Filed under: Abandonment, Books, Exemplary Children of Divorce, Immigration and Divorce, creativity
Junot Diaz is an MIT professor and Pulitizer Prize Winner and Child of D. I’ve passed by his novel The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao often in the library and in bookstores, but I didn’t know until I heard an NPR show this morning (Nov. 27 or 28, 2008? sorry I’m publishing this a few weeks behind) that Junot Diaz writes variations on memoir about his childhood which includes long separations from his Father. Diaz was born in the Dominican Republic. His Father went to America early in his life and so was absent for much of Diaz’s childhood. Later on the family joined the Father in New Jersey but his Father left them at that point. This happened in 1979 when Diaz would have been around 11 years old. In the NPR Interview Diaz says that he writes from the point of view of growing up as a poor immigrant but he also describes life with an erratic Father presence. I haven’t read his writings but it sounds like he does touch a bit on the subject of separation. Mostly he seems to speak from the point of view of immigration — there’s a bigger audience for this, a complaint that America is proud of rather than interested in sweeping under the rug, ah hem…
Divorce among Immigrants is certainly an interesting topic. Although I have no personal experience in this area, I’ve heard a couple of times that Immigrant families will stick together out of necessity because of moving to a strange place. If that tends to be true a separation connected with a move to a foreign land would make for an extra complicated childhood.
Filed under: College Drop Out, Exemplary Children of Divorce, creativity
As I’ve said before I don’t like to add a whole lot of Actors and Actresses to the Exemplaries List. Not because their lives and feelings don’t count, but just because Superstardom is sort of an unusual life experience that doesn’t apply to a lot of people. A whole lot of it depends on having the “It” factor and so much of real success in life comes from hard work, determination, self-confidence, intelligence, etc.
(Also, I suspect that Children of D might overall be more attractive than kids from Divorce. I think that it might be more difficult for attractive and magnetic Parents not to give in to temptations like having affairs (and being vain and egocentric and arrogant) and so might be more likely to do things which lead to having multiple relationships in life. They are more likely to want to pursue something better and bigger and more perfect in life. Their kids might be better looking and more genetically enhanced from a physcial stand-point in this regard and so more easily successful in fields that require such attributes. This is just a supposition of mine).
Actress Courtney Cox is the Actress best known for her hilarious portrayal of Monica in the Friends series on TV. Turns out she’s a Child of D. Cox’s parents divorced in 1974 when she would have been around Age 10. Her childhood is described on Wikipedia here:
Cox was born Courteney Bass Cox in Birmingham, Alabama to a wealthy Southern family. Her parents were Courteney (née Bass) and Richard Lewis Cox, a contractor.[1] Cox has two older sisters (Virginia McFerrin and Dottie Pickett), an older brother (Richard, Jr.) and nine half-brothers and half-sisters. Her parents divorced in 1974, and her father eventually settled in Panama City, Florida, where he opened a company called Cox Pools, while Cox grew up with her mother and her stepfather, New York businessman Hunter Copeland.
She is speaking out in the link listed below about how her own attitude to her marriage is reflected in her Father’s attitude to his Divorce.
http://omg.yahoo.com/news/courteney-cox-divorce-is-not-an-option/16824?nc
This is the revealing part:
Cox’s parents parents divorced when she was a child. “Before my dad died, he said one of his big regrets was that he hadn’t worked on their marriage enough. I don’t know what the future’s going to hold, but divorce isn’t really an option,” she said.
How much is “enough?” Who knows? Each family is different. What’s right for one person, or family, isn’t right for another person or family. Thing is, the kids are part of the marriage. They also have to live with the divorce for the rest of their lives. Something that the parents don’t really have to do.
Filed under: Uncategorized
Good for Newsweek Magazine! They seem to be lone voices in the media for Children of Divorce. Of course, they don’t seem to show the difficult stories, nobody would buy the magazine if they told much of the truth, but, still, they are bringing up the socially acceptable parts of growing up in Divorce.
