Spoiled Children of Divorce

Another Children’s book writer (whose books appeal to adults as well) as Child of Divorce. Born in Chicago. Parents divorced when he was 11. His Father ran off with a night-club singer who got a gig singing in Casablanca. The Father returned when Gorey was 27 and his parents remarried.

Age 27 is the First Secondary Progressed Lunar Return. This is a major influence on things ruled by the Moon in a person’s chart. The Moon represents Mother, Women, Family, Feelings, along with many other things. It is interesting that Gorey’s parents reunited at this age. It is often an age associated with early death in celebrities. A Phenomenon called “The 27 Club.”

Children whose parents divorce when they are around age 11 can be strongly influenced by the cycle of Jupiter. Jupiter in Gorey’s chart is in the 4th house of family which is ruled by Moon. Jupiter rules publishing and writing so maybe it helped Gorey to create his imaginative ink drawings.

He was an only child.

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/12/10/edward-goreys-enigmatic-world

There isn’t a lot of comedy performed by Children of Divorce. There seems to be a silencing effect of participating in one’s parents’ divorce. And, also, no interest in being heard from the rest of society. I think I initially got the idea for trying to worry about this stuff when I went to a comedy show in New York City. It was just put on in a cafe and one comic got up on stage and almost immediately asked if anyone in the audience grew up in a divorced family. One girl from the South raised her hand as high as she could. She must have said something because I remember she had a Southern accent and I remember dreading having to hear whether or not her Mother’s boyfriend had molested her. Nobody else raised their hand including me. And, the comic let a weird sound blow out of his stomach and moved on to another topic.

Anyway, Amazon Prime is featuring a comedian named Dina Hashem called “Dark Little Whispers.” Hashem speaks very quietly and introverted and every once in a while there is a comment about her childhood in a household where the Father has left. Her parents are from the Middle East somewhere and her Father currently lives there or at least that is the story. She says that she voted for Donald Trump because she knew he would keep her Father from returning to the U.S. In another segment she talks about locking herself in the bathroom because it was the only place she could lock the door and find peace. She didn’t have a bedroom of her own and had to sleep in a corner of the living room. For just a short while I had to share a bed with my Mother. It was soon after the split and was mixed in-between her suicide attempts and first boyfriends and lots and lots of screaming. We had been really close and now she hated me because my best friend’s mother had stolen her husband and her life and her friends (almost) and wealth and at 40 years old figured she wouldn’t find a way to deal with it.

Immigrants have a voice and are eager to speak their reality. I guess they don’t have much awareness that this stuff already has existed here for a long time. Thanks Dina Hashem for sharing. And thanks to your mother for allowing you to still speak.

What is of concern to most kids going through a divorce is what is happening to their parents. Usually this is going to be Mom because most kids still live with their Mothers. Judith Wallerstein, Julia Lewis, Sherrin Packer Rosenthal published an article called “Mothers and their children after divorce. Report from a 25-year longitudinal study” in Psychoanalytic Psychology, Vol 30 (2), April 2013, pp. 167-184. Findings were that Mothers turn their attention to other intimate relationships and getting training to become financially stable.

Doi.

And what are the kids doing during time? Has your therapist ever asked you that? Has the therapist ever asked you what your Mother was doing after the divorce? Did the therapist ask about how you felt going on a car trip with “Bill” to help him run a gun in Utah? I don’t remember Bryce Canyon but I do remember the little cinder block store where the alcohol was sold out in the middle of nowhere because that’s when my Mother and Bill calmed down. When I first started writing this blog a therapist posted that I needed to be diagnosed with something called “Post embitterment disorder”.

Has anyone ever surveyed psychology and psychiatry students to see if they actually went through a divorce during childhood? And has anyone ever surveyed therapists and psychiatrists to get their personal divorce rates? I think this is something which they should state on all insurance lists so I could know who to avoid when seeking help.

I think that posting abstracts does not violate any copyright laws. Here is the abstract from the article.

