Damage control for teens of divorce

Mark Gregston
When parents split up, it can cause a number of problems in the life of their children; especially if the children are in the pre-teen or teen years. I would never say divorce is responsible for every problem for the kids from split families who come to our teen-counseling program at Heartlight, but it is a major factor for many. Divorce piles on emotional problems for a teen a little higher than there would normally be for an already emotional adolescent.

While there is no real way to fix the problems that divorce can bring into a teen's life, there are ways to do damage control to help them through one of the most painful experiences they will ever encounter. Since half of all marriages end on divorce, I thought it may be helpful to provide a few ways for the parents to address the after-effects of divorce on a teenager. It can help them better deal with the hand they were dealt.

http://www.onenewsnow.com/Perspectives/Default.aspx?id=675470

De Facto Parents

Now children can have multiple legal parents without biology, adoption, or marriage.
By William C. Duncan

In his 1988 book Silent Revolution, Herbert Jacob described how one of the most significant changes to family law in the 20th century, no-fault divorce, began in California and spread through the states with very little public debate or controversy. This remarkable transformation was presented, and largely accepted, as routine policymaking in the domain of legal experts.

Similarly, a revolution in the legal understanding of parenthood seems to have quietly begun with little or no public debate or discussion. This dramatically transformative development is the statutory recognition of “de facto” parenthood — the notion that an unrelated individual (usually the unmarried partner of a biological parent, but potentially any adult) can be designated as the legal “parent” of a child by virtue of an agreement with a biological or adoptive parent, or even just a relationship with the child. In some cases, three or more people may be designated “parents” of the same child. While a handful of state courts have endorsed the idea in the context of disputes between same-sex couples jointly raising children, not until very recently has a legislature endorsed it.

http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=YzcwZjA0ODk2NzM2NzY4N2IyYTQwYmY1NGQ3NGUyODc

Divorce has lasting effects on health

Carolyn Moynihan
More evidence has come to light of the damage divorce does to family members. A study of 8652 people aged 51 to 61 shows that those who have been divorced, as well as those widowed, have worse health than those who have been continuously married or who have never married. Their health improves somewhat with remarriage but still suffers long term effects.
The research, by University of Chicago Sociologist Linda Waite and Johns Hopkins public health professor Mary Elizabeth Hughes, is the first to examine both marital transitions and marital status on a wide range of health dimensions, including chronic disease (heart, diabetes, cancer), depression and mobility.

http://www.mercatornet.com/family_edge/view/divorce_has_lasting_effects_on_health/

Equal Parenting

Finding an equitable arrangement in divorce is important. Better still are parents who can stay together
By Stefan Paszlack, Researcher, Institute of Marriage and Family Canada
Last summer National Post columnist Barbara Kay asked this question: “When can divorced Canadian fathers – and their children – expect justice, so long demanded, so long promised and so long deferred?” [1] She’s not the only one. Equal parenting has been getting more and more attention, in particular when Dr. Edward Kruk released Child Custody, Access and Parental Responsibility: The search for a just and equitable standard in December 2008. Then on June 16, 2009, Maurice Vellacott , Member of Parliament for Saskatoon-Wanuskewin introduced Bill C-422. [2] It’s an equal parenting bill, which seeks to amend portions of the Divorce Act to change the legal presumption of sole custody in divorce disputes to one of joint custody.

http://www.imfcanada.org/article_files/eReview_July1_2009.pdf

Commentary: Let's end disposable marriage

By Leah Ward Sears

ATLANTA, Georgia (CNN) -- After Tommy's sudden death, we found among my brother's personal effects a questionnaire he had completed in 2005 for a church class.
The very first question was a fill-in-the-blank that went like this: "At the end of my life, I'd love to be able to look back and know I'd done something about ....."
"Fathers," Tommy wrote.
When asked to identify something that angered him that could be changed, Tommy wrote, "Re-establishment of equity and balance and sanity within the American family."

http://www.cnn.com/2009/LIVING/07/02/sears.family.divorce/index.html?iref=hpmostpop

Losing Confidence in Marriage

By KAY S. HYMOWITZ
Is marriage in the midst of the social equivalent of the financial meltdown? The first inkling -- the Bear Stearns moment, if you will -- came almost a year ago when the National Enquirer reported that John Edwards appeared to be the father of a love child. The full-scale crisis hit in the past weeks with les affaires Ensign, Sanford and (at least according to rumor) reality-show star Jon Gosselin. Adding to the sense of a Great Marital Depression was a much discussed article in the Atlantic by performer and writer Sandra Tsing Loh about her own infidelity and ultimate separation from her husband, titled "Let's Call the Whole Thing Off."

