to keep doing it for the next five years?" The idea is this, my son is watching, and whatever I do, he will do, so I need to make sure that what I'm teaching him is what I want to teach him.
It's the same with our hearts. If we follow our heart, we're going to be led astray. Instead, we need to lead our heart. We are human beings, not animals. We have impulses, true, but we also have choice and conscience.
Back to the parenting thing. How do I teach my son to be nice to others when he doesn't feel like it? Do I tell him to follow his heart? If I do, then his heart is going to tell him to do what he wants, even if it means hurting others. Instead, we teach our children to do the right thing, we applaud them when they do and we discipline them when they don't. That's how they learn to do right, and that's how we learn to lead our heart.
Thursday, January 01, 2009
Monday, October 27, 2008
Divorce Movies in the Works
A.C.O.D. (Adult Children of Divorce)
This is the title of a comedy that Miramax just picked up from Daily Show head writer Ben Karlin (more success for Daily Show peeps!) and Six Degrees co-creator Stu Zicherman's. The story follows a man who "discovers he was unknowingly part of a study on divorced children. He's enlisted in a follow-up years later that wreaks new havoc on his family."
Using humor with a painful topic.
As The Hollywood Reporter points out, "Divorce is a traumatic experience for millions of families, and Miramax hopes to heal their pain through the gift of very twisted laughter." The screenwriters themselves joked about their script, "We're very glad to get the validation from Miramax, especially since we've been working on the script longer than any of our parents were married."
More and more stories like this?
Four Christmases brings to light the unique chaos that is the holiday season for some adult children of divorce, in a funny, lighthearted way. And in the recently released Rachel Getting Married, the adult children at the heart of the film (Rachel and Kym) confront some of the painful effects of their parents' marriage (a strained and distant relationship with their mother, a father who tries to fix everything all the time) as they work through other issues. The divorce rate has increased tremendously over the years, and it makes sense that we might see more movies addressing this experience as more and more children of divorce become adults.
Monday, October 13, 2008
Article
It's been quite a while since I've posted. There's been quite a few complications with this pregnancy that have taken up my time and attention lately. For personal updates, check our our family blog.
Sunday, May 18, 2008
KTIS interview
Morning sickness has hit full steam in the de Jong household so I've been laying low lately. However, on Monday, May 12, I was a guest on Kim Ketola's "Along the Way" program on KTIS.
Click here to listen to the program. If you listen carefully, you can hear me trying not to be sick on the air!
Click here to listen to the program. If you listen carefully, you can hear me trying not to be sick on the air!
Thursday, May 01, 2008
A new project
They say that writing a book is like giving birth. So, since I wrote a book, we decided it's time to work on a new project. Baby DJ is expected to arrive December 16!Monday, February 11, 2008
CODs on TV: Psych
Thank to the wonder that is Google Alerts, I came across this insightful post today. She does a great job outlining some of the common challenges of being an adult child of divorce, especially when our parents are dating.
Monday, February 04, 2008
Bad News for Baby Boomers
Children of divorce face deaths of multiple parents
Responsibility for aged stepparent undefined
By Elizabeth Marquardt
The Washington Post
February 02. 2008 12:15AM
I had dinner with a friend whose mother had recently remarried, to a man who had never had children. Though happy for her mother, my friend was also bothered: If her mother were to die before the new husband, she wondered, would she herself be expected to care for this man she barely knew?
She isn't alone in her uncertainty. Because of profound changes in how Americans organize and sustain - and often break up - our families, our nation will soon confront a never-before-seen shift in how we die and whom we'll have around us when we do. And the likelihood is that we will be dying much more alone.
Reduced birth rates, widespread divorce, single-parent childbearing, remarriage and what we might call "re-divorce" are poised to usher in an era of uncertain obligation and complicated grief for the many adults confronting the aging and dying of their divorced parents, stepparents and ex-stepparents. And compared with the generations before them, these dying parents and parent figures will be far less likely to find comfort and help in the nearby presence of grown daughters and sons.
A news story last September reported the results of a study revealing that divorce predicts a significantly lower level of involvement among adult children in caring for their aging parents. The study's lead author, developmental psychologist Adam Davey of Temple University, contended that it wasn't the divorce itself that led to this estrangement but rather "what happens afterwards, such as geographical separation."
But in a study of grown children of divorce that I conducted with sociology professor Norval Glenn at the University of Texas at Austin, we found that the divorce itself has a lot to do with how parents and children get along. The adult children in our study were far less likely to report that they had gone to either or both parents for comfort when they were younger. When they grew up, they were more likely to have strained relationships with their fathers and mothers. Most of the 18- to 35-year-olds in our study still had relatively young parents, but some had already confronted the illness and death of one or the other of their divorced parents. They struggled especially with whether and how to care for estranged fathers who were ill and often living alone, men who had done little for them but who now badly needed help from, well, someone.
It's hard when a divorced parent you weren't close to dies. But it's even harder when the sole parent you were extremely close to passes away. In the course of the study, I met two young adults whose mothers, who had raised them alone after divorcing, had recently died. They were consumed with anger - at God, at their fathers, at fate. They were full of questions: Why did my "good parent" have to die while my "bad parent" lives on? Am I an orphan now, even though my father is still alive?