This is a qualitative 25-year, longitudinal study of mother−child relationships in a middle-class, nonlitigating, divorced California population. At the time of divorce, all children were clinically evaluated to be on target academically and developmentally. The mothers had functioned competently as protective affectionate parents within the marriage. We found that over half of the mothers, especially those with two or more minor children, were significantly less available and less responsive to their children in the postdivorce years than during the failing marriage. One third of the mothers turned their priority from parenting during four or more immediate, postdivorce years to rebuilding intimate relationships along with intensive training to achieve economic independence. During these years, many of the adolescents engaged in delinquent activities and truancy, which subsided when the mother resumed supervision and stabilized family life. A striking collapse in maternal parenting occurred for one quarter of the mothers who struggled during the failed marriage with psychiatric problems and, following divorce, lost access to ongoing psychological treatment and stable family structure. Most failed to recover and were cared for by their adolescent children who themselves were in desperate need of parenting and support. These findings challenge the view of divorce as a time-limited crisis from which children with continued access to both parents will recover in under a year after the litigation is completed. The mother−child attachment suffers with the diminished parenting that often follows as a result of variables that require further investigation. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved)

This is getting a little too scientificky for me, but just found an article about some research out of North Carolina which found that oxytocin levels are lower in Children of Divorce. Oxytocin is connected with social behaviors and emotional attachments in early life. Oxytocin is a neuropeptide and is called “The Love Hormone” by those who know.

Below is the abstract for the article published in Journal of Comparative Psychology, Feb. 1, 2021:

“Parental Divorce in Childhood Is Related to Lower Urinary Oxytocin Concentrations in Adulthood

Maria L. Boccia and Christopher Cook Lesley Marson and Cort Pedersen Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, Charlotte, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

North Carolina

Oxytocin has been shown to be important for social behavior and emotional attachments in early life and may also mediate effects of early experiences on social motivation in adulthood. In animal models, early maternal separation results in alterations in the oxytocin system, with effects on sexual, maternal, and stress reactivity behaviors in adulthood. Studies of children experiencing parental divorce find effects on mood disorders, substance abuse, and other behaviors in adulthood. Here, we examine the effect of divorce on adult urine oxytocin levels. To stimulate oxytocin release, participants, aged 18 to 62, were asked to complete a set of questionnaires on attachment style, parental history of divorce (age at parental divorce ranged from 0 to 20), and other measures. A sample of urine was then collected for the oxytocin assay. Urine oxytocin concentrations were substantially lower (p 􏰀 .016) in subjects who experienced parental divorce (M 􏰀 3.70, Standard Error of the Mean 􏰀 0.73), compared to those who did not (M 􏰀 8.00, Standard Error of the Mean 􏰀 1.21), and correlated with responses on several attachment instruments. These results suggest that oxytocin levels are adversely affected by parental divorce in humans and may be related to attachment measures in adulthood.

Keywords: parental loss, maternal separation, attachment, caregiving, parenting”

Thank you very much to these researchers.

Here is an article called “5 Signs You’re Not Producing Enough Oxytocin, The Hormone Associated With Love.” Written by Yvette Manes, Feb. 16, 2017 on romper.com.

The signs are:

1. Don’t want to socialize.
2. Poor communication.
3. Low Libido.
4. Sugar cravings.
5. Distrustful.

The U.S. Census Bureau has published a new paper about growth of single-parent homes in the United States.

“There were 37.9 million one-person households, 29% of all U.S. households in 2022. In 1960, single-person households represented only 13% of all households.”

“The marital history of the parent who maintained one-parent family groups differed for fathers and mothers in 2022. Among one-parent family groups, 41% of single fathers were never married and 38% were divorced, compared to 51% of single mothers who were never married and 29% who were divorced. “

“80% of one-parent family groups were maintained by a mother.”

“The marital history of the parent who maintained one-parent family groups differed for fathers and mothers in 2022. Among one-parent family groups, 41% of single fathers were never married and 38% were divorced, compared to 51% of single mothers who were never married and 29% who were divorced.”