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124658294270189935.html

The Divorce Will Be Televised

by Maggie Gallagher

America's most televised parents of multiples made it official: They are splitting up. Kate minus Jon makes nine.
Yes, the children will suffer. But no doubt it will be good for ratings.
Well, there are worse tragedies than divorce, bigger problems in the world than the things that led Jon and Kate to break up their own family, as the headlines remind us. Even as Kate and Jon called it quits, a young Iranian woman named Neda captured the fickle attention of the world for her simple and defiant act of courage. Some things are worth dying for.

http://townhall.com/Columnists/MaggieGallagher/2009/06/24/the_divorce_will_be_televised?page=full&comments=true

Facebook and Divorce

By Belinda Luscombe

Not long after Patrick told his wife Tammie he wanted a divorce, she posted an angry, hurt note on "the wall," or public-comments section, of his Facebook page. Embarrassed that his colleagues, clients, church friends and family could see evidence of his marital woes, he deleted it and blocked his wife from seeing his page. A couple of days later, the IT worker in Florida--who asked that his last name not be used in this story — found alarmed messages from two Facebook friends in his inbox. Tammie had used a mutual friend's account to view Patrick's wall and e-mailed several women he had had exchanges with. He says her e-mails were borderline defamatory. She says they merely noted that he was married with children, a fact he had left off his Facebook profile. Either way: Ouch.

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1904147,00.html

To Have, to Hold, For a While

W. BRADFORD WILCOX Brad Wilcox will be one of the faculty at the Ruth Institute Conference in San Diego, CA, August 6-9, 2009.

Amid divorce, remarriage and co-habitation, children do not do well.

Last week, Vermont became the fourth state to legalize same-sex marriage, setting off yet another round of celebration and hand-wringing in different quarters of American life. The debate over same-sex marriage -- showing so much intensity on both sides -- is but one sign that Americans take marriage very seriously indeed. From television specials featuring over-the-top Bridezilla weddings to the federal Healthy Marriage Initiative, which spends $150 million annually on marriage-related programs, no other Western nation devotes as much cultural energy, public policy or religious attention to matrimony as the U.S. And with approximately 90% of Americans marrying over the course of their lifetimes, the U.S. has the highest marriage rate of any Western country.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123958524728412435.html

Newlyweds’ arguments can predict divorce

Carolyn Moynihan

What are the odds of a lasting marriage for newly-weds who argue angrily over money or other issues? Not very good, according to British mathematician James Murray, who has devised a formula that he claims can predict divorce 94 per cent of the time. “Some couples might as well get divorced right away,” he says after conducting a study with 700 newly married couples.

http://www.mercatornet.com/family_edge/newlyweds_arguments_can_predict_divorce/

Speaking of Maggie Gallagher

She is having a 'discussion' here, with Deroy Murdock over at The Corner at National Review. Deroy got mad because no one on our side is sufficiently incensed over an adultery-promoting website. Therefore, we aren't serious about marriage: our opposition to same sex marriage is suspect because if we really cared about marriage, we'd be railing against this website he found.
The argument is kind of silly, as Maggie said. She has been fighting to strengthen marriage for years. AS far as I know, she was the first person to see the full implications of no-fault divorce, back in her book The Abolition of Marriage No fault basically removed the state from enforcing the most basic terms of the marriage contract, and that it cause enormous hardship, especially to children.
Back in 2001, when I first published Love and Economics: It Takes a Family to Raise a Village, Streetfighter Edition
people would sometimes ask me about same sex marriage, a topic that I did not mention at all in that book. I would usually say, "I don't deal with same sex marriage. My job is to straighten out the straight people, and that is a full-time job," and then move on. The truth is that there are so many affronts to marriage, that one really can't keep up with all of them, especially if we are to be held to the standard of commenting on each and every outrage.
So,I would just like to point out that my most recent article is entitled The Superstition of Divorce.
Take That, Deroy!