It became clear to me that in a divorced family, the parent who has recently died may have symbolically "died" a long time ago for the surviving parent, while for their child, both parents have been very much alive. When parents are married, there is the possibility of shared grief. A father loses a wife at the same time that a grown child loses a mother. Shared grief offers comfort and can draw remaining members of the family into a new kind of closeness. By contrast, adults from divorced families grieve the death of a parent alone. Even if the surviving parent is kind and loving, that grief cannot be shared in the way it could be if he or she had still been married to the deceased.
When a divorced parent dies while the child is young, the pain of divorce-plus-death is compounded further. After the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, a significant number of children of divorced or single parents lost the person who was essentially their only parent, while others lost a parent they had already lost once to divorce. A New York Times article reported the story of Hector Tirado, a New York firefighter with five children ages 6 to 11. Tirado had separated from his wife three years earlier, so for his children, their uncle said, his death was like "losing their father twice."
The situation with stepparents is even more complex. In his study, Temple University's Davey found that aging stepparents were only half as likely as biological parents to receive care from grown children. "Society does not yet have a clear set of expectations for stepchildren's responsibility," he observed.
Some stepchildren and stepparents become deeply attached, some are virtually strangers, many fall somewhere in between. Even when they are close, the deep ambiguity of the relationship can make losing a stepparent to death or divorce a profoundly lonely experience for the child.
A friend told me about a colleague who recently nursed her beloved stepmother, a woman she had grown up with, during a long illness. Even as she mourned her stepmother's death, the woman was hurt by the lack of support she had received from many friends and co-workers, who'd wondered why she would go out of her way to provide such care to someone who was "only" a stepmother.
Her story was all too familiar to me. When I was 13, my beloved stepfather took his own life. From the time I was 3 until they separated when I was 9, he had been my in-the-home father. My immense grief was made all the more lonely and isolating because almost no one around me recognized that I'd lost anyone of importance.
As the generation that ushered in widespread divorce ages, an epidemic of such lonely grief may well sweep in behind it. Much of the literature on death and dying assumes an intact family experience.
Some scholars are beginning to investigate aging and dying in families already visited by divorce. But most scholars and the public still give scant attention to the loss of other parent figures or to the deeply complicating, long-lasting effects of family fragmentation.
Nearly 40 percent of today's adults have experienced their parents' divorce. Increasing numbers of younger adults were born to parents who never married each other at all. I am certain, because I'm one of those living it, that the painful contours of the new American way of death will be discovered and defined by my own generation for years to come.
Elizabeth Marquardt, a vice president of the Institute for American Values, a nonprofit pro-family organization, is author of Between Two Worlds: The Inner Lives of Children
of Divorce.
Responsibility for aged stepparent undefined
By Elizabeth Marquardt
The Washington Post
February 02. 2008 12:15AM
I had dinner with a friend whose mother had recently remarried, to a man who had never had children. Though happy for her mother, my friend was also bothered: If her mother were to die before the new husband, she wondered, would she herself be expected to care for this man she barely knew?
She isn't alone in her uncertainty. Because of profound changes in how Americans organize and sustain - and often break up - our families, our nation will soon confront a never-before-seen shift in how we die and whom we'll have around us when we do. And the likelihood is that we will be dying much more alone.
Reduced birth rates, widespread divorce, single-parent childbearing, remarriage and what we might call "re-divorce" are poised to usher in an era of uncertain obligation and complicated grief for the many adults confronting the aging and dying of their divorced parents, stepparents and ex-stepparents. And compared with the generations before them, these dying parents and parent figures will be far less likely to find comfort and help in the nearby presence of grown daughters and sons.
A news story last September reported the results of a study revealing that divorce predicts a significantly lower level of involvement among adult children in caring for their aging parents. The study's lead author, developmental psychologist Adam Davey of Temple University, contended that it wasn't the divorce itself that led to this estrangement but rather "what happens afterwards, such as geographical separation."
But in a study of grown children of divorce that I conducted with sociology professor Norval Glenn at the University of Texas at Austin, we found that the divorce itself has a lot to do with how parents and children get along. The adult children in our study were far less likely to report that they had gone to either or both parents for comfort when they were younger. When they grew up, they were more likely to have strained relationships with their fathers and mothers. Most of the 18- to 35-year-olds in our study still had relatively young parents, but some had already confronted the illness and death of one or the other of their divorced parents. They struggled especially with whether and how to care for estranged fathers who were ill and often living alone, men who had done little for them but who now badly needed help from, well, someone.
It's hard when a divorced parent you weren't close to dies. But it's even harder when the sole parent you were extremely close to passes away. In the course of the study, I met two young adults whose mothers, who had raised them alone after divorcing, had recently died. They were consumed with anger - at God, at their fathers, at fate. They were full of questions: Why did my "good parent" have to die while my "bad parent" lives on? Am I an orphan now, even though my father is still alive?
It became clear to me that in a divorced family, the parent who has recently died may have symbolically "died" a long time ago for the surviving parent, while for their child, both parents have been very much alive. When parents are married, there is the possibility of shared grief. A father loses a wife at the same time that a grown child loses a mother. Shared grief offers comfort and can draw remaining members of the family into a new kind of closeness. By contrast, adults from divorced families grieve the death of a parent alone. Even if the surviving parent is kind and loving, that grief cannot be shared in the way it could be if he or she had still been married to the deceased.
