Voices of Children of Divorce: Their Own Words On *Feeling Caught in the Middle *Visitation and Keeping Commitments *Mom and Dad Dating and Sex *Remarriage and Stepfamilies *Their Own Future Marriages

Introduction

For the past ten years I have worked as a mediator at the Circuit Court of Cook County’s Marriage and Family Counseling Service (MFCS) in Chicago, trying to help divorcing parents resolve custody and visitation disputes.

Typically, divorce mediation is handled by a private mediator, and the couples decide for themselves to try mediation. There may be a dispute about the house, about money, or even about the children, but they agree on one thing: They would like to resolve their differences and avoid dragging everyone through a trial.

At MFCS it can be a very different story. The Circuit Court of Cook County is the largest unified court system in the United States; its mediation department of twenty-one psychologists, social workers, and attorneys is among the largest of its type in the country. The parents we see are ordered by a judge to attend mediation, often against their will. We do not mediate any financial or property disputes—those conflicts are for the private mediators to hash out. Instead, we handle only the most volatile of feuds: custody and visitation.

The psychological and emotional torment of these cases makes most other divorces look courteous. It is no coincidence that the only Cook County judge murdered while sitting on the bench was not a criminal court judge or a civil court judge but a divorce judge. Few events can drive an otherwise sane person mad like divorce, and no divorce cases are as brutal as those in which the parents are fighting over the children.

Since many of our clients are the victims of physical or emotional abuse by their spouses, we must ensure that the mediation process provides a safe and effective environment and does not become another circumstance for abuse. Therefore, we use a variety of techniques to help parents resolve their custody disputes: standard mediation, where two parents are together with one mediator; co-mediation, where two mediators meet with the parents together; caucusing, where the parents meet together but with short breaks to allow the mediator to meet individually with each parent in order to overcome specific obstacles; and, finally, shuttle mediation, a somewhat cumbersome process in which there is no face-to-face contact between the parents—each parent is seen separately by the mediator, then waits in a protected area while the other parent is seen, alternating in this way for the duration of each session.

Often these parents do not want resolution, they want retribution and revenge. They want their day in court. They want the world to know what they or their children have suffered at the hands of their tormentors, their spouses. These are the parents we see in the mediation department—and their children are the reason our department exists.

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It would be nice to say that I ended up working with children of divorce because it was my lifelong calling, but the truth is I had just put a bid on a house and needed more money. I reluctantly left a job in a hospital that I enjoyed and accepted the position at MCFS because it paid more. Though the work sounded intriguing, all told it was not an auspicious beginning—and I did not feel any better once I started. First, there were the angry couples—enough alone to give me second thoughts. Second, I was now part of the court system. Even though my experience with the court system did not extend beyond traffic court or jury duty, the thought of courtrooms made me uncomfortable if not downright fearful. Somehow, even though we are all innocent until proven guilty, I’ve always found it hard to feel anything but guilty while looking up at a judge looking down at me. Almost instantly I found myself wondering how such a setting must feel to the children stuck in the system. These children were among my new clients—and it was with them that I first began to see the rewards of my new job.

Over the past ten years at MFCS I have interviewed well over one thousand of these children. My time with them has provided some of the most meaningful hours I have had in my professional life. These children are frequently eloquent, poignant, and enlightening about divorce—from the six-year-old who begged me to let her move in with me to get away from her mother’s constant criticism of her father, to the teenager who told me that he wished he were gay so he would never be tempted to get married and have children to screw up. In turns heartbreaking, perceptive, funny, frustrating, startling, touching, horrifying, and everything else imaginable, their stories are best at expressing what divorce is like for those caught in the middle.

As part of our mediation service we interview children between the ages of four and eighteen, not to put them in the position of having to make decisions for their parents—in fact, the whole point of the mediation process is to prevent them from getting caught in the middle—but rather to get a sense of how they are doing under the circumstances. By definition, if we see them, that means Mom and Dad are fighting over them, and the children will usually be under a tremendous amount of stress. Our meeting with the children is a chance for us to say time out and to determine exactly what they need, be it counseling, therapy, or simply an opportunity to express what their parents’ conflict is doing to them.

Divorcing parents often lose sight of the injuries suffered by their children. During a divorce, parents have the luxury of being able to take a one-sided view of things. They may no longer see, or wish to see, anything that might be positive in the other parent. But most often children remain devoted, if only in secret, to both sides. Their love for Mom and Dad has not changed, though now it is overlaid with a mist of fear and uncertainty. While it once was fine to say, I love you, Dad, with Mom in the room, now it may not be. The child’s internal tug-of-war has begun.

