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: Astrology stuff, Books, Healing, Possible Personality Traits of Children of D., therapy
Amazon.com is taking pre-orders for a new book that’s coming out concerning Adult Children of D and relationships. I haven’t looked at it but the synopses and reviews looks interesting. It’s pretty pricey at $40.00 so I guess it might be marketed to and written for Mental Health Professionals.
Adult Children of Divorce: Confused Love Seekers by Geraldine K. Piorkowski
An Astrological Note: The word “Confusion” indicates a link between Neptune and growing up in Divorce. “Romantic Love” in a chivalrous way is ruled by Sun/Leo. “Romantic Love” in an idealistic way is ruled by Neptune. Libra/Venus rules Marriage.
The Following Reviews and Synopsis are taken from Amazon.com:
Review
“Piorkowski demonstrates her masterful understanding of the developmental experiences that facilitate and those that interfere with intimate relationships.”–Alice Bernstein, PhD,, Past President, Chicago Association for Psychoanalytic Psychology“Piorkowski’s unique contribution is to help us understand why adult children of divorce find it so difficult to develop true intimacy. They frequently lack the blueprint that would enable them to move from an idealistic picture of romantic love to the more realistic one of commitment and skills needed to develop true long term sustaining relationships. Her penetrating analyis clearly indicates the urgent need to guide and support these confused love seekers.”–Michele Baldwin, PhD., Chicago Center for Family Health
“What is love? Our parents’ divorce undermined the idea that love is forever. The media feeds us the myth that love appears instantly and magically heals all our wounds. Today’s grown children of divorce are confused in the realm of love. Dr. Piorkowski brings a wealth of compassion, over twenty years of clinical experience, and a discerning eye on current research to help grown children of divorce to find the love they are looking for and to form the stable relationships they hope to give to their own children.”–Elizabeth Marquardt, Author, Between Two Worlds: The Inner Lives of Children of Divorce
“Dr. Piorkowski’s book defines in depth the concept of love from a philosophical, cultural and artistic perspective providing the reader with a foundation by which they can reach their own determination as to the true meaning and feeling of love. Aided with this knowledge, the reader can better understand an interpersonal relationship. Then the book focuses on the viable by-product of failed “love,” as most strongly illustrated by children of divorce. Piorkowski examines how they react and how they can manage their own relationships to avoid the pitfalls of the past.”–Floyd N. Nadler, P.C., Nadler, Pritikin & Mirabelli LLC
Product Description
Romantic love is often an elusive, fragile, and tenuous state, difficult to maintain across years. The rates of divorce, re-divorce, relationship violence, and abuse today attest to the fact that Americans are failing at romantic love. For teenaged and adult children of divorce, romantic love is especially elusive. Because they have no road map of a satisfying, stable romantic relationship derived from their own parents, they are confused about what love is and tend to make poor partner choices. Borrowing heavily from popular culture for their unrealistic standards regarding love, they become disillusioned when their all-too-ordinary lovers don’t measure up. Especially vulnerable to the problems their parents had, they tend to overreact in a similar negative fashion and are all too ready to consider divorce when unhappiness strikes. In trying to halt intergenerational transmission of divorce, Psychologist Piorkowski points out how American popular culture presents an over-sexualized, explosive, and superficial version of romantic love that can’t last. With this book, adult children of divorce can begin to recognize how they have been affected by familial experiences and develop a new, realistic map to provide directions for more fulfilling and enduring romantic relationships. Piorkowski, in an extensive review of literature, also looks at cultural factors and how they impact romantic love and marriage. In contrast to American popular culture’s shallow rendition of romantic love, many cultures elsewhere in the world emphasize compatibility, religion, and family allegiance. As a result, says the author, such marriages appear more stable than American unions built upon the shifting sands of emotion.
Filed under: Books, Possible Personality Traits of Children of D., therapy
Today while rummaging through the Library Book Sale I picked up a copy of The O. Henry Awards Prize Stories from 1999 and turned immediately to a story called “The Depressed Person” which starts out:
The Depressed person was in terrible and unceasing emotional pain, and the impossibility of sharing or articulating this pain was itself a component of the pain and a contributing factor in its essential horror.
Despairing, then of describing the emotional pain or expressing its utterness to those around her, the depressed person instead described circumstance, both past and ongoing, which were somehow related to the pain, to its etiology and cause, hoping at least to be able to express to others eomthing of the pain’s context, its–as it were–shape and texture. The depressed person’s parents, for example, who had divorced when she was a child, had used her as a pawn in the sick games they played…”
I had to buy the book and read the rest. Turns out the story is a very bitter black humor description of going through psychotherapy. Of course, the character has to be described as a Child of D and female in order to make people accept her as an emotional sponge. Er, I was angry. Since Wallace’s descriptions of growing up in Divorce were very outsiderish I didn’t think he was talking from personal experience. Men from Divorce in particular tend to be wise to other people’s feelings. This guy wasn’t. Or, at least, I’m angry that he misused this particular cliche. But the observation was right on and the story telling was great. And the sentences are really weird and well crafted.