When a divorced parent dies while the child is young, the pain of divorce-plus-death is compounded further. After the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, a significant number of children of divorced or single parents lost the person who was essentially their only parent, while others lost a parent they had already lost once to divorce. A New York Times article reported the story of Hector Tirado, a New York firefighter with five children ages 6 to 11. Tirado had separated from his wife three years earlier, so for his children, their uncle said, his death was like "losing their father twice."
The situation with stepparents is even more complex. In his study, Temple University's Davey found that aging stepparents were only half as likely as biological parents to receive care from grown children. "Society does not yet have a clear set of expectations for stepchildren's responsibility," he observed.
Some stepchildren and stepparents become deeply attached, some are virtually strangers, many fall somewhere in between. Even when they are close, the deep ambiguity of the relationship can make losing a stepparent to death or divorce a profoundly lonely experience for the child.
A friend told me about a colleague who recently nursed her beloved stepmother, a woman she had grown up with, during a long illness. Even as she mourned her stepmother's death, the woman was hurt by the lack of support she had received from many friends and co-workers, who'd wondered why she would go out of her way to provide such care to someone who was "only" a stepmother.
Her story was all too familiar to me. When I was 13, my beloved stepfather took his own life. From the time I was 3 until they separated when I was 9, he had been my in-the-home father. My immense grief was made all the more lonely and isolating because almost no one around me recognized that I'd lost anyone of importance.
As the generation that ushered in widespread divorce ages, an epidemic of such lonely grief may well sweep in behind it. Much of the literature on death and dying assumes an intact family experience.
Some scholars are beginning to investigate aging and dying in families already visited by divorce. But most scholars and the public still give scant attention to the loss of other parent figures or to the deeply complicating, long-lasting effects of family fragmentation.
Nearly 40 percent of today's adults have experienced their parents' divorce. Increasing numbers of younger adults were born to parents who never married each other at all. I am certain, because I'm one of those living it, that the painful contours of the new American way of death will be discovered and defined by my own generation for years to come.
Elizabeth Marquardt, a vice president of the Institute for American Values, a nonprofit pro-family organization, is author of Between Two Worlds: The Inner Lives of Children
of Divorce.
Tuesday, December 25, 2007
Two Babies
For the last several months, Niels and I have had two things on our mind: getting pregnant and celebrating Christmas with Dutch Dad and Mom. Two babies. Our baby and the Christ child.
Niels and I know that good things come to those who wait. In fact, Niels' wedding band is engraved with the words, "worth the wait." Almost five months into our marriage, I am certain that Niels was worth every minute of the 35 years, six months, and 14 days I waited to marry him.
Because of our age, we talked about our desire to start our family sooner rather than later. We were thrilled to discover we were pregnant in early October, just 11 weeks after we were married. Our joy was short lived, when we miscarried at 5 1/2 weeks. Niels has been such rock to me in our grief, allowing me my sad days and helping me remember all our blessings. One thing he said that has really helped my mindset is the reminder that God has blessed us with so much this year--travel, finding each other, the financial means to pay for a wedding and two homes all year. He had to save something for next year.
As November turned to December, Niels reminded me of this again. We thought if we were pregnant in December, we would tell his parents by putting notes in their stockings. When my period came, I was disappointed for the missed opportunity. They live 6,000 miles away and we won't see them until next Christmas. This would be their only time to see me pregnant with their first grandchild, even if I wasn't showing yet. I was feeling tired and sick all week and felt bad for not being where I wanted to be with all the holiday planning. I wanted everything to be perfect for our first Christmas together.
Friday morning when I woke up, I was bleeding. We called my OB and they said to go to the ER. It was a busy day, so we ended up being there from 11:30 to almost 9. They were a little worried about my blood pressure, which was 104/45. They took some blood and came back to tell us we were pregnant. We were shocked, excited and nervous. We're 5 1/2 weeks, exactly where we were when we miscarried on October 15.
They discharged me with a diagnosis of either a threatened miscarriage or early ectopic pregnancy. I had orders of bedrest for two days when they would check my HCG levels again. For two days my mind raced with the hope of a Christmas baby after all, and fear that I would miscarry again. In the meantime, our radio played a constant stream of songs about another Christmas baby.
Sunday morning we headed to hospital for my blood test. We waited at the lab for the results. We prayed for a big number. The level should be doubling daily at this point in a healthy pregnancy. But, much to our dismay, the number went down and we were told the baby was not viable. We're devastated, again, but we are together, and because it is not ectopic, I am safe.
Niels parents had their own troubles. Weather and customs delays caused them to miss the last leg of their flight, so instead of arriving on the 23rd, they arrived on Christmas Eve. Unfortunately, their luggage has yet to arrive. But they are here and they are safe.
Last night we went to the Christmas Eve service. I was doing pretty well. The pain was tolerable for the moment, and I was able to focus on the service. But when we started singing songs about The Baby, I began to weep for our baby. Niels' mom leaned over, her own cheeks wet with tears, hugged me and said, "I'm so sorry." And after such loss, there really are no other words to say.
Losing two babies this year has changed my perspective of the Christmas story. I identify with Mary more than ever. And I understand the greatness of the Gift. I want so much to hold my babies. I want so much to nurture them in my womb. I want so much to hear their cries as they enter this world. I believe that all life is sacred, and so I celebrate the very short lives they lived.