Even the most dedicated parents might not see how deeply their children suffer. Sometimes this is because their children become experts at hiding their emotions, but more often it is because the parents wish to believe that their children are being spared the pain of divorce. While it is commonly accepted that divorce can have a significant impact on children, parents rarely think that the children who are hurt or damaged are their own. Thank God my kids are doing okay, they think. At least they’re not going through what my cousin’s kids went through. When I discuss with parents the conversations I have had with their children, they are often shocked by what I report. They are also moved—at times to such a degree that they drop their fight and begin to move on.

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No child emerges from divorce unaffected, but how parents deal with their children—and each other—during a divorce will determine just how deep and visible any scars will be. To that end, for parents who are separating, are already separated, or are in the process of divorcing, here are some guidelines to help their children through this tough time. The rules emphasize the concept of co-parenting, which involves the continued cooperation between parents who otherwise may have nothing to do with each other.

1. Keep children from being caught in the middle. Parents should communicate directly with each other. Avoid using the children as messengers or putting them in the position of having to choose one parent over the other. That way, each parent-child relationship can remain separate and secure.

2. If you as a parent do not have something nice to say about the other parent, then do not say anything at all. Otherwise, the child will feel a need to either express his loyalty to you or defend the other parent. In both cases, the child loses.

3. Parent-child time is sacred and needs to be respected by each parent—not as a favor for the other parent but as a gift to the child, one that he or she deserves and needs.

4. Honor your commitments to your children, especially in the area of time spent together. For noncustodial parents, this means being on time for pickups, avoiding cancellations, and making sure the time together is focused on the child. Children often feel abandoned during a divorce and wonder if a parent can divorce them as well. Being consistent with visitation tells children that they can count on you to be there for them. For custodial parents it is important to set aside time for the children for the same reasons. They may need more comforting and assurance during and after the divorce.

5. New and appropriate boundaries must be created. First, each parent must accept the other parent’s role in the child’s life and not use the parent-child bond to trespass into the other parent’s personal life. For example, a child should not be expected to retrieve items that one parent wants from the other parent’s residence or be asked to spy or report on the activities of the other parent, such as who he or she is dating. Second, the boundary between parent and child must be firmly set. If a child asks why the divorce is happening, a parent must walk a fine line between suitable information and total honesty. What one might tell a close friend—I could take all the bickering and money problems we had, but when he started sleeping with his carpool partner, that did it—could be confusing or even devastating to a child.

6. Maintaining the hierarchy of the parent-child relationship is critical. Do not look to the child for comfort and support. Children are often eager to step into the void and take care of Mom or Dad. This is unfair to the child and can impede the child’s own process of healing.

These guidelines are important to help the child keep from feeling that he or she has slipped through the cracks during divorce. However, there are situations where co-parenting is neither desirable nor safe. If there is a history of abusive behavior, measures must be taken to safeguard, as much as possible, against any future instances of abuse. Children do best when their environment is one of safety and respect, and it is the responsibility of the parents to create such an environment. If family violence is a concern, aid should be sought through a local shelter, hospital, hotline, clergy, or mental health professional experienced in the area of family violence.

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Some of the comments made by the children in this book may be a bit jolting, and none more so than this one from Natalie, nineteen: Sometimes, I honestly wish my dad had died [instead of getting a divorce].… People would have sympathy for us. People would have understood. They wouldn’t have judged. As sad as that may be, it illustrates the parallel between the two major categories of loss for a child: death and divorce. Children often describe being more terrified of divorce than of parental death. Yet, as Natalie suggests, a child whose parents have died stands a better chance of getting the attention he or she needs than does a child whose parents have split up. From an adult’s perspective it is easy to underestimate the weight of a child’s grief when his parents divorce.

Like anyone who has experienced a major loss, children of divorce must be allowed to grieve the loss. Stages of grieving that children undergo during divorce include anger, denial, bargaining, depression, and, it is hoped, acceptance, stages that are typically associated with death and dying but can also apply to anyone experiencing a severe loss. It can be difficult with children, however, to recognize these stages for what they are, since a particular stage of grieving can look one way in an adult but completely different in a child. An understanding of these stages can aid parents or other adults in helping a child heal.

It is important to realize that the stages of grieving are not as clear-cut in real life as they are on paper. How long the child grieves and at what points during a divorce a child may go through certain stages are dependent on many factors, from the child’s psychological and emotional state, and personality, to how the parents are coping with the divorce themselves and whether the parent seeks help, if necessary, for the child. Also, these stages can overlap. Certain stages might last longer than others, and a child might backtrack to an earlier stage of grieving, especially during times of increased stress. Still, it helps to have a general idea of what to expect from a child who is working through his grief.

Anger is among the easiest of these stages to spot and understand. A younger child who is having more tantrums or has started biting and an older child who seems to be flying off the handle for no apparent reason might be expressing anger in the only way they know how, especially if they are not being encouraged to share their feelings verbally. A teen who becomes abusive to younger siblings might be venting anger that he is actually feeling toward his parents.