Saving, helping marriages in Texas

Charlie Butts - OneNewsNow

The Texas Legislature is trying to reduce the state's divorce figures.
Jonathan Saenz, a spokesman from the Free Market Foundation, found a sponsor for the bill. "The legislation is aimed at attacking no-fault divorce," he explains. "In our state one person can walk away from a marriage, even when kids are involved, and leave the other spouse to raise the kids and having to fend for themselves."

http://www.onenewsnow.com/Politics/Default.aspx?id=458074

The carbon footprint of divorce

Carolyn Moynihan

He is not the first one to say it, but Australian senator Steve Fielding has made international headlines by pointing out that divorce increases the carbon footprint of a family because at least one member moves out and has to find new accommodation and new utility services. “We understand there is a social problem (with divorce), but now we’re seeing there is also an environmental impact as well,” he said in a speech on the government’s stimulus package. “Mitigating the effects of resource-inefficient lifestyles such as divorce helps to achieve global environmental sustainability and saves money,” he added.

http://www.mercatornet.com/family_edge/the_carbon_footprint_of_divorce/

The Economics of Divorce

The continuing decline of the economy is unfortunately taking a toll on so many different areas of our lives. The news headlines are voraciously tackling every possible angle—each day revealing another area affected by the recession.

This past Sunday, msnbc.com reported on perhaps one of the most unfortunate side effects of this financial crunch. It seems that many couples are opting to remain married instead of divorcing—they simply can't afford to divorce. Nationwide, the numbers of divorce filings are dropping.

Pamela Smock, a researcher at the Population Studies Center at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, says that this does "not bode well for all sorts of families. It could keep unhappy couples together."

Jeff Grumley, a marriage counselor from Illinois, said he had seen a 25 percent jump in business in recent months as couples tried to save their marriages, and their money. "I think people feel desperate," Grumley said.

The way I see it, the incalculable damage caused by this phenomenon will be long-lasting. Think of all those poor couples who are undergoing marriage counseling: chances are that a good number of them will end up resolving their differences, leading them to stay married long after the economy recovers!

Let's get serious now.

Thinking rationally, it's difficult for most of us to understand people who would divorce, just because "they can afford it," rather than try to patch things up through therapy. But when egos and feelings get involved, many people – even those who are normally wise and intelligent – stop being rational. Sometimes a financial deterrent is what does the trick.

Our Sages recognized this truth about human nature when they instituted the ketubah—the marriage contract. This contract, whose centerpiece is the husband's obligation to financially compensate his wife in the event of divorce, was intended to make divorce a financial trouble on the husband, so that "it should not be light in his eyes to divorce her."

The economy will rebound. It always does. In the famous Biblical story of Joseph in Egypt, the years of plenty served to sustain and feed the years of famine. But just as the booming years provide a nest-egg that cushion the lean ones, the lessons learned during the lean years provide perspective and clarity for the financial good times.

Empathy, financial prudence and prayer. The realization that we are not completely in control over our destiny; we must always have faith in a Higher Being who is the ultimate power. All these positive traits that we cultivate during difficult times—we must make sure they carry over when these times pass.

And, of course, marriage is most sacred. Termination of a marriage should only be considered after every single possible solution has been exhausted.

Maybe you can afford it in terms of dollars. But the destruction of a family has no pricetag.

www.chabad.org/blogs/blog.asp?aid=772288&jewish=The-Economics-of-Divorce.html

Family breakdown costs New Zealand $1bn a year

Erosion of the family in New Zealand is costing the country at least $1 billion a year, according to new research commissioned by lobby group Family First. The report, The Value of Family, estimates for the first time the fiscal impact of single parenthood, divorce and decreasing marriage rates in the small, South Pacific nation, and finds that the cost over the past decade amounts to $8bn. New Zealand’s gross domestic product is around $211 billion (US$128bn), making the cost of family breakdown equivalent to about 0.5 per cent of GDP a year.