God didn't give us the son we wanted for Christmas, but He gave us His Son. I wouldn't willingly give up my babies, but God gave up His Son, for the greater good, and the gift of That Baby is life that never ends.
Sleep in heavenly peace, little ones.
Niels and I know that good things come to those who wait. In fact, Niels' wedding band is engraved with the words, "worth the wait." Almost five months into our marriage, I am certain that Niels was worth every minute of the 35 years, six months, and 14 days I waited to marry him.
Because of our age, we talked about our desire to start our family sooner rather than later. We were thrilled to discover we were pregnant in early October, just 11 weeks after we were married. Our joy was short lived, when we miscarried at 5 1/2 weeks. Niels has been such rock to me in our grief, allowing me my sad days and helping me remember all our blessings. One thing he said that has really helped my mindset is the reminder that God has blessed us with so much this year--travel, finding each other, the financial means to pay for a wedding and two homes all year. He had to save something for next year.
As November turned to December, Niels reminded me of this again. We thought if we were pregnant in December, we would tell his parents by putting notes in their stockings. When my period came, I was disappointed for the missed opportunity. They live 6,000 miles away and we won't see them until next Christmas. This would be their only time to see me pregnant with their first grandchild, even if I wasn't showing yet. I was feeling tired and sick all week and felt bad for not being where I wanted to be with all the holiday planning. I wanted everything to be perfect for our first Christmas together.
Friday morning when I woke up, I was bleeding. We called my OB and they said to go to the ER. It was a busy day, so we ended up being there from 11:30 to almost 9. They were a little worried about my blood pressure, which was 104/45. They took some blood and came back to tell us we were pregnant. We were shocked, excited and nervous. We're 5 1/2 weeks, exactly where we were when we miscarried on October 15.
They discharged me with a diagnosis of either a threatened miscarriage or early ectopic pregnancy. I had orders of bedrest for two days when they would check my HCG levels again. For two days my mind raced with the hope of a Christmas baby after all, and fear that I would miscarry again. In the meantime, our radio played a constant stream of songs about another Christmas baby.
Sunday morning we headed to hospital for my blood test. We waited at the lab for the results. We prayed for a big number. The level should be doubling daily at this point in a healthy pregnancy. But, much to our dismay, the number went down and we were told the baby was not viable. We're devastated, again, but we are together, and because it is not ectopic, I am safe.
Niels parents had their own troubles. Weather and customs delays caused them to miss the last leg of their flight, so instead of arriving on the 23rd, they arrived on Christmas Eve. Unfortunately, their luggage has yet to arrive. But they are here and they are safe.
Last night we went to the Christmas Eve service. I was doing pretty well. The pain was tolerable for the moment, and I was able to focus on the service. But when we started singing songs about The Baby, I began to weep for our baby. Niels' mom leaned over, her own cheeks wet with tears, hugged me and said, "I'm so sorry." And after such loss, there really are no other words to say.
Losing two babies this year has changed my perspective of the Christmas story. I identify with Mary more than ever. And I understand the greatness of the Gift. I want so much to hold my babies. I want so much to nurture them in my womb. I want so much to hear their cries as they enter this world. I believe that all life is sacred, and so I celebrate the very short lives they lived.
God didn't give us the son we wanted for Christmas, but He gave us His Son. I wouldn't willingly give up my babies, but God gave up His Son, for the greater good, and the gift of That Baby is life that never ends.
Sleep in heavenly peace, little ones.
Tuesday, December 18, 2007
My First Dutch Poem!
In my ongoing effort to learn my dear husband's native tongue, tonight we translated the poem from the beginning of my book into Dutch. So for my new Dutch family, this is for you:
- de uitbarsting-
scheiding
is als een sterke aardbeving
de wereld schud
gevoed door woede
en alle boosheid
schuld
en frustraties
zo lang broedend
onder de oppervlakte
spuit dan plotseling omhoog
in een inferno van haat
of onverschilligheid...
soms
is de wereld kalm
en je denkt
dat het schudden voor bij is
rustig
stabiel
maar dan begint de cyclus opnieuw
opnieuw
opnieuw
opnieuw
je bent vermoeid
je wilt rusten
en dat is wanneer je realiseerd
dat het schudden gestopt is
maar
er is een angstaanjagend gevoel
hangend in de lucht
je aarzelt
om nooit meer iets te geloven
je bent zo moe
en na zolang worstelen
rust je daarom
op het laatste stukje stabiel land
om ook dat in tweeen verdeelt te zien worden
twee
aparte
verschillende
delen
die nooit meer
opnieuw samenkomen
elk nieuw deel
een gedeelte van jouw
en onder je ogen
drijven ze uiteen
- Jen Abbas,
achttien jaar
And for my English reading audience:
-the eruption-
divorce
is like a trembling earthquake
the world shakes
rumbling with rage
and all the anger
guilt
and frustrations
that have been festering for so long
below the surface
suddenly spew upward
in an inferno of hate
or apathy…
at times
the earth calms
and you think
the turmoil is over
settled
stable
but
then the cycle begins again
repeating
repeating
repeating
you are weary
you want to rest
and that is when you realize
the shaking has stopped
but
there is an eerie feeling
lurking in the air
you are hesitant to believe
anything
anymore
you are so tired
after struggling for so long
and so you rest
on the one last solid patch of land
only to watch it split in two
two
separate
distinct
parts
that will never
come together
again
each new patch
supports part of you
and as you watch
they pull away.
