Whispers of truth about divorce

These images speak for themselves.

A friend in the neighborhood

I am convinced it is no coincidence that Mister Rogers--the sweater-wearing, singing, owner of a secret puppet wonderland--thrived on television during the late 60s and 70s. At a time when divorce rates were skyrocketing and children were reeling, who better to spend a little time with each day than someone who told you that you were special, that you were listened to, that your feelings mattered.

I was reminded of this recently as I watched the documentary "Mister Rogers and Me" on PBS.  In one of the opening bits, Wagner tells the story he recounts in his blog here, about Mister Rogers asking about his parents' divorce.  The story is just as any kid who grew up watching the show would imagine: Mister Rogers talking about something no one else wants to talk about with kids, giving the kid permission to express what he's feeling, and then letting it all end with a comforting and mood-changing song that says 'even in the midst of sad things, at least we still have each other.'

No wonder we all loved him.

Child of television divorce

I don't watch Parenthood, but this article caught my eye.  Apparently, one of the families on the show is going through a divorce and a recent episode captured the kids' perspective of being caught in the middle while mom and dad are going their separate ways.  The article is worth a read, whether you watch the show or not.

Divorce, Hawaiian style

Last week's episode of Hawaii Five-O featured a two-generation story of divorce. Melanie Griffith plays Danno's mom. (Which leads me to wonder, when did Melanie Griffith get old enough to play the mother of a police detective? How time flies.) Danno is expecting his parents to come for a visit, but his mother arrives alone and announces that she is leaving his father.

Later in the episode, Danno talks with his daughter and his mom about his own divorce and how hard it was to tell his daughter that he and her mother were not going to be married anymore. His daughter tells Danno that she remembers that night well and remembers that he then went into his own room and she could hear him crying.

The episode is an interesting twist on a familiar theme. Instead of a character's impending divorce dredging up memories of his parents' divorce, here the parents' impending divorce is bringing back a flood of memories and emotions about his own divorce -- and about his feelings of failure and disappointment as a father.

If I seem a little crazy...

...this may be why! By the time I was in the 6th grade, I'd been to six different schools (not counting preschool) and lived in five different states.

Oh, and thanks very much to my brother who sent this article to me. What exactly is he implying?

Kidding aside, as much as I changed schools early on, my parents tried to make the transitions a little easier on me by sending me to Christian schools that all used roughly the same curriculum with minor variations.  I may have been the new kid, but gosh darn it, I'd used the same reading and math books all the other kids had the previous school year. A small thing, perhaps, but it helped. And, from the article linked above, it seems any small help may be a big thing for the transient child.

Time for some straight talk

Time magazine has a good article on the state of the American family, including the devastating effects of divorce on children. Two snippets:

a lasting covenant between a man and a woman can be a vehicle for the nurture and protection of each other, the one reliable shelter in an uncaring world —or it can be a matchless tool for the infliction of suffering on the people you supposedly love above all others, most of all on your children...

...is marriage an institution that still hews to its old intention and function — to raise the next generation, to protect and teach it, to instill in it the habits of conduct and character that will ensure the generation's own safe passage into adulthood? Think of it this way: the current generation of children, the one watching commitments between adults snap like dry twigs and observing parents who simply can't be bothered to marry each other and who hence drift in and out of their children's lives — that's the generation who will be taking care of us when we are old.

Jon & Kate + 8 children of divorce

Diane Singer, one of my fellow bloggers at The Point has weighed in on the reality show that will apparently follow 8 new children of divorce:

Though I have seen only a few of the episodes, I find the news of the Gosselins' impending divorce a cause to grieve -- for these children and for this couple, who seem to think wealth and fame are more important than marriage and family. How I wish Jon and Kate would turn off the cameras, get into marriage counseling, and -- for the sake of their eight children -- act like adults rather than glory hounds.

When the elephant leaves

From a dad, writing in the Chicago Trib:

Most parents, whether together or apart, try not to have the messy circumstances of their own lives bleed into the world of their children. How many shoppers this season have said that they are determined not to let the dismal economy dampen the holiday? But sometimes truth is a missile, unavoidable. Kate remains young enough not to realize how her existence is different from that of many classmates because her mother and father do not live together. But the wheels are turning. She groups her beloved stuffed animals in family units. There must always be a mother and a father and a baby. That view of what is "normal" is bound to change. At some point, one of those elephants is going to take a powder.

Redecorating divorce

From an advice column in an Oklahoma newspaper:

DEAR MI-LING: I am nearing the end of a painful divorce. I want to redo my home and make it my own, leaving behind all of the bad memories of this relationship. Is this healthy for my school-age children or should I keep some of the old memories in the house to help them feel comfortable?

Click here to read Mi-Ling's answer.

Splitting up our selves

If you live in two worlds, are you still just one person? That's the question that seems to be asked in a book for children called A Heart with Two Homes. From GTR Newspapers:

In a beautifully simple and accessible way, along with wonderful illustrations, the book tells the story of a young girl named Elizabeth; “Lizzie” to her mom, and “Beth” to her dad. “Lizzie” is a girl who is a “girly-girl” when at home with her mother because she and her mother spend time doing girl things, and she wants to please her mother. “Beth” is a tomboy when she is at her dad’s house because they spend time doing sports, and she wants to please her dad. It’s a story about a young girl who moves from being “Lizzie” to “Beth” on a regular basis, who feels increasingly distressed that she is being dishonest about who she is because she had two “different selves,” and who eventually is able to integrate “Lizzie” and “Beth” and just be a girl with a one heart named “Elizabeth” who has two loving homes.