I have to admit Wallace’s voice in the story was really strong. He seemed a lot like a loser ex boyfriend who was getting even with an old girlfriend, so I started googling his situation and found out that tragically Wallace has very recently committed Suicide. The story was about mental illness and the futility of going through therapy and the divorce just made the depression sound more reasonable. I was angry with the editor and the O.Henry Awards and everyone who has to pick on Children of D for their own private pathos. (I will add here that if you go to a Therapist and mention anything about your parent’s divorce you are immediately considered depressed. Children of D. are reacting to a real life event, whether their chemicals are nuts is a completely different thing.)
It’s a really awful coincidence that I find this story right now. Wallace passed away on September 12. May he Rest in Peace. His obituary is here:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/15/books/15wallace.html
Filed under: Books, Exemplary Children of Divorce, Movies About Growing Up in Divorce, Uncategorized
According to today’s USA Weekend Magazine, Comedian/Actor Jack Black is a Child of D. He grew up in the Los Angeles area in California and is the product of two Rocket Scientists (Engineers of some sort) who divorced when he was 10 years old. I’ve found sources saying that Black lived with his Mother and with his Father so I’m not sure which. Sounds like the suitcase was his home.
Black has married Tanya Haden who he has known since High School. His wife is the daughter of Jazz musician Charlie Haden and is one of a set of triplet girls all of whom are professional musicians. It sounds as if they are also from a split situation although I can’t tell if Charlie Haden actually ever married their Mother.
Black attended UCLA but dropped out in his Sophomore year to pursue his Entertainment career. Black and Haden met again 15 years after High School and fell in love. They married in 2006 and currently have two children, Sammy and Tommy.
One of Black’s first successful roles was in the movie High Fidelity about a record store clerk. I’ve mentioned the author of High Fidelity before, Nick Hornby, who is a Child of D as well and has written many humorous books that include the subject.
As well as short-term hobbies, his youth was defined by a long-term love of music. His parents suffered a difficult divorce when Black was 10, and he went to live with his mother in Culver City, near MGM Studios, where she rented out rooms to aspiring stars. A number of musicians passed through, instilling in Black a love of rock that finds its voice in the form of Tenacious D, his semi-comedic heavy metal band (who, incidentally, play second only to mega-group Metallica at the Reading Festival next month).
–http://www.telegraph.co.uk/arts/main.jhtml?xml=/arts/2008/06/27/bfjack127.xml&page=1
Ingrid Betancourt is a Columbian-French Politician who has just recently been released after being held prisoner in the jungles of Columbia by FARC Columbian Terrorists for 6 1/2 years. She was kidnapped while campaigning to become President of Columbia on February 23, 2002. She was the only woman held in the camp and was rescued along with many others being held in the camp (I believe 3 Americans were released as well).
Betancourt just gave an interview on Larry King Live. What an unbelievably strong and beautiful woman. The astrologers have been guffawing over the transits on the day of her rescue which are pretty heavy duty and while reading about her I noticed that she is also from a Divorced family.
Betancourt’s parents, also involved in Politics, divorced in 1975 when she would have been around 14 years old. They were living in France and Ingrid’s father was granted custody of her and her older sister. Her Mother returned to Columbia.
Ingrid married a fellow student in 1983 and through that marriage received a dual French-Columbian citizenship. The couple had two children, Melanie and Lorenzo, and then divorced around 1990 (?). The children lived with their Father in New Zealand after the Divorce. Betancourt remarried in 1997 and seems to have entered Politics around that time. I believe she was elected into the Senate.
Betancourt began her campaign for Presidency for the Green Party in 2001 and was kidnapped on Feb. 23, 2002 for campaigning in areas that she had been warned were dangerous. She was rescued on July 2, 2008.
Her Father passed away a month after she was kidnapped but her Mother is alive.
A book called Letter to My Mother was published a year or two ago that included a letter she wrote while imprisoned. It was apparently released along with a video of her. Her children wrote letters back to her which is included in the book. Betancourt has also written a memoir of her life called Until Death Do Us Part: My Struggle to Reclaim Columbia which was a bestseller in France and Columbia so she has a strong International following.
http://women.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/women/the_way_we_live/article4264852.ece
Jennifer Weiner is a very successful writer. She has written a number of Chick Lit style books, like In Her Shoes and Little Earthquakes. Weiner was the oldest of four children. When she was 16 her Father left and she apparently spent much of her college years writing sad and miserable stories about her parents’ Divorce. I wonder if those still exist.