-Jen Abbas,
age eighteen
- de uitbarsting-
scheiding
is als een sterke aardbeving
de wereld schud
gevoed door woede
en alle boosheid
schuld
en frustraties
zo lang broedend
onder de oppervlakte
spuit dan plotseling omhoog
in een inferno van haat
of onverschilligheid...
soms
is de wereld kalm
en je denkt
dat het schudden voor bij is
rustig
stabiel
maar dan begint de cyclus opnieuw
opnieuw
opnieuw
opnieuw
je bent vermoeid
je wilt rusten
en dat is wanneer je realiseerd
dat het schudden gestopt is
maar
er is een angstaanjagend gevoel
hangend in de lucht
je aarzelt
om nooit meer iets te geloven
je bent zo moe
en na zolang worstelen
rust je daarom
op het laatste stukje stabiel land
om ook dat in tweeen verdeelt te zien worden
twee
aparte
verschillende
delen
die nooit meer
opnieuw samenkomen
elk nieuw deel
een gedeelte van jouw
en onder je ogen
drijven ze uiteen
- Jen Abbas,
achttien jaar
And for my English reading audience:
-the eruption-
divorce
is like a trembling earthquake
the world shakes
rumbling with rage
and all the anger
guilt
and frustrations
that have been festering for so long
below the surface
suddenly spew upward
in an inferno of hate
or apathy…
at times
the earth calms
and you think
the turmoil is over
settled
stable
but
then the cycle begins again
repeating
repeating
repeating
you are weary
you want to rest
and that is when you realize
the shaking has stopped
but
there is an eerie feeling
lurking in the air
you are hesitant to believe
anything
anymore
you are so tired
after struggling for so long
and so you rest
on the one last solid patch of land
only to watch it split in two
two
separate
distinct
parts
that will never
come together
again
each new patch
supports part of you
and as you watch
they pull away.
-Jen Abbas,
age eighteen
Monday, December 17, 2007
Soundtrack for Children of Divorce
If children of divorce had a soundtrack, these would be our songs.
updated 12/17/07
"25 Years" from the album Throws Like a Girl by Vroom
"Because of You" from the album Breakaway by Kelly Clarkson (VIDEO)
"Blurry" from the album Come Clean by Puddle of Mudd (VIDEO)
"Broken Home" from the album Geek Love by Fan_3
"Broken Home" from the album Infest by Papa Roach (VIDEO)
"Breathing" from the album, No Name Face by Lifehouse (VIDEO)
"Confessions Of A Broken Heart" from the album, A Little More Personal (Raw). by Lindsay Lohan (VIDEO)
"Dance Little Jean" from the album Twenty Years of Dirt by the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band
"Daughters" from the album Heavier Things by John Mayer (VIDEO)
"Dear Judge" from the album Last Sessions by Ernest Tubb (VIDEO)
"D-I-V-O-R-C-E" from the album Super Hits by Tammy Wynette (VIDEO)
"Don't Give Up" from the album Face of Love by Sanctus Real
"Don't Go" from the album It's Pronounced Five Two by KJ-52
"Eye to Eye" from the album Simple Things by Amy Grant (VIDEO)
"Faheem," from the album, The Undisputed Truth by Brother Ali
"Family Portrait" from the album Missunderztood by Pink (VIDEO)
"Father of Mine" from the album So Much for the Afterglow by Everclear (VIDEO)
"Have I Ever Told You" from the album Have I Ever Told You by FFH
"Hearts of the Innocent" from the album of the same name by Kutless
"He Didn't Have To Be" from the album Who Needs Pictures by Brad Paisley (VIDEO)
"I Don't Call Him Daddy" from the Greatest Hits vol. 3 album by Kenny Rogers
"I Love You This Much" from the self-titled album by Jimmy Wayne (VIDEO)
"I Wonder" from the album Small Town Girl by Kellie Pickler (VIDEO)
"Jamie" from the album Listen by Cindy Morgan
"Making Me" from the self-titled album by Downhere
"Mommy Don't Love Daddy Anymore" from the album of the same name by Resurrection Band
"Never Been Unloved" from the album Live the Life by Michael W. Smith
"Out of Breath" from the album Stanley Climbfall by Lifehouse (VIDEO)
"Precious" from the Precious single by Depeche Mode (VIDEO)
"Prodigal Dad" from the album Out of My Mind by GS Megaphone
"The Promise" from the album Listen by Cindy Morgan
"Reconcile" from the self-titled album from downhere
"Six-String Rocketeer" from the album Hero by Daily Planet
"So Blue" from the self-titled album by Downhere
"Still Waiting" from the self-titled album by Everman
"Stories" from the album Welcome to Diverse City by TobyMac
"Tell Me Why" from the album Empty by Tait
"The Living Years" from The Hits by Mike + the Mechanics (VIDEO)
"Tip of My Heart" from the album Big Blue Sky by Bebo Norman
"Too Bad" from the album Silver Side Up by Nickelback (VIDEO)
"What If I Stumble?" from the album Jesus Freak by dc talk (VIDEO)
"When Love Takes You In" from the album All About Love by Steven Curtis Chapman (VIDEO)
"Who Am I/Grace Flows Down" from the album All Things New by Watermark
"Why Don't Daddy Live Here Anymore" from the album "Queen of the Coast" by Bonnie Owens
"Wonderful" from the album Songs from an American Movie, vol. 1 by Everclear (VIDEO)
"You're My Little Girl" from the album Infectious by Go Fish
"We Gon A Make It" from the self-titled album from Peace of Mind
"Worth it All" from the album, Voice from Home by FFH
"You Better Sit Down Kids" from the album Story by Cher (VIDEO)
Let me know if you can think of others...