Family breakdown in New Zealand reflects trends in many developed countries, but the nation of not quite 4.3 million people has one of the highest rates of non-marital births -- ahead of the United Kingdom, United States, Australia and Canada -- and sole parents outnumber married parents among families with children. Some 49 per cent of children (65,000) live in a sole parent household, and such households have five times the poverty rate of couple households. The report, by Dr Patrick Nolan of the New Zealand Institute of Economic Research, is not the first to point out the toll that poverty takes on children’s health and wellbeing. But it is the first to go behind “child poverty” to the family breakdown that contributes to poverty. It also looks at the role welfare policies may play in non-marriage, family breakdown and “poverty traps”, but finds there is a lack of empirical research to go on.

However, it finds that married couples can also fall into poverty traps, thanks to taxation steps and the abatement of assistance as income rises. Under current tax schemes in New Zealand, married couples from low income families would be up to $15,000 better off in terms of income in the hand if they separated, because of the interaction of family assistance programmes. “The government has created a system which contains perverse disincentives for parents to get married or stay married,” says Family First NZ national director Bob McCroskie.

What the report also shows indirectly is a lack of interest on the part of government and researchers in the fate of the family based on marriage. Moreover, national elections are just two weeks away and yet hardly a word has been said by any party on this subject. The report calls for programmes and services to reduce unwed pregnancy and to help prepare couples for marriage and support them during marriage. It also recommends research on the relationship between government policy and family form. ~ The Value of Family, Family First NZ

Financial crisis sees divorce rates fall in Spain

After rising steadily for a quarter of a century, to more than 100,000 a year, divorce numbers in Spain went into a clear decline earlier this year, when the meltdown of the country's key property sector and the beginnings of the global financial crisis put an end to more than a decade of economic growth. With unemployment rising and house prices dropping, as many as 30 per cent of couples who might have divorced are hanging on. Some might even stay together permanently, says Madrid lawyer Antonio Prada. "The economic crisis would help to preserve marriages" in cases where the partners have at least friendly relations, he adds.

Couples who can't stand the sight of each other, however, are resorting to "internet divorces" based on standard contracts supplied by law forms charging low fees. These create problems, says Prada, because they do not deal with the details of dividing property, child custody and other specifics. Spain legalised divorce in 1981 and Prime Minister Jose Luis Zapatero's Socialist government made it easier in 2005, putting it on a no-fault basis. The economic slump is also bringing adult children back home as they lose their jobs or find difficulty obtaining mortgages or credit to start a business. The number of young people leaving home fell last year and the number of 30-somethings moving back has risen. ~ Deutsche Welle

Divorcing Italian couple charged with making their son suffer

A divorcing Italian couple who argued acrimoniously in front of their 12-year-old child and fought for his affection face prosecution for causing him psychological suffering. The charge, which carries a prison sentence of up to five years, was brought after a health visitor reported that the child was disturbed. Legal experts think there is no precedent for the case in Britain or Europe.

The prosecution reported that the mother and father blamed each other for "shortcomings and educational errors in bringing up the child", with each parent trying to "discredit, devalue and undermine the other" in front of him and "project their emotions onto him, above all anger". This caused the child to become anxious and depressed, unable to concentrate or do his schoolwork, confused him and instilled in him "the conviction that his parents hated each other". Both parents persisted in arguing in front of the child even though he told them it was "making him feel ill". They had "manipulated" the child in an attempt to make him decide between them" as part of their divorce battle.

A Milan judge will decide early next month whether to go ahead with the trial. If it does go ahead, it could have implications for countless other cases. The case is a sign of growing social alarm over the effects of divorce on children. ~ Times Online, Nov 8

The devastating effects of divorce on children

Monica Epperson's book, “A Heart with Two Homes,” covers the trauma of an early childhood with five fathers due to multiple divorces.

After listening to Monica Epperson’s story, most would say that she is a survivor. They would be wrong. Monica Epperson is an over-comer, a vivid example of how a child can overcome the trauma of divorce. Epperson’s story is particularly ompelling.

She was not a child of one divorce. The first divorce happened when she was only one year old. Four more would happen before she reached the age of 12. It is the sum of these experiences that led Epperson to write “A Heart With Two Homes” to help children living with divorce. Her personal experience has made her keenly aware of the issues and problems that children of divorce confront, and the impact it has on them.