The Census publishes a yearly study called “America’s Families and Living Arrangements.” If you can read statistics you can find the data for 2022 here.

The answer to this one, in my own head because it happened to me, is “Fuck, Yes.”

Those step-mommies…they so nice…

There are articles on this on the internet, mostly posted by lawyers. Divorcing parents can create trusts for their children to protect them later on or by placing assets in a LLC Limited Liability Company. Here is an article about those fancy topics written by a lawyer. Turns out there is a new form of Estate Planning which takes this into account. Blood is not thicker than water in the case of divorce.

Loose Law Group states that children who are omitted from a will can’t claim a stake if the parent was married. I seem to remember that each state has different rules which is why my Step-Mother had my Father’s will rewritten six months before he died. I worked for a law firm at the time and made the mistake of asking one of the lawyers for a referral. The referral told me not to pursue the fight. But, I had a friend who fought her Father’s will and won. The Loose Law Group starts off by saying “What if you were forgotten?” But, in reality, lawyers put a phrase in the will which states that anyone who contests it is automatically rejected.

I’m trying to find a statistic for percentage of Children of Divorce who are disinherited. I remember that the partner of the lawyer who wrote the will, may he burn in hell, told me to read my step-mother’s will as if there was some comment on how good her intentions were. She burned through the money and remarried except for a trust which was partially mauled as well, may she burn in hell.

Here’s a link to a great paper which studies how well Children of Divorce do when they go to College, “Children of Divorce Versus Children of Intact Families and Their Adjustment to College” by Kimberly Martin, Rowan University.

Many interesting topics are included in the paper. Children who are older when their parents divorce are less likely to be attached to the college experience.

They are much less likely to go to the top schools. I wonder if this is because they aren’t recruited or if they don’t apply.

Girls will drop out and get jobs just to have financial independence.

Many interesting studies discussed. The paper is from 2004 so this was before the Great Recession. Many things Child of Divorce are heavily connected with finances if raised by a single mother (my opinion, but also discussed in the article).

Bicycling Champion, Cancer Survivor and Drugged Bicycling Champion Lance Armstrong is a Child of Divorce. This is an interesting blog post “Lance Armstrong and Some Lessons About Divorce – Law Office of Polly Tatum” written by a lawyer about how Armstrong’s problems are connected with being a Child of Divorce. It’s actually informed by an article in the Huffington Post which has been a great source for open talk about being a Child of Divorce. Polly Tatum says that the article by Barbara Goldberg describes how Armstrong’s perfectionism, need for control, determinism or need to “power through,” and competitiveness are results from mistakes divorced parents make with their children by expecting them to get through it without ever causing a scene and need for control for having been exposed to a chaotic childhood.

Astrology-wise, it’s interesting that Armstrong’s parents divorced when he was 2 years old. This would have been Armstrong’s first Mars return and Mars trauma at this age would be especially susceptible to struggling with those issues. Mars also describes a child who would want to be first at everything, would act first and think later, would power through, and I also found that children at this age will blame themselves for the split. Armstrong’s Father left and Armstrong never met him again. Armstrong’s website about health is still a huge positive influence on the internet.

Comedian George Carlin was a Child of Divorce. His Father left Carlin and his Mother and his older brother when Carlin was only two months old, according to Wikipedia. He talks about his Father’s alcoholism and violence as being the cause for the separation here on The Grunge. It must have been difficult being raised by a single Mother back in the 30’s and 40’s. According to Wikipedia Carlin ran away from home, was thrown out of a few high schools and received 3 court martials from the U.S. Airforce. He apparently loved summer camp and asked to have some of his ashes scattered over the lake in New Hampshire there. I guess it’s not difficult to understand where his counterculture attitude came from.

Here is a skit he performed called “Divorce Game” from his album AM FM. They spin the wheel for child custody (Mother loses custody and Father asks if they can spin the wheel again) and alimony.