updated 12/17/07
"25 Years" from the album Throws Like a Girl by Vroom
"Because of You" from the album Breakaway by Kelly Clarkson (VIDEO)
"Blurry" from the album Come Clean by Puddle of Mudd (VIDEO)
"Broken Home" from the album Geek Love by Fan_3
"Broken Home" from the album Infest by Papa Roach (VIDEO)
"Breathing" from the album, No Name Face by Lifehouse (VIDEO)
"Confessions Of A Broken Heart" from the album, A Little More Personal (Raw). by Lindsay Lohan (VIDEO)
"Dance Little Jean" from the album Twenty Years of Dirt by the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band
"Daughters" from the album Heavier Things by John Mayer (VIDEO)
"Dear Judge" from the album Last Sessions by Ernest Tubb (VIDEO)
"D-I-V-O-R-C-E" from the album Super Hits by Tammy Wynette (VIDEO)
"Don't Give Up" from the album Face of Love by Sanctus Real
"Don't Go" from the album It's Pronounced Five Two by KJ-52
"Eye to Eye" from the album Simple Things by Amy Grant (VIDEO)
"Faheem," from the album, The Undisputed Truth by Brother Ali
"Family Portrait" from the album Missunderztood by Pink (VIDEO)
"Father of Mine" from the album So Much for the Afterglow by Everclear (VIDEO)
"Have I Ever Told You" from the album Have I Ever Told You by FFH
"Hearts of the Innocent" from the album of the same name by Kutless
"He Didn't Have To Be" from the album Who Needs Pictures by Brad Paisley (VIDEO)
"I Don't Call Him Daddy" from the Greatest Hits vol. 3 album by Kenny Rogers
"I Love You This Much" from the self-titled album by Jimmy Wayne (VIDEO)
"I Wonder" from the album Small Town Girl by Kellie Pickler (VIDEO)
"Jamie" from the album Listen by Cindy Morgan
"Making Me" from the self-titled album by Downhere
"Mommy Don't Love Daddy Anymore" from the album of the same name by Resurrection Band
"Never Been Unloved" from the album Live the Life by Michael W. Smith
"Out of Breath" from the album Stanley Climbfall by Lifehouse (VIDEO)
"Precious" from the Precious single by Depeche Mode (VIDEO)
"Prodigal Dad" from the album Out of My Mind by GS Megaphone
"The Promise" from the album Listen by Cindy Morgan
"Reconcile" from the self-titled album from downhere
"Six-String Rocketeer" from the album Hero by Daily Planet
"So Blue" from the self-titled album by Downhere
"Somewhere In Between" from the album Somewhere In Between by Lifehouse (VIDEO)
"Somewhere Past the Quiet" from the album The Fabric of Verse by Bebo Norman
"Stay Together for the Kids" from their Greatest Hits by Blink 182 (VIDEO)"Somewhere Past the Quiet" from the album The Fabric of Verse by Bebo Norman
"Still Waiting" from the self-titled album by Everman
"Stories" from the album Welcome to Diverse City by TobyMac
"Tell Me Why" from the album Empty by Tait
"The Living Years" from The Hits by Mike + the Mechanics (VIDEO)
"Tip of My Heart" from the album Big Blue Sky by Bebo Norman
"Too Bad" from the album Silver Side Up by Nickelback (VIDEO)
"What If I Stumble?" from the album Jesus Freak by dc talk (VIDEO)
"When Love Takes You In" from the album All About Love by Steven Curtis Chapman (VIDEO)
"Who Am I/Grace Flows Down" from the album All Things New by Watermark
"Why Don't Daddy Live Here Anymore" from the album "Queen of the Coast" by Bonnie Owens
"Wonderful" from the album Songs from an American Movie, vol. 1 by Everclear (VIDEO)
"You're My Little Girl" from the album Infectious by Go Fish
"We Gon A Make It" from the self-titled album from Peace of Mind
"Worth it All" from the album, Voice from Home by FFH
"You Better Sit Down Kids" from the album Story by Cher (VIDEO)
Let me know if you can think of others...
First Quote with my New Name
Thanks to my former publicist, I'm on the rolodex at Life & Style magazine. So I wasn't overly surprised when they called me once again to weigh in on the latest celebrity divorce crisis.This week's issue includes an article on Britney Spears' rumored hope for a reconcilation with her ex, Kevin Federline.
My quote is in a full page call out with the headline: Would Getting Back with Kevin Help Britney?, complete with pros and cons...
Many divorced couples reconcile and give marriage another shot. "But I don't think there are any magical answers for Britney," says Jen Abbas de Jong, author of Generation Ex, a book about divorce. "Her divorce from Kevin has been awful, it would take a lot of work if they ever got back together." Still, de Jong notes, the couple (here in LA in 2004) "loved each other, so they'd have something to build on."
new songs for the COD soundtrack: Brother Ali's "Faheem"
As part of the "Big Clean" to get ready for Dutch Dad and Mom's visit, I'm spending the day catching up on the stack of magazines we've neglected that last few months. An article on Brother Ali in Rolling Stone led me to a new addition to the child of divorce soundtrack.I can't recommend the overall album because the parental advisory sticker is well warranted; however, the lyrics to this song written for the albino Muslim's son are too poignant to pass up.