One issue Epperson describes is the mistrust of men that developed at an early age, “The revolving door of men in my life deeply impacted my ability to trust them. My experiences as a child taught me that people you care about, especially men, leave. This just seemed normal to me.”

Another issue Epperson had to confront as a child of divorce was intimacy. “Attaching and detaching from men so frequently made me automatically self-protective and defensive,” she says. “You learn that you should not get close to someone because they’ll just leave and it will hurt you.”

Check out the rest of the article here.

Mom might be the reason dad is not there....

This moving and honest article by Renee Mitchell just moved to the top of my list of must-shares.

this is my way of making amends for contributing to the epidemic of children being raised by single parents. I've come to realize: Fatherlessness can sometimes be a result of the mother's choices.

When I made the decision to divorce my children's father and move to Portland when our twins were age 2, I thought I was the only parent my sons, Alex and Zavier, would ever need. I was mistaken.

Read it all here.

More on Humanae Vitae

I posted about Mary Eberstadt's article on Pope Paul IV's birth control encyclical, Humane Vitae (Of Human Life) earlier. I have been thinking about Paul's prediction that artificial birth control would sour relations between the sexes. Now, I have to say, in advance, that my training is in economics. One of the first things you learn in economics is that the best test of a theory is its predictive power. Sounding reasonable at the outset isn't enough. Having "realistic" assumptions isn't enough. The real test of a theory is whether the predictions of the theory are falsified or verified by events.

By that standard, Paul VI should get a Nobel Prize. The enthusiasts who predicted that birth control would usher in an era of "every child a wanted child," look pretty silly in retrospect. Paul VI had a superior theory of the human condition.

In any case, here is what Mary Eberstadt has to say about his prediction that contraception would damage relationships between men and women.

Perhaps the most mocked of Humanae Vitae's predictions was its claim that separating sex from procreation would deform relations between the sexes and "open wide the way for marital infidelity and a general lowering of moral standards." Today, when advertisements for sex scream from every billboard and webpage, and every teen idol is sooner or later revealed topless or worse online, some might wonder what further proof could possibly be offered.

But to leave matters there would be to miss something important. The critical point is, one might say, not so much the proof as the pudding it's in. And it would be hard to get more ironic than having these particular predictions of Humanae Vitae vindicated by perhaps the most unlikely—to say nothing of unwilling—witness of all: modern feminism….

Consider just what we have been told by the endless books on the topic over the years. If feminists married and had children, they lamented it. If they failed to marry or have children, they lamented that, too. If they worked outside the home and also tended their children, they complained about how hard that was. If they worked outside the home and didn't tend their children, they excoriated anyone who thought they should. And running through all this literature is a more or less constant invective about the unreliability and disrespect of men. …

Beneath all the pathos, the subtext remains the same: Woman's chief adversary is Unreliable Man, who does not understand her sexual and romantic needs and who walks off time and again at the first sashay of a younger thing. What are all these but the generic cries of a woman who thinks that men are "disregarding her physical and emotional equilibrium" and "no longer considering her as his partner whom he should surround with care and affection"?...

That there is no auxiliary literature of grievance for men—who, for the most part, just don't seem to feel they have as much to grieve about in this new world order—is something else that Humanae Vitae and a few other retrograde types saw coming in the wake of the revolution. As the saying goes, and as many people did not stop to ask at the time, cui bono? Forty years later, the evidence is in. As Archbishop Charles J. Chaput of Denver observed on Humanae Vitae's thirtieth anniversary in 1998, "Contraception has released males—to a historically unprecedented degree—from responsibility for their sexual aggression." Will any feminist who by 2008 disagrees with that statement please stand up?

I'm not exactly a feminist. And I don't exactly disagree with Archbishop Chaput. But I do think that there is a grievance literature for men: the dispossessed fathers that I and Steven Baskerville have written about. Ironically, these are the men who are doing what they ought to be doing. They are trying to be good husbands and fathers, but have been kicked out of their family's lives. These men, are, for all practical purposes, invisible in our society. (My website has a page called The Reluctantly Divorced. I call them the Unknown Soldiers of the Culture Wars.) They are dismissed by some, even in the Fatherhood Movement, who call them "Mad Dads."

There is something seriously wrong when the most aggrieved people in society are those who are trying to be responsible parents and spouses.