This link shows a 14 year old girl, Charlotte, who switches back and forth between her mother’s and father’s houses every other day and she seems very happy to do so. This is possible, of course, because she lives in Brooklyn and her parents live only 10 blocks away from each other so she can walk back and forth between houses on her own. God help the kid who has to sit around waiting to be picked up by parents for a ride back and forth between homes. The parents get along and seem to be friends at this point. Step-parents and step-families aren’t discussed, if they exist. Both parents seem to be financially stable. The parents divorced when the girl was 2 years old.
Charlotte says that she prefers to move back and forth between houses every other day because it would be such a hassle to catch each parent up on a whole week’s worth of activities if custody time were split on a weekly basis.
Here’s a link to the video and the written story along with many reader’s comments. For some reason the Divorced parents have to keep wedge themselves in on the discussion and whine about their own problems. I’ll just never understand that level of self-absorption. Oh well.:
http://www.newsweek.com/id/174698
Filed under: Exemplary Children of Divorce
Yahoo has published a list of the women it considers to be 2008’s greatest influences in the World. As usual, my information may not be accurate because Divorce is often not discussed in Child of D’s biographies. Politically it is incorrect to admit to such a childhood until after one is very secure in one’s success in life. On the list I have found two definites: Angelina Jolie and Oprah Winfrey. Barbara Walters’ parents may not have been divorced (which is different) but her Father was absent from a lot of her childhood.
Here’s the Link: http://buzz.yahoo.com/yearinreview2008/women/.
Here’s the List:
Angelina Jolie: YES
Sarah Palin: NO
Oprah Winfrey: YES
Hillary Clinton: NO
Gina Carano: NO
Tina Fey: NO
Michelle Obama: NO
Katie Couric: NO
Barbara Walters: Myeh… NO
Dara Torres: NO
Filed under: Uncategorized
Filed under: Birth Order, College Drop Out, Exemplary Children of Divorce, High School Drop Out, Mentally Ill parents, Movies About Growing Up in Divorce, Nutrition, School Drop Out - High School or College, creativity, self injury
Johnny Depp gave an incredible performance of an oldest Son growing up while living with a helpless, obese, single mother and younger brother in the movie: What’s Eating Gilbert Grape?
Probably not really good Holiday Viewing, though. Just happened to think of it right now.
Johnny Depp is a Child of D. His parents would have divorced around the time that Depp was 15. Here’s an except from his biography on Wikipedia.
Depp was born in Owensboro, Kentucky, the son of Betty Sue Palmer (née Wells), a waitress, and John Christopher Depp, Sr., a civil engineer.[3] He has one brother, Danny, and two sisters, Christie (now his personal manager) and Debbie. … The family moved frequently during Depp’s childhood, and he and his siblings lived in more than 20 different locations, settling in Miramar, Florida, in 1970. In 1978, Depp’s parents divorced. He engaged in self-harm as a child, due to the stress of dealing with family problems and his own insecurity. He has seven or eight scars from practicing self-harm. In a 1993 interview, he explained his self-injury by saying, “My body is a journal in a way. It’s like what sailors used to do, where every tattoo meant something, a specific time in your life when you make a mark on yourself, whether you do it yourself with a knife or with a professional tattoo artist”.[8]
1980s
Depp’s mother bought her son a guitar when he was 12, and Depp began playing in various garage bands. His first band was in honor of his girlfriend, Meredith. A year after his parents’ divorce, Depp dropped out of high school to become a rock musician. As he once explained on Inside the Actors Studio, he attempted to go back to school two weeks later, but the principal told him to follow his dream of being a musician. …
Filed under: Birth Order, Possible Personality Traits of Children of D., Suicide, Violence
A couple of weeks ago a 19 year old College Student named Abraham Biggs, Jr. committed Suicide from his Father’s home and broadcast his death over the Internet. The stories don’t mention whether he was a Child of D but the fact that he was “living in his Father’s home” and text massaging his Mother indicates that the parents are separated. If I’m jumping to conclusions I will have to delete this later on. Since there have been a couple of other similar suicides broadcast over the Internet that have been connected with Divorce in the family there might be a connection.