At any rate, Weiner doesn’t forget her “roots” in the Divorce Hell and quite nicely offers advice and hope to young Children of D:
“1. The Unhappy Childhood
The big joke in the publishing community is that smart editors shouldn’t waste their time at lunches or conferences, but should instead proceed directly to the local elementary schools. There, they will carefully note the boys picked last in gym class, the girls sitting alone in the cafeteria – all of the outcasts, misfits, geeks, dweebs and weirdos – and give them some kind of small identifying tag (much like wildlife services will tag animals to follow their progress through the years). Twenty years later, the editors should track down the kids they’ve tagged, now hopefully grown to more successful adulthood, and say, “Okay, where’s the book?”
Why do unhappy kids grow up to be writers? I think because being an outsider – a geek, a dweeb, a weirdo, a smart, mouthy girl or boy who just doesn’t fit in – means that you’re naturally equipped for observing life carefully. You’re not on the inside, you’re on the outside – and nobody’s a more careful, dedicated observer of life than a kid or teenager who’s trying to figure out how to finally fit in with the in-crowd.
Also (and this is totally my own take on things, unproven by any kind of study or research), but I think that kids whose parents are divorced, separated, single, or otherwise un-Cleaver-ish might have a slight edge over those who grew up in happily-married homes. For kids, divorce is a mystery, a puzzle that begs to be put back together – what went wrong? Was it my fault? Can Humpty Dumpty be put back together again? All of these questions reinforce the powers of observation, the questioning spirit, the impulse to try to make sense of life that can lead to becoming a writer. Or a mass murderer, I guess, but hopefully a writer instead. So if you’re a would-be writer whose parents are divorced, be happy. If you’re married, and a parent, and trying to turn your kid into a writer, please don’t break up just because I said so. Because by the time our theoretical young writer has figured out that fitting in with the in-crowd isn’t a consummation devoutly to be wished, and has given up trying to make sense of Why Daddy Doesn’t Live Here Anymore, it will be time for…..
from www.jenniferweiner.com/forwriters.htm
Okay. Now I get it. A Materialistic Society will do anything to make a Sale. The Media won’t discuss divorce because they’re beholden to Big Businss and Big Business is booming because Split Families are good for the Economy.
Women in the workplace adds income to the family. So more spending money. I grew up around families where the Father worked and the Mother stayed at home and everybody was frugal. Nobody spent like they do today. People didn’t own all this crap.
But, even better, when Families split they spend twice as much all over again. Two pink and purple comforters, two pink and purple toothbrushes for the girls. One at Mommy’s. One at Daddy’s. Two black and orange comforters, two black and orange toothbrushes for the boys. Twice the stash. Industry loves Split Families!
Found a book that discusses this called Cycles: How We Will Live, Work and Buy by Maddy Dychtwald.
From the section called “Blended Families” p. 120:
With the divorce rate hovering at around 50 percent remarriage involving the blending of families is a growing reality in the cyclic life. One-third of all Americans belong to stepfamilies. Everyone, for instance, knows someone who has more than one set of children from more than one marriage.
************
Buying Implications
Blended families are a new consumer target, ripe with duplicate buying implications. Consider a blended family in which a teenage daughter comes to live with her new baby stepbrother, dad, and stepmom. This arrangement might be for weekends only, for an extended period of time, or as part of a joint custody arrangement. In any case, she’ll need her own phone, a computer with modem hookup, bedspread, pillows, furniture, makeup and hair accessories, clothes, coats, shoes, and luggage. She’ll have to have a similar setup at the home of her mother. She may even need a special pet that makes each house feel like home. The baby, in turn, needs everything from crib to formula. If the example features a pair of younger children, figure in sports equipment, a basketball hoop and bicycle, ballet clothes, handheld games, and videos. Make the example child a little older and you can throw in a car, and the insurance that goes with it. Don’t forget medical insurance and the convenient network of pediatricians, dentists, and orthodontists that works for everyone. And, in all likelihood, when the family blends, it will make an overt effort at a fresh start. That means new dishes and silverware, artwork, furniture, books, and plants.
It also menas potential conflicts and accommodations over holidays and LifeCycle punctuation points such as birthdays, graduations, and weddings….
(we won’t go there today, buy the book if you need examples of how stressful these situations are)
A question that often arises is who pays for college education in a blended family? When families blend, the need for financial advice and planning increases significantly, requiring the cooperation of sometimes-hostile parties. A good financial planner (who doubles as a psychologist at times) can help blended families better prepare for the financial burden of private schools, summer camps, supplemental education needs, and indispensible and often pricey college educations.
It’s still the Economy, Stupid!!!!
And who’s going to Colleges? Didn’t Judith Wallerstein already determine that children from divorce are way more likely to drop out of college? And she was studying kids from Marin, one of the most wealthy spots on the planet (supposedly).
If Barack Obama becomes President there’s no chance in Hell white kids will ever be able to compete for scholarships. It’s assumed that we’re all Ivy Leaguers already because that’s all that Obama has ever known. He doesn’t even know that half of the country is from single parent homes, doesn’t matter what the race. But listen to that narrow minded Father’s Day speech he just gave the country. Supposedly only Black Fathers dissappear…. Hmph. That speech really took a lot of nerve.
