File under "independence"

I write in my book (look for it in August!) that we children of divorce are an independent lot. Many of us had to take on adult responsibilities when we were kids, which led some of us to adopt a maturity and independence that was beyond our years.

Some things never change.

I needed a new filing cabinet at home, having outgrown the old two drawer I've had forever. So this afternoon, I headed to Office Depot and purchased a lovely ready-to-assemble light cherry four drawer filing cabinet, on sale no less. The furniture salesperson at the store used a dolly to wheel the box to the curb while I folded down the seats on my Jetta and pulled it to the front door. Admittedly, she was a bit heftier than I am, but she hoisted the box easily into my trunk and off I drove.

Arriving home, I realized the furniture lady must have a weight bench at home. There was no way I could even get the box out of the car, much less into the house and up to the second floor. No neighbors were home, so I closed the trunk and thought "Well, I can always get help later."

Then it occured to me: who said I had to carry the entire box into the house? Why, I could just open up one end and carry the pieces in a few at a time. Brilliant! Trying to corral all the bits of styrofoam that had cradled my new cabinet in its box, I slid all the drawers and side pieces and who knows what kinds of connectors out of the box, making trip after trip into the house where I piled them all onto the sofa. Where they now sit, until I get up the energy to carry them up to the second floor and into my office for assembly.

I had a few passing qualms about depriving someone of their spiritual gift of heavy lifting, but that didn't stop me. I am woman, see me carry a few pieces of pre-cut lumber at a time. All the while, though, I did roll my eyes at myself over the silliness of trying to do it all without any help. Independence can be good, but it can also be a mask for pride...and it can make our jobs a lot harder when we should be asking someone to help shoulder the burden we carry.

For now, I just need to clear off the sofa so I have a place to sit down.

Modern love

I was blessed today by this modern rendering of the Beatitudes from Jesus' Sermon on the Mount:

Blessed are you who are depressed, emotionally fragile, mentally exhausted-the whole creation, everything under God’s jurisdiction, has been given to you to delight in with your maker.

Blessed are you children of divorce, you who lost sons and daughters, fathers and mothers way too early…you who have cried until your eyes were bloodshot and your head throbbing-your comfort has come.

Blessed are you who have been compassionate, kind and gracious while everyone else around you is clamoring for power and money, stepping on you to get it…and you let it happen-God has honored your humility by giving you the world itself as a playground.

Blessed are you that have pushed back the plate, or had the plate taken from you; blessed are you who have doubled-over in ache for God…it is time to feast on His holiness and goodness until you can’t take anymore.

Blessed are you who have given too many extra chances, you who have forgiven the one who cut you the most deeply-only to be treated like hell all over again. Drink deeply of the grace of God, he has taken pleasure at your tenderness.

Blessed are you whose heart has still longed for God, even when you felt like a storm of anger and lust raged all around you-you have clung still to your vision of him. God knows you long for holiness…and his response is to let you see all of his colors and beauty with those war-torn eyes.

Blessed are you who [have] been in the middle of a fight and been smacked and punched, bruised and trampled yourself trying to bring peace into the middle of chaos, God calls you beloved sons and daughters.

Blessed are you who have had the people closest to you make fun of you for following Jesus, you who have been rejected by your own flesh and blood because of your love for God-you too are the recipients of God’s whole elegant creation, to rule and reign with him over it.

Every time you have been insulted, every time you have been tortured, every time you have been lied on and laughed about…it’s reason to break out the streamers and party hats, time to sit down for the best steak and the finest wine, your reward is exponentially greater than your suffering. Your name has been added to a prestigious list of prophets who experienced the same things, and you share in their reward!

Third time's a charm

I am a child of divorce. My mother married an abusive man, then left him when I was four. I never saw him again.

Mom remarried when I was six to the man I would call Dad, who adopted my brother and me. I barely remember the first father, and the second I idolized. He wanted me, adopted me, gave me his name.

But my adopted father was an attentive, angry, and intelligent man. His mood swings were intense, unsettling, and confusing. I never knew which personality I’d get on any given day, but it was normal for us.

Read the rest of the story and find out about the third Father this child of divorce found here.

