== Forwarded Message Follows =========================================   
      
    * Originally By: Alan Hess   
    * Originally To: all   
    * Originally Re: no good divorce   
    * Original Date: 01 Dec 05  09:01:50   
    * Original Area: Politically Incorrect   
    * Forwarded by : Blue Wave/DOS v2.30   
      
   Boston.com        
   The Boston Globe   
   ELIZABETH MARQUARDT   
   There's no 'good' divorce   
      
   By Elizabeth Marquardt  |  November 28, 2005   
      
   A LITTLE boy scores a goal on the soccer field while his divorced mom and dad,   
   sitting in the stands, cheer him on. A little girl takes a bow after the school   
   play as her divorced mom and dad applaud wildly. At graduations, at weddings,   
   at bar mitzvahs and confirmations, the scene is repeated -- divorced parents   
   having what some call a ''good" divorce.   
      
   Many experts and parents embrace the idea, confident that it's not divorce   
   itself that harms children but simply the way that parents divorce. If divorced   
   parents stay involved with their child and don't fight with each other, they   
   say, then children will be fine.   
      
   There's only one problem. It's not true.   
      
   In a first-ever national study, the grown children of divorce tell us there's   
   no such thing as a ''good" divorce. This nationally representative telephone   
   survey of 1,500 young adults, half from divorced families and half from intact   
   families -- supplemented with more than 70 in-person interviews conducted   
   around the country -- reveals that any kind of divorce, whether amicable or   
   not, sows lasting inner conflict in children's lives.   
      
   Only a small minority of grown children of divorce -- just one-fifth -- say   
   their parents had a lot of conflict after their divorce, but the conflict   
   between their parents' worlds did not go away. Instead, the tough job of making   
   sense of their parents' different beliefs, values, and ways of living became   
   the child's job alone.   
      
   As a result, many grown children of divorce say they felt divided inside. They   
   recall having to be extremely vigilant, holding a magnifying glass up to both   
   parents' worlds in order to figure out how to survive in them. One young woman   
   remembered: ''I knew very young how my parents were. To me it was just obvious   
   -- like, this is how mom is, this is how dad is. This is how you learn to deal   
   with them. . . We lived with my mom, and we stayed with my dad the whole month   
   of July. So you actually had a substantial amount of time to live with that   
   person and understand their personality. What makes them tick, what makes them   
   laugh, what makes them angry. You think all the time."   
      
   Many grown children of divorce told us they rose to the challenge by becoming a   
   different person with each of their parents.   
      
   In divorced families, they told us, secrets are epidemic. The grown children of   
   divorce are twice as likely to agree that their parents asked them to keep   
   important secrets, but many more of them said they felt the need to keep   
   secrets even when their parents did not ask them to. Their parents seemed   
   enormously vulnerable after divorce, and the children quickly learned that   
   sensitive information, perhaps about their other parent's new love interest or   
   finances, could spark anger or hurt. They soon learned to keep much of what   
   happened in each world to themselves. When they grow up, there are large parts   
   of each of their lives that the other parent knows virtually nothing about.   
      
   The grown children of divorce also report that the job of traveling between two   
   worlds, struggling alone to make sense of them, is a lonely one. They are three   
   times more likely to agree, ''I was alone a lot as a child," and seven times   
   more likely to strongly agree with that sentiment. Over and over, their stories   
   made it clear that being the only link between your parents' two worlds is a   
   lonely place for a child to be. When parents are married, the whole family gets   
   together because, well, that's what families do. When parents are divorced,   
   they get together only because of the child. That's a big burden for the child   
   on the soccer field or school stage to carry.   
      
   Some marriages are brutal, and divorce is a vital safety valve. But two-thirds   
   of divorces today end low-conflict marriages. Most marriages end not because   
   the parents are at each other's throats but for other, less urgent reasons. Too   
   many parents are led astray by the ''good" divorce idea and think that, if only   
   they divorce the right way, they can end their good enough marriage and their   
   child will be unscarred. But this study found, quite the contrary, that in many   
   ways children of ''good" divorces fare worse than children of unhappy marriages   
   -- so long as those marriages are low-conflict -- and they fare far worse than   
   children of happy marriages.   
      
   Today, one-quarter of young adults are from divorced families. Their message to   
   our society is clear: Divorce is sometimes necessary, but for children there is   
   no such thing as a ''good" divorce.   
      
   Elizabeth Marquardt, an affiliate scholar at the Institute for American Values,   
   is author of the just-published ''Between Two Worlds: The Inner Lives of   
   Children of Divorce."    
   + Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company   
       
      
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