The author, Monica Epperson, is a Christian whose faith informs her writing about the topic of divorce:

“Starting when I was very young my mother told me that I always had and always will have a Father in heaven. Consequently, even though I experienced five divorces before I was 12, I have never felt fatherless. I have always known that I have a Father, that He has always loved me and that He will never leave me.“ In fact, Epperson is already busy writing her next book, “Never Left Fatherless.”

Allergic to divorce

Have you noticed how many kids today have allergies? Researchers in Germany might have an explanation for this trend. Apparently, they've connected immune deficiencies, including asthma, allergies, and eczema to childhood stress and specifically to the separation or divorce of one's parents.

A mother's response

This is a perfect follow up to the article I just posted:

I won’t sit back, though, and let this ruin me. But I will look at my children every day for the rest of my life, and see the pain and hurt their father caused by walking out. The distrust, anger, and pain that this has carved in their life will never be erased. How can I be so sure? I was the child of a divorce. This is not something a child gets over. Divorce is something children learn to live with because their parents have given them no choice.

My ex asked me during the whole separation process, “Do you really think the kids want me stay married and be unhappy?”

Um. Yeah. I do. It’s called love: unconditional, selfless, pure love. This is a value that is slowly diminishing in our society.

Dropping the ball

Boston Red Sox catcher Jason Varitek and his wife Karen filed for divorce this summer. The couple has 3 young daughters, ages 3, 6, and 8.

HT: Catherine Larson, wife of famous Red Sox fan Mark Larson

80 years, still hurting

From a column in the Toledo Blade:

Father's Day was never a favorite holiday for me as a child. When I saw it coming on the calendar I was uneasy. Would it be my Sunday to be with my dad? If it weren't, I would have to wish him a Happy Father's Day on the Sunday before or after.

As a child of divorce, who as a senior citizen still feels the pain, I share these personal experiences for divorced single parents. It is not a request for sympathy, but a message that I hope will sink in to single mothers and fathers.

We all hear the staggering numbers of today's divorce rates. Back in the early '30s, on the brink of the Great Depression, it was quite uncommon. I was 3 years old. All I remember is that one day my dad didn't come home from the post office, and from that day on I saw him every other Sunday, according to a court order, and two weeks in summer.

Crash helmet for divorce

From a review of A Nation of Wimps in the Wall Street Journal:

...even as parents obsessively strap bike helmets on their kids' heads and squirt antiseptic gels on their hands, the adults themselves cavalierly break up families with divorce and tolerate the rampant sexualization of prepubescent girls. In short, we're focusing on the wrong risks.

Splitting pennies

Financial planner Linda Leitz has a new book out to help divorced parents talk with their kids about money. Called "We Need to Talk: Money & Kids After Divorce," Leitz's book is designed to help parents understand how the financial strains of divorce affect children and how they can help children feel able to do their part to make things easier financially without feeling the adult-sized burden of financial worries.

Beyond the headline

This headline keeps popping up in my inbox:

Study: Impact of divorce on kids less damaging

For years, social scientists have believed that children of divorce have had more behavior problems than kids growing up in two-parent homes.

But the impact may not be as damaging as previously believed, according to new research to be released Friday.

Instead of comparing these youngsters to those with intact families - the usual methodology - a more accurate assessment would be to evaluate them before and after the marital dissolution, argues Alan Li of the RAND Corp.

or not:

Robert E. Emery, a professor of psychology at the University of Virginia, takes issue with the conclusion. While Li may not have found increased negative behavior, less quantifiable is the hurt that can reverberate across a lifespan, he explained.

"For example, graduation and weddings can be turned into anxiety-ridden events for children whose parents are divorced . . ." Emery wrote in a response to Li's findings.

Charlton Heston, child of divorce

From an article on the late actor's life in the Washington Post:

John Carter [the name Heston was born with] was born in Evanston, Ill., on Oct. 4, 1923. He spent his early childhood in St. Helen, Mich., where his father was a deputy sheriff.

In a memoir, he wrote that his parents' divorce when he was 9 was a wrenching surprise. He soon took his stepfather's surname, Heston, to hide what he considered the shame of the divorce. His professional name was a combination of that and his mother's maiden name, Lila Charlton.

Hillary's mom, child of divorce

From the Los Angeles Times:

She was only 8 years old.

Her mother had lost custody of her in a divorce. And her father was putting her and her 3-year-old sister on a train from Chicago to Los Angeles -- by themselves, without adult supervision. It took three days to reach their grandparents' home in the San Gabriel Valley. Once there, they would not be made to feel welcome.

The older girl, Dorothy Howell, now 88, is best known as Dorothy Rodham -- the mother of Hillary Rodham Clinton, the New York senator and Democratic presidential candidate.

(Photo from The Washington Post)

Truth be told

From one of NPR's "This I Believe" essays:

Adults always insist that children be honest, but how many of us are honest with our kids, particularly about the tough stuff: death, sex, corruption, our own failings?

I believe in telling children the truth. I believe this is vital for their understanding of the world, their confidence and the development of their morals and values.