Broken from the start

In an essay in Real Simple magazine (March 2008, page 79), Jennifer Baumgardner writes of the child she had with a man she did not marry:

Still, while I believe that this coparenting arrangement is best for everyone, Skuli, now three, might not agree. The other night, after a family dinner, Gordon was heading out the door when Skuli said, "I don't want Daddy to go. He should stay." Gordon's face crumpled, and I felt like a witch. As our son gets older, I am going to hear this more, I assume, as we take on more of the contours of a traditional broken home. I feel a pang of loss that we can't all hang out in bed Saturday mornings and read the paper. I get weepy when I see that Ford Freestyle commercial where the family has a fun day at the beach and then drops the dad off at his prefab divorce apartment. The tears well for a few reasons: the sadness of Skuli's having to say good-bye so often to one of his parents, but also the reassurance of knowing there are so many once-together parents who now have joint custody (and manage just fine) that Ford is marketing to them.

Seriously wrong ideas

When I was a kid, if I complained about my arm hurting (for example) for no good reason, my mom would jokingly say, "Let's cut it off, then." No, it wasn't child abuse--just sarcasm and a way to get me to have some perspective on a minor bump or scrape.

One could hope that the author of this piece were using the same tactic. Sadly, I think he was actually serious.

What of the children in a society that is moving inexorably toward consecutive plural marriages? Under present arrangements in which marriages are ostensibly lifetime contracts and then are dissolved through hypocritical collusions or messy battles in court, the children do suffer. Marriage and divorce turn lovers into enemies, and the child is left to thread his way through the emotional wreckage of his parents' lives. Financial support of the children, mere subsistence; is not really a problem in a society as affluent as ours. Enduring emotional support of children by loving, healthy, and friendly adults is a serious problem in America, and it is a desperately urgent problem in many families where divorce is unthinkable. If the bitter and poisonous denouement of divorce could be avoided by a frank acceptance of short-term marriages, both adults and children would benefit.

By the way, this was written in 1966. There's nothing new under the sun, as Solomon once said.

Release date

I'm smack in the middle of copyedits for the book, which are due later this week, so posting may be a little delayed. But wanted to share the good news that we have an official release date for the book: August 1. I've already seen one online bookstore that has it listed in their catalog. Put it on your reading list for that late summer beach trip!

One step removed...or not

Every divorce blog out there has been linking to this new study that says divorced people are less likely to be taken care of by their children as they age. I haven't linked to it because I had yet to see anyone saying anything that seemed particularly insightful...until now. Elizabeth Marquardt published an op-ed piece in yesterday's Washington Post on the supposed trend. Here's a short excerpt:

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.

You can say that again. All stepchildren and stepparents forge a relationship in their own way. Some become deeply attached, some are virtually strangers, many fall somewhere in between. Even when stepchildren and stepparents 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 had 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 mystified and 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 long-term, hands-on 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. He and my mother had been divorced for several years, but from the time I was 3 years old until they separated when I was 9, he had been my in-the-home father, a man I'd fallen in love with not long after my mother had. His death was devastating for all of us, but my immense grief, which stretched through my teenage years and into my 20s, was made all the more lonely and isolating because almost no one around me -- friends, teachers, many members of my extended family -- recognized that I'd lost anyone of importance at all.

There are parents who leave, never to be heard from again, who are complete strangers to their natural children. I think we're usually apt to admire children who can overlook years of neglect to care for a parent who falls into this category. By the same token, as Marquardt points out, there are stepparents who hold as deep or deeper a relationship with their stepchildren than do the children's absent natural parent.

Some time ago, I blogged here about the different words we sometimes use to define step relationships. Those words often reveal the different levels of our connectedness to our family members. Until now, no one seemed to be considering this study in light of the varying degrees of connection that children have with their stepfamilies in particular.

Who has custody of his privacy?

Here's a twist on the old "competing worldviews" issue that children of divorce often face with their parents:

The Boldts began arguing over custody when their child was 4; custody eventually was granted to the father. Their dispute over circumcision began when the boy was 9, after James Boldt converted to Judaism and he wanted the child to be circumcised as part of the faith.

The father contends their son wants to be circumcised; the mother says the boy opposes it.

The family court judge has sent this one to trial court. I'm sure they'll resolve it somehow, but really, there has to be a better solution than one that subjects an almost teenage boy to having the entire world know about the status of his foreskin.

ACOD's on Oprah

Today's Oprah features adult children of divorce. A kind friend is TIVOing the episode for me. In the meantime, check out the online material at Oprah's web site.

Unveiling

Over the weekend, I got the cover art for the book. I really like it! As my friend Lori noted, it captures a sense of family as well as a hint of loss. Would love to hear your feedback!