Abraham was diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder and obviously wasn’t being helped by the meds — to an extreme degree — because he killed himself with them. Biggs had tried to kill himself twice before. I don’t know why the Medical profession isn’t more careful with psychiatric “treatments” but, what do I know?
The especially horrifying part of the story that is being covered in the media is the fact that the other members of the Internet forum were simply watching Abraham take the pills. They were apparently goading him on and making fun of him. I tend to think that this might be a Child of D type phenomenon. Humiliation is probably not felt as strongly among Children of D simply because they are expected to cover up and buck up under the circumstances of their childhoods. Getting swept up in hatred is a normal part of divorced family life. And asking for help? That might make a parent feel guilty or threaten a therapist’s ego who simply refuses to believe that Divorce has negative effects on Children.
For a Child of D,putting one’s problem out into the public domain is not as extreme a behavior as it is for kids from intact families. You grow up with so much more awareness of your parents’ personal problems that problems don’t seem like a private thing. The relationships, the idea that everyone is replaceable, the money bartering, the fighting, the worthlessness, the extra responsibilities, having to repress your needs for your parents’.
Something else I’m beginning to notice about kids and divorce is that the younger children seem to get pulled under from the stress much worse than the eldest or the only children. In all the cases of these Internet deaths the person committing the crime was a younger child. Siblings in Divorce usually stick together. They share a special set of secrets. When the oldest one leaves the house, the youngest have to deal with the stress by themselves. They actually act as a stable, non-strange part of the family that the eldest can always return to. The parents become the satellites who provide meals and quality time (if the kid is lucky) but are dependent emotionally and probably not considered reliable.
In this way, the youngest has to take on a lot of extra responsibility and as the youngest this responsibility is never acknowledged. There is also the possibility that, as in normal families, the youngest is spoiled with material possessions and is allowed to run around free. Just as likely, the money runs out by the time the youngest is ready for prom dresses, regular meals, cars, college. Divorce isn’t the most sensible experience from a financial standpoint unless one of the parents is just completely irresponsible and is cast out.
Either way, I hope that Abraham Biggs, Jr. will rest in peace. I don’t wish his Parents anymore insults if they are indeed Divorced. They certainly don’t need it right now. But in the event that the parents were split I would like to raise awareness for others that this may be a problem for other kids.
******
The other American Webcam Suicide that I found was also a Child of D. Brandon Carl Vedas, Age 21, who committed Suicide publicly on the Internet on Jan. 21, 2003 in Phoenix, AZ. His parents were divorced and both were remarried. His older brother has set up a very nice memorial website for him.
An Englishman, Kevin Whitrick, hanged himself while being goaded over the Internet through a webcam on Mar. 21, 2007. I can’t find information about his childhood. Whitrick was a 42 year old Engineer, Divorced with 12 year old twins. Apparently he was upset over his Father’s recent death.
There was a 3d death which was listed on Wikipedia but I couldn’t come up with any information regarding the family.
Filed under: Uncategorized
In the last half of December there will be some transits coming up that could turn one’s happy home into a bar room brawl, especially where kids and young boys are concerned. Around the middle of the month there could be a need to argue with the status quo. In classical families this usually means that the children rebel. In Divorce it usually means that the parents rebel and the kids hold it in.
Right around Christmas-time (Dec. 26) things could get really intense emotionally as there will be a conjunction of the Moon (emotions), Mars (fighting) and Pluto (sabotage) on a very prominent degree which signifies Authority. This indicates willfulness and just flat out violence. Since it will be in Capricorn there might be a need for a cautious, approach and tolerance. Pluto might mean that everyone bottles up their feelings and then explodes.
If experienced on a higher level this might mean a greater maturity to solving problems. Time heals all. One must use creative ways to fix problems. Don’t use the last two weeks of December to lay blame on anyone; they won’t take it very well. We’re all adults here (especially the underage Children of D).
Tolerance. Grace. Peace. I’d like to use the word “Love” but that’s pushing it for a kid who is going through the first couple of years of his/her parents’ divorce. I remember how awful that word sounded at this time of year. Get out of the House if things get bad — this aspect loves physical exercise and a healthy diet. Watch that movie “Bad Santa.”
