Spoiled Children of Divorce

Heard an interesting interview with a psychologist on NPR about the PTSD in the Veterans coming home from Iraq.

For one, I would be most interested in learning the percentage of Veterans who come from Divorced families who are fighting over in the War.  It makes sense that Children of D, with no place to go once they hit Age 18, would join the military.  I also wonder if there is a bigger than normal rate of PTSD among the Children of D.  That’s a lot of stress to load on anybody, but the kids from Divorce have already grown up in Divorce.  Perhaps the advanced military awareness of the condition during this War is a sign of the awareness that Children of D have to their reactions to stress.

The Interview also said that the military was calling the PTSD a wound rather than a mental illness in order to lower the stigma involved in having a weakness, especially in the Military which only accepts Strength.

Of course, Children of D, who grow up in War Zones, can never be diagnosed with PTSD.  They would never be diagnosed with a “Wound.”  That places blame on 50 percent of the parents in the United States. It also places blame on all the psychiatrists and psychologists who have been allowing it to happen without speaking up.  These people as adults will always, always be diagnosed with Mental Illness if the suppressed fears and feelings come up later in life.

Comparison Statistics, I can’t vouch for accuracy.

Rate of Psychological Illness in Iraq War Veterans – 28 Percent? http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2005-10-18-troops-side_x.htm

Rate of Psychological Illness in Children of Divorce – 25-30 Percent?

http://www.smartmarriages.com/divorce_brief.html

just Statistics related to Fatherless Children: http://www.deltabravo.net/custody/stats.php

Translated, this means that children from a fatherless home are:

• 5 times more likely to commit suicide
• 32 times more likely to run away
• 20 times more likely to have behavioral disorders
• 14 times more likely to commit rape
• 9 times more likely to drop out of school
• 10 times more likely to abuse chemical substances
• 9 times more likely to end up in a state operated institution

20 times more likely to end up in prison”

A few months ago I went to a lecture in which the speaker was differentiating between Decision and Choice.  He said that Decision is a deliberate act that requires planning and tenacity.  Choice is more of an intuitive thing where you just feel what’s in your gut and go with that. Parents who divorce for the reason that they just want to move on will teach how to make a “Choice” to their children rather than how to build a life through Decision making.

Since that lecture I’ve been seeing the word “Choice” everywhere but I don’t often see the word “Decision”. I believe that I’ve read that Divorce is a symptom of a wealthy society.  And our wealthy society seems to offer huge choices.  We have to chose between Whole Milk, 2 percent, 1 percent, Skim.  Paper or plastic?  Plastic, really? While you’re telling that to the bag person you’re also being asked by the cashier:  cash, credit or debit?  Plastic, really? Money back?

I wonder if this is the only way that marketers and psychologists can grab the attention of the Divorce crowd. The kids grow up having to chose everything. They expect to be barraged with these stupid questions all day.  I suppose this is a form of being spoiled. It’s also a very complex form of childhood. Children are supposed to be developing in harmony with the boundaries around them. They are supposed to be guided.  One would think that there would actually be more guidance from parents in a wealthy society.  Instead there’s a constant conversation stream of Do you want to visit your Father on Friday or Saturday night? Do you want to go for pizza or for for Chinese? Do you want to call me to get out of there early if his girlfriend starts bothering you? Choice. Choice. Choice. It sort of doesn’t matter what you chose. Just chose it and move on to the next thing.  The kids in intact families go home and just ask “what’s for dinner?”

So I tried to watch Oprah today because the show was all about Children of D. Oprah replayed a show from last year about how if parents don’t deal with their kids’ feelings about divorce then the kids will be destroyed forever. Oprah knows all, what can I say?

The show is about parenting, of course.  Not about being from a divorced family.  It’s meant to teach parents how to not mess up their kids.  Difference is that Oprah tells people that the problems that their kids develop will last with them for their entire lifetimes if not dealt with.  She tells the parents that they can help their kids.

Expert Gary Newman (maybe not spelling his name correctly?) talks about how the parents must not assume that their kids are ok just because the kids don’t talk about their feelings.  The parents need to get their kids to talk and Newman says that you do this not by setting them down in a formal chat session or by waiting for them to talk.  You talk about the Divorce while doing something else.  I thought this was a great idea.  He crayons with the little ones while they talk. Don’t know what he does with the insolent teens but Oprah says he can work wonders.  And the thing about the “opening up” is that it seemed to really be helping the people who were on the show.  I don’t mind therapy if it actually helps (which is rare I have to add).

Newman also differentiated fighting between parents in divorced and fighting in intact families.  This was great. I’ve never heard of a therapist who would distinguish the difference. Kids from intact families see their parents fighting and then they see them make up.  Fighting in divorced families never gets better.  It’s just fighting.  As a result, the kids become the stable ones in the family.  This is so true!

Unfortunately, most of the show in my area was preempted by the local news because of a tragic event so I missed huge chunks.  I saw the last minutes where a teenage girl who had been acting out through promiscuity looked like she really did get some closure over the tensions from her parents’ divorce.  She looked pretty young to be in that situation.  Her mother had left her Father seven years before because she had had an affair.  The daughter had witnessed the affair and had never told anyone until two days before the show.  This silence is so much a part of growing up in Divorce!  Seven years.  Most people my age don’t discuss it still.  The Mother actually admitted that she had literally not thought about her daughter’s feelings, she had been so caught up in her own stuff.  This is also so much part of growing up in Divorce!  What a relief to see a parent just say it.  I used to know a guy who had a really awful story that of course he never talked about with his parents.  When he was five he heard his Father beating up his Mother in the bedroom and went to see what was going on.  As he got to the door his parents started having sex. Not only a stressful situation from the fighting, but his introduction to Sex.  It was also the last time he saw his Father.  Am I the only one who runs into people with stories like this?  Most kids from divorce I’ve met have a story like this, well, not everything all at once and then never again like this, but the extreme level of tension that no one talks about.

I don’t think there was any discussion of step-parents, step-siblings, mixed families, money, and a host of other problems that seem prominent but as I said I missed most of the show.

One annoying thing was that Oprah kept insisting that girls handle the silenced experiences through depression while boys “flat line” emotionally and then fly off into rages.  In my family my step-sister and I became the rage-oholics later in life.  The boys somehow were allowed as adolescents to be angry and to crash cars and then they sort of mellowed out in depressed types.   Anyway, girls definitely grow up to have problems with rage.

“What thou lov’st well is thy true heritage.”

–Ezra Pound

Got to watch part of Oprah today and saw that she will have a show about Children of D coming up this Friday.  That’ll be June something, something.  Not sure of the date.  Also not sure of the Expert she’s going to be interviewing.

Here’s an interesting phenomenon that I hope is a fall-out from the Divorce culture. The Genius of the Group. The idea is started by musician Brian Eno (I don’t think a Child of D). I wonder if this is something that’s easier to do if one grows up in an Intact family or in a divorced family. At any rate, Society as a whole has been doing a lot of dumb things and we certainly could use a new approach to finding answers.

Scenius is like genius, only embedded in a scene rather than in genes. Brian Eno suggested the word to convey the extreme creativity that groups, places or “scenes”  can occasionally generate. His actual definition is:  “Scenius stands for the intelligence and the intuition of a whole cultural scene. It is the communal form of the concept of the genius.”

I personally think that divorce is more likely to create alienated, disrupted people who just want to settle down and have a peaceful life.

http://www.kk.org/thetechnium/archives/2008/06/scenius_or_comm.php