February is Child of Divorce Month at the Movies

Thanks to Catherine for the tip about another new movie with a February release date featuring a child of divorce, Definitely, Maybe:

Ryan Reynolds stars as Will Hayes, a 30-something Manhattan dad in the midst of a divorce when his 10 year-old daughter, Maya (Abigail Breslin), starts to question him about his life before marriage. Maya wants to know absolutely everything about how her parents met and fell in love.

Apparently, what ensues is a movie version of How I Met Your Mother. Speaking of sitcoms, Ryan Reynolds, who plays the dad in this movie, also starred in one of my favorite now-defunct TV comedies, Two Guys, A Girl, and A Pizza Place.

Healing on film

Sorry for the long silence on the blog. The baby dog is indeed a baby with a teeny-tiny baby bladder that needs to be relieved several times each night still, although I swear I am watching him grow right before my eyes--I think he's doubled in size in the week and a half that I've had him! He's a cutie pie, but, boy, could I use a full night of uninterrupted sleep!

Catching up on my inbox, I saw a message about a limited-release Christian movie about divorce scheduled to hit select theaters the day after Valentine's Day. According to Christian Post, Me & You, Us, Forever "will look at the damaging reality of divorce on spouses, children, families and friends as it aims to put forth a message for the hurting that healing is possible." The film is billed as a love story, interrupted by thirty years. Looks interesting.

To see a list of theaters that are showing this movie, click here for the official movie web site. No one in Virginia is showing it yet, so if you happen to see it in your area, check in here and let us know what you thought.

Port in a storm

From an article in the Worcester Telegram & Gazette:

Before she reached her 12th birthday, Theresa Chidester found herself pulled in two directions.

Trapped in a messy custody battle surrounding her parents’ divorce, Chidester had to choose between living with her father and moving in with her mother. So instead of listening to her parents, Chidester decided to rely mostly on her lawyer.

“She was more of a parent to me than my parents were,” Chidester, 19, says of Justine Rakich-Kelly, a lawyer who is also the executive director of the Children’s Law Center of Connecticut.

Dogg is no dog

The three children of rapper Snoop Dogg and his wife Shante can thank their dad for staying out of divorce court:

Rapper Snoop Dogg decided against divorcing his wife because he could not bear the thought of another man raising his children.

The hip-hop star - real name Cordozar Calvin Broadus - filed for divorce from wife Shante in 2004 after seven years together.But the star quickly changed his mind after realising he had too much to lose.

"I was going to split up with my wife - my wife wasn't going to split up with me," he said.

"You know, I was caught up with Hollywood, and the girls and the night life. I thought I was the man and I was willing to give up what I had at home for that, until I realized that what I had at home was irreplaceable, so I gave that up to go back home.

"I just don't want another man raising my kids. That was the main goal. I had kids with my wife because I wanted to be with my wife. And those three babies are all wanted, and I wanted to be with them."

Border-crossing divorce

An essay in the Travel section of the New York Times talks about the journeys that children of divorce make, physically and emotionally:

The holidays are synonymous with travel for many people. For me, a child of divorce, add international relations to the Christmas-New Year’s maelstrom. When my parents split in the 1970s, my father moved to Montreal with Susan, the woman who would become his wife and my stepmother. Since I was 6, I’ve gone across the border and back at least 100 times.

I know how it must feel to be a global peace negotiator: needing to be in two places at once, my allegiances split.

New splits for the new year

Two fairly long (as Hollywood goes) celebrity marriages are on the way out. Former Princess Bride Robin Wright Penn and actor Sean Penn announced their split after 11 years of marriage, while Brendan Fraser of George of the Jungle and The Mummy fame announced a split with Afton, his wife of 9 years. The Frasers have three children, while the Penns have two.

The baby dog arrives

Movie review: Kramer vs. Kramer

Although my TV is gone, I can still watch plenty of movies on my laptop (and kudos to my brother for ordering me a widescreen, giving me the full viewing experience). My public library offers oodles of movies, with no late fees and two week check-out intervals, so I've been strategically building my Netflix and library lists. Whenever I run across a movie I want to see, I check the library first. Only if the library doesn't have it do I add it to my Netflix list.

So, the library did have a copy of Kramer vs. Kramer, which I had never seen, until last night. The story line is vastly different from most of the movies that deal with children of divorce today, because it reflects a different era. Some early reviewers of my book questioned a comment I made about most of us living with our mothers. Back in the 70s, that was the reality. The court system was skewed toward mothers getting custody of children. Kramer vs. Kramer shows that reality.

