Divorce: Causes and Impact on Children - Research Paper Example

Divorce: Causes and Impact on Children Introduction In this era of modernization, the issue of increasing rate of divorce is becoming a matter of grave social concern and has become a topic of discussion in all kinds of media. It is a grave issue since the impact of divorce is strong on any individual, especially on the children of the divorced couples. It has been seen that the negatives effects of divorce on children can be both short term which are less harmful and also long term causing psychological and behavioral problems. Their education also gets affected as they lose concentration and becomes depressed since they tend to remain isolated from friends and peers. There are various factors that can be attributed to the growing number of divorces including social, financial, religious and psychological elements. According to a survey report, 43 to 46 percent of all marriages that have taken place in the US in the year 2000 will eventually end in divorce (Smith et al., 1453). This paper explores the reasons behind divorce and its impact on children. Divorce – end of marriage Getting a divorce is not a simple task and cannot be obtained on the day the concerned couple decides to separate. It is a prolonged process that needs to go through various legal formalities. The initial phase of decision making can take several months or years, and even after final decision is taken the end process may not be a fast one. In many cases, couples attempt to reconcile failing which they again separate. Throughout the entire process, the partners make important decisions regarding rebuilding separate lives. Often a couple takes the decision to separate after weighing the advantages and disadvantages of staying together. A marriage becomes difficult to sustain when personalities clash and no one is eager to compromise. The aggrieved partner often finds multiple issues to deal with before making the final decision to divorce like “religious constrictions, obligations to children, the financial costs and consequences of divorce, and social pressure to stay married” (Clarke-Stewart & Brenatno, 52). Causes of divorce Divorce is always perceived as a curse on modern society. One major cause has been identified as early marriage. In general, people who marry early have high probability of divorce than those who marry after completing their education and stabilizing their career. Records have shown that the probability of divorce is twice for women who get married in their teens than women who get married after the age of 22. Most of the times, young people are emotionally and socially inexperienced for entering into a marital relationship. Moreover, lack of proper education and for that low income leads to financial problems after marriage. Young people often carry unrealistic concepts of marriage which is abetted by media. As a result of this, after marriage they are confronted with sudden responsibilities and hard realities. Also, at early age they remain unaware of the adult roles and responsibilities after marriage. Early age marriage also stunts the development of social and adult skills that are necessary to resolve marital conflicts. Moreover, at early age it becomes difficult to make proper selection of mate due to inexperience and lack of maturity (Faust & McKibben, 482). Premarital pregnancy is another major factor that can lead to divorce. Often premarital pregnancies are unplanned and the couples are forced to get married by family and peers to legitimize the child. This results in the couples thinking they have little choice in selecting their mate and deciding to get married. Moreover, after marriage spouses go through a phase of learning and understanding respective roles and responsibilities in a marriage. As such, the need to adapt into the role of newly married and simultaneously the need to learn parental roles can put extreme psychological pressure on the couples. This can develop into marital conflicts. Premarital pregnancy can also put a brake on the normal course of life resulting in truncating education to start earning money which means low income due to limited career opportunities (Faust & McKibben, 482). There are also several other reasons that contribute to divorce like spousal abuse, alcohol addiction, lack of commitment, infidelity, lack of communication and so on. Impact on children During the 1950s through 70s, divorce cases were filed based on the faults of marital partners which means one spouse needed to prove that the other spouse has committed a marital fault. For this reason, in those days divorces were considered as taboo and children of divorced parents were considered outcasts. However, the scenario has changed in subsequent decades since divorce has become extremely common issue in the society. Today, law allows divorce on the grounds of no-offence based on the fact that the partners are no longer able to adjust their lives with each other. Therefore, divorces are now perceived more as a second chance for a happy marriage than social offence, and children of divorced parents are now seen as “resilient and able to cope” (Jolivet, 175). According to research, the impact of divorce on children is generally not long term. In usual cases, the impact is how the children psychologically cope with the new change in their life and how they deal with their social lives. In most cases, it is how the parents adjust to their divorced lives that have more long lasting effect on children. Divorces that experience severe conflict between parents, little or no contact between parents after divorce and loss of financial stability can have major long term negative impacts on children. More specifically, if the conflict between parents is concerned with child custody, alimony and child rearing processes then it can strongly affect a child’s adjustment capabilities with single parents (Jolivet, 176). Family members can always be an informal support for each other. Parents continue to play a major role in adult children’s life even when they lead a separate life from their parents. On the other hand, adult children can be emotional support for parents during their old age. Due to the increasing number of divorces, relationships between family members are becoming a complex issue. From the perspective of an adult child, divorce means having to live two different lives with each parent leading to giving divided support to each parent. From the perspective of parents, although there will be less support from their adult children there is greater possibility of broader network of support from remarriage and children from second marriage (Belinda & Jan, p.292). Adolescents often experience various psychological issues like “peer ridicule and exclusion, blaming the mother, blaming parents, self-blame, fear and hope to meet their parents again” (Majzub & Mansor, 3533). Findings have suggested that many adolescents feel parents will compromise and reunite, especially if the parents have not entered into second marriages. Such positive hopes that parents will reconcile and they will continue to get parental support provide the adolescents the emotional strength to cope through the post-divorce phase. Although the effects of divorce have no significant difference between male and female children, it is however observed that female adolescents are more scared of being abandoned. This is because female adolescents are in greater need of physical and psychological support along with guidance from parents than their male counterparts (Majzub & Mansor, 3533). One major problem lies in parents’ perspective regarding influence of divorce on children. According to one survey, many divorced parents deny that there is any significant impact of divorce on children and their separation has not done any damage to their children. However, research has proved that only 18 percent of youngsters feel that they are happy after parental divorce while more than 75 percent of divorced parents have claimed that their children have nicely adjusted with the situation. However, the negative impacts of divorce on children manifest in different ways for different children. Records show that one in every 20 children take up alcohol and one in every nine children tend to wound themselves deliberately while 6 percent of children of divorced parents have considered suicide (Harris). Children as positive factor One positive thing about presence of children is that they can have an indirect relationship with marital stability between parents. Records have shown that probability of divorce is greater for childless couples than couples with children, and the probability reduces with increasing number of children. Age of children is a major factor that affects parental decision regarding divorce as it has been studied that parents with children below the age of 3 refrain from taking divorce decisions. However, probability of divorce becomes greatest when children are over the age of 13. It has been seen that the most positive effect on marital stability comes from the birth of the first child, and the effect is strong to the extent that the stability sustains at least through the preschool years. However, additional children have little impact on marital stability while older children can significantly increase the probability of divorce (Faust & McKibben, 483). Conclusion Divorce is a complex social issue that can have multiple perspectives. From sociological view, structural problems like racial differences and early marriages can increase divorce rates. On the other hand, psychologists affirm that lack of commitment and communication gap between spouses can cause marital conflicts. However, more than the reasons it is the impact on children that is more of a concern since it can have devastating effect on the future generation of a society. References Belinda, Wijckmans & Van Bavel Jan. “Divorce and Adult Children’s Perceptions of Family Obligations”, Journal of Comparative Family Studies, 44.3 (2013) 291-310 Clarke-Stewart, Alison & Cornelia Brenatno. Divorce: Causes and Consequences, Yale Univ. Press, 2007 Faust, Kimberly A. & Jerome N. McKibben. “Marriage Dissolution: Divorce, Separation, Annulment and Widowhood.” 475