Denial is a powerful defense that allows the child to digest the magnitude of a loss at her own pace, and it is a signal that the loss is simply too much for the child to take in at the moment. However, denial in children can often lull parents into the false belief that everything is fine. She’s so resilient, she never even gave a second thought to the divorce after we told her about it. But no child goes through her parents’ divorce without experiencing pain. Children simply don’t know how to cope with such feelings—or to express them—and will choose denial as a way to try to make such feelings go away. Parents who believe their child has adjusted perfectly have probably missed small signals of distress that the child is probably sending out. A child might tell her school friends that everything is fine at home even after one parent has moved out. She might tell herself that the situation is temporary or that it is just a bad dream from which she will someday awaken. Though denial is a valuable defense, it is time-limited. Eventually, reality can no longer be ignored, even by the most sturdy of children. A child may be able to handle pain with denial for a little while, but at some point that pain must be faced.

The phenomenon of bargaining might be less obvious. For example, a parent who is trying to keep the marriage together may openly bargain with a spouse, saying, I’ll change if you stay, where a child may bargain more covertly. For instance, a child whose room is usually in a state of disarray may begin keeping his room in perfect order, making his bed every day and neatly folding and putting away his clothes. In that child’s mind, his room might have caused Mom and Dad’s arguing. Therefore, if he keeps things neat, Mom and Dad won’t need to argue and won’t divorce.

Younger children are especially prone to such thinking, since they believe that the universe revolves around them. By that thinking, however, they also bear the ultimate responsibility, which is one reason that they often take divorce so hard, since they consider themselves to blame when they fail to prevent it. Bargaining, in all its varied forms, is a child’s attempt to correct what she believes she caused in the first place.

Depression is another condition that can be difficult to recognize in a child. Often the result of anger that is repressed, depression in a child may be obvious from certain signs such as lethargy, loss of appetite, disturbances of sleep, and feelings of hopelessness and despair, but it can also show up as a mix of despair and anger. Fights in school, heightened trouble with siblings, an increased oppositional stance toward authority—all can be symptoms of depression in children. Where an adult might verbalize his or her pain, the child may act out these feelings.

One excellent way to help children with depression is to find a local support group that specializes in divorce or loss. One of the best known is the nonprofit organization Rainbows, but there are many to choose from around the country. To locate such groups in your area, try contacting your local schools, places of worship, or public libraries.

These support groups allow children to realize that what they have gone through is not unique, that what they feel is okay, that they are not weird because of these feelings and experiences, and that they are not alone. Even though divorce is a statistically common experience for children, the destruction of one’s family can severely disrupt a child’s sense of fitting in with peers. Support groups can help children regain a sense of themselves within their peer groups while working through the grieving process.

It also doesn’t hurt if parents join similar groups for adults. There is an old saying that many therapists like to use, A child can never be mentally healthier than his parents, but in my experience, parents tend to be open to the idea of seeking help for their children but will often balk at the suggestion that they themselves get into some form of support group, counseling, or therapy. I don’t have the time is the most common retort. While time may be at a premium, the need for support is critical during this phase of their lives. To use an analogy, anyone who has flown on a commercial airline has heard the safety speech given prior to takeoff: In the event of a loss in air pressure, make sure your own oxygen mask is secure before attending to your child’s. In other words, as paradoxical as it may seem, parents must think of themselves first in order to best take care of the needs of the children. A parent who is an emotional mess or who is exhausted from trying to hold it all together is much less helpful than one who is getting help while grappling with divorce. In this case, what is good for the parent is good for the child.

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Over a three-year period I spoke with scores of children for this book. Their ages ranged from five to twenty-one. Their parents had either been divorced for years, were in the process of divorcing, or even, in a couple of cases, had yet to separate. They came from all over the United States, with the majority calling the Midwest their home; they ran the full spectrum socioeconomically from impoverished to affluent; and they represent many races and religions. All were seen voluntarily for the express purpose of writing this book. All of the names of the children and their families, friends, and acquaintances have been changed to protect their identities. Many place names and locations have been changed as well.

I went as high as age twenty-one because, even though an eighteen-year-old is considered in many ways to be an adult, when it comes to parents, we are often children until much later. In fact, when parents divorce, it is the child in his or her late teens or early twenties who tends to be overlooked by parents, friends, relatives, and society in general. Because children are usually becoming independent at that age, parents often assume that they will not be affected by the event as much as younger children. Indeed, parents will often wait until their children are in their late teens or in college before divorcing, precisely for this reason. Older children may have a different perspective on and reaction to a divorce, but they are still deeply affected by