If you haven't seen the movie, Meryl Streep plays the role of Joanna Kramer who leaves her husband (played by Dustin Hoffman) and young son to "find herself." After stumbling upon herself in California, she returns to seek custody of Billy. Although he's been the sole caretaker of their son for a year and a half, Ted Kramer finds himself in a desperate fight to retain custody.

I won't spoil the outcome for you. This was a good movie though. The parents were portrayed as flawed individuals who were both, at one time or another, good parents and lousy parents. Little Billy, caught in the middle of all this, is written believably, as a normal boy who wonders what has happened to his family, who misses his mom, and who bonds with his dad in a new way after mom leaves. If you haven't seen it, it's a good addition to the children of divorce movie library.

Switching sides

From Mitch Albom's One More Day:

My father once told me, “You can be a mama’s boy or a daddy’s boy. But you can’t be both.”

So I was a daddy’s boy. I mimicked his walk. I mimicked his deep, smoky laugh. I carried a baseball glove because he loved baseball, and I took every hardball he threw, even the ones that stung my hands so badly I thought I would scream.

...I was a daddy’s boy, and I remained a daddy’s boy right up to a hot, cloudless Saturday morning in the spring of my fifth grade year. We had a doubleheader scheduled that day against the Cardinals, who wore red wool uniforms and were sponsored by Connor’s Plumbing Supply.

The sun was already warming the kitchen when I entered in my long socks, carrying my glove, and saw my mother at the table smoking a cigarette. My mother was a beautiful woman, but she didn’t look beautiful that morning. She bit her lip and looked away from me. I remember the smell of burnt toast and I thought she was upset because she messed up breakfast.

“I’ll eat cereal,” I said.

I took a bowl from the cupboard.

She cleared her throat. “What time is your game, honey?”

“Do you have a cold?” I asked.

She shook her head and put a hand to her cheek. “What time is your game?”

“I dunno.” I shrugged. This was before I wore a watch.

I got the glass bottle of milk and the big box of corn puffs. I poured the corn puffs too fast and some bounced out of the bowl and onto the table. My mother picked them up, one at a time, and put them in her palm.

“I’ll take you,” she whispered. “Whenever it is.”

“Why can’t Daddy take me?” I asked.

“Daddy’s not here.”

“Where is he?”

She didn’t answer.

“When’s he coming back?”

She squeezed the corn puffs and they crumbled into floury dust.

I was a mama’s boy from that day on . . .

Child killer of divorce

Last week, the Christmas season was brutally shattered for at least eight families when a troubled teen chose to end his life and the lives of others in a shooting rampage at an Omaha mall.

Robert Hawkins' parents divorced when he was three. According to an article in the Washington Post, he had substance abuse issues and mental health problems. His family had given up on him, and he became a ward of the state at the age of 14. The article says he "had been a ward of the state from 2002 to 2006" but if you do the math, you realize that this kid simply aged out of the system. If he was 19 now in 2007, he turned 18 in 2006. And if you read the article closely, you realize that Hawkins was not in foster care, but in a mental health facility.

When he left the mental health facility, it wasn't because he was cured or that his mental health issues were under control. It was because he failed to complete community service that was required by the program. There's a shocker -- someone with a mental illness failing to follow the rules. Instead of realizing that this kid had more serious issues, the courts declared him "nonamenable to further services." In other words, we wash our hands of him.

Appallingly, a spokesman for the health department stated that "all appropriate services were provided when needed for as long as needed." Well, clearly that wasn't the case.

What happened in Omaha is eerily similar to what happened at Virginia Tech last year. A kid who was widely recognized to have mental health problems failed to get the proper treatment or be in the proper setting and, as a result, lives were lost.

I've seen traditional mental hospitals and understand why a lot of people are turned off by the idea. I've volunteered at more residential, kinder, gentler, homes for people with mental illnesses and appreciate their ability to care for nonviolent individuals who cannot live on their own in society. Perhaps what we need is a thoughtful combination of the two. As it is, we let most of the violent, mentally ill individuals in our society live behind prison bars, which can't be better than the old-time mental wards, or we make them live in the world, tempting fate that they won't, like Hawkins, find a cache of weapons or other means of hurting others and themselves.

As a society, we are failing these weaker members, these citizens whose brains war against them. If any good can come of these horrible tragedies, perhaps it is that we will wake up and find some solutions to offer real help and protection for the mentally ill.