Faheem
I gave you that name, boy...
I will never stop feelin sorry that your home got broken
I feel that I owe you for the road that I chose
But I believe things happen the way they're supposed to
And you'll always be with me wherever that I go
I was right there for your first breath
I used to lay you on my chest when you slept
I fed you, changed you, read to you, bathed you,
I'm not trying to hold that over your head,
I'm saying thank you
God put you into my arms for me to teach you
Sometimes I gotta not be popular to reach you
But boy look me in my eye when I speak to you
I tell you these things because I believe in you
Respect, patience, excellence, and truth
Make good choices and always follow through
But above all else know Allah always watch us
And Everything we do comes back upon us
Alright, let's talk about your mommy
I need you to know that I used everything inside of me
To make you as healthy as you could possibly be
And I just couldn't see a good future for us three
And you gonna have questions as you grow
But there's certain negative things that you don't need to know
And baby boy that's what this is about
We live, learn, and figure it out
I just pray that you don't remember us sleepin on the floor
And me cleanin mouse droppings out of your toys
It took alot of hard work for us to get where we at
And young man, we aint quittin at that
Just know that it hurts me to death when I leave and go tourin
I'm scared that it might make you feel unimportant
But our bond is so strong that the moment I get off
We seem to pick right back up where we left off
I try to say that I do it for you
But in my heart I know that's not entirely true
So if I ever come home and feel that I've hurt us as friends
I swear to God that I'll never tour again
I ain't never met a child quite like you
Words don't suffice for me to describe you
You have a genuine goodness inside you
I watch you and wonder if I was ever like you
It's me and you, brother, for life
So when you put me in the ground, look for me in the clouds
You make me the definition of proud
You taught me what this life is really about
Faheem...
Friday, December 14, 2007
Go Green. Stay Married.
Mother Nature feels the pains of divorce
By RANDOLPH E. SCHMID,
AP Science Writer
Tue Dec 4, 6:48 PM ET
WASHINGTON - Divorce can be bad for the environment. In countries around the world divorce rates have been rising, and each time a family dissolves the result is two new households.
"A married household actually uses resources more efficiently than a divorced household," said Jianguo Liu, an ecologist at Michigan State University whose analysis of the environmental impact of divorce appears in this week's online edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
More households means more use of land, water and energy, three critical resources, Liu explained in a telephone interview.
Households with fewer people are simply not as efficient as those with more people sharing, he explained. A household uses the same amount of heat or air conditioning whether there are two or four people living there. A refrigerator used the same power whether there is one person home or several. Two people living apart run two dishwashers, instead of just one.
Liu, who researches the relationship of ecology with social sciences, said people seem surprised by his findings at first, and then consider it simple. "A lot of things become simple after the research is done," he said.
Some extra energy or water use may not sound like a big deal, but it adds up.
The United States, for example, had 16.5 million households headed by a divorced person in 2005 and just over 60 million households headed by a married person.
Per person, divorced households spent more per person per month for electricity compared with a married household, as multiple people can be watching the same television, listening to the same radio, cooking on the same stove and or eating under the same lights.
That means some $6.9 billion in extra utility costs per year, Liu calculated, plus an added $3.6 billion for water, in addition to other costs such as land use.
And it isn't just the United States.
Liu looked at 11 other countries such as Brazil, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Greece, Mexico and South Africa between 1998 and 2002.
In the 11, if divorced households had combined to have the same average household size as married households, there could have been a million fewer households using energy and water in these countries. "People have been talking about how to protect the environment and combat climate change, but divorce is an overlooked factor that needs to be considered," Liu said.
Liu stressed that he isn't condemning divorce: "Some people really need to get divorces." But, he added, "one way to be more environmentally friendly is to live with other people and that will reduce the impact."
Don't get smug, though, married folks — savings also apply to people living together and Shaker communities or even hippie communes would have been even more efficient.
So, what prompts someone to figure out the environmental impact of divorce?
Liu was studying the ecology of areas with declining population and noticed that even where the total number of people was less, the number of households was increasing. He wondered why.
There turned out to be several reasons: divorce, demographic shifts such as people remaining single longer and the demise of multigenerational households.
"I was surprised because the divorce rate actually has been up and down for many years in some of the countries ... but we found the proportion of divorced households has increased rapidly across the globe," he said.
So he set out to measure the difference, such as in terms of energy and water, land use and construction materials and is now reporting the results for divorce.
The research was funded by the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health and the Michigan Agricultural Experiment Station.
By RANDOLPH E. SCHMID,
AP Science Writer
Tue Dec 4, 6:48 PM ET
WASHINGTON - Divorce can be bad for the environment. In countries around the world divorce rates have been rising, and each time a family dissolves the result is two new households.
"A married household actually uses resources more efficiently than a divorced household," said Jianguo Liu, an ecologist at Michigan State University whose analysis of the environmental impact of divorce appears in this week's online edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
More households means more use of land, water and energy, three critical resources, Liu explained in a telephone interview.
Households with fewer people are simply not as efficient as those with more people sharing, he explained. A household uses the same amount of heat or air conditioning whether there are two or four people living there. A refrigerator used the same power whether there is one person home or several. Two people living apart run two dishwashers, instead of just one.
Liu, who researches the relationship of ecology with social sciences, said people seem surprised by his findings at first, and then consider it simple. "A lot of things become simple after the research is done," he said.
Some extra energy or water use may not sound like a big deal, but it adds up.
The United States, for example, had 16.5 million households headed by a divorced person in 2005 and just over 60 million households headed by a married person.
Per person, divorced households spent more per person per month for electricity compared with a married household, as multiple people can be watching the same television, listening to the same radio, cooking on the same stove and or eating under the same lights.
That means some $6.9 billion in extra utility costs per year, Liu calculated, plus an added $3.6 billion for water, in addition to other costs such as land use.
And it isn't just the United States.
Liu looked at 11 other countries such as Brazil, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Greece, Mexico and South Africa between 1998 and 2002.
In the 11, if divorced households had combined to have the same average household size as married households, there could have been a million fewer households using energy and water in these countries. "People have been talking about how to protect the environment and combat climate change, but divorce is an overlooked factor that needs to be considered," Liu said.
Liu stressed that he isn't condemning divorce: "Some people really need to get divorces." But, he added, "one way to be more environmentally friendly is to live with other people and that will reduce the impact."
Don't get smug, though, married folks — savings also apply to people living together and Shaker communities or even hippie communes would have been even more efficient.
So, what prompts someone to figure out the environmental impact of divorce?
Liu was studying the ecology of areas with declining population and noticed that even where the total number of people was less, the number of households was increasing. He wondered why.
There turned out to be several reasons: divorce, demographic shifts such as people remaining single longer and the demise of multigenerational households.
"I was surprised because the divorce rate actually has been up and down for many years in some of the countries ... but we found the proportion of divorced households has increased rapidly across the globe," he said.
So he set out to measure the difference, such as in terms of energy and water, land use and construction materials and is now reporting the results for divorce.
The research was funded by the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health and the Michigan Agricultural Experiment Station.
Thursday, December 13, 2007
Separation Success Stories
When couples are having trouble, one often overlooked option is "controlled separation," that is, separation as a sort of time out on the marriage, with a goal of working through the issues and eventually reconciling. Controlled separation is not the same as "checking out the single waters." Unfortunately, many times separation is seen as the first step in divorce. It seems rather obvious that if you spend your separated time dating other people, you aren't likely to be putting any serious effort in working on repairing your current relationship. (Which begs the question, if you want to marry someone who honors the commitment of marriage, why would you date someone who is married? What does that say about your own commitment to marriage?) When people recycle relationships, all they are doing is putting one set of scabby band aids after another on the same wound, and not surprisingly, facing increasingly higher divorce odds with each subsequent divorce.
In this age of freedom and choice, we choose our spouse, not our parents or any other authority. And if we choose to marriage someone and spend at least a little time getting to know them before taking the plunge, there's probably a good amount of foundation to build on, and if necessary, re-build on.
It seems to me that in this generation of gun shy romantics, either we avoid marriage by over analyzing each relationship--and thus training ourselves to focus on the (potentially) negative of our significant other-- or we jump in without thinking, offended by the thought of pre-marital counsel, knowing that divorce offers an out if everything isn't all sunshine and roses every day.
As the former poster girl for the former stance, I completely understand the desire to stack the deck in your favor. But the problem is that you're always playing with your own cards, no matter who's sitting across the table. Analysis is good, as long as it leads to action and positive change. Analysis as a door to escape is a self-fulfilling prophecy.
That rant aside, here are a few couples who faced separation, and have stronger marriages today because they came back together:
1. Alan & Denise Jackson.
Denise Jackson has written a book about her life with husband Alan Jackson. It's All About Him: Finding the Love of My Life offers an in-depth look into the lives of the two childhood sweethearts.
In this age of freedom and choice, we choose our spouse, not our parents or any other authority. And if we choose to marriage someone and spend at least a little time getting to know them before taking the plunge, there's probably a good amount of foundation to build on, and if necessary, re-build on.
It seems to me that in this generation of gun shy romantics, either we avoid marriage by over analyzing each relationship--and thus training ourselves to focus on the (potentially) negative of our significant other-- or we jump in without thinking, offended by the thought of pre-marital counsel, knowing that divorce offers an out if everything isn't all sunshine and roses every day.
As the former poster girl for the former stance, I completely understand the desire to stack the deck in your favor. But the problem is that you're always playing with your own cards, no matter who's sitting across the table. Analysis is good, as long as it leads to action and positive change. Analysis as a door to escape is a self-fulfilling prophecy.
That rant aside, here are a few couples who faced separation, and have stronger marriages today because they came back together:
1. Alan & Denise Jackson.
Denise Jackson has written a book about her life with husband Alan Jackson. It's All About Him: Finding the Love of My Life offers an in-depth look into the lives of the two childhood sweethearts.
In the book, Denise shares the story of the teen couple's meeting in small-town Georgia, and their marriage when she was just 19. She addresses the couple's struggles, dreams, successes, and the near-failure of their marriage. She also discusses rediscovering her faith, and shares how that has helped to shape the life they now live.
3. This couple.
4. This couple, after the husband committed adultery. (added January 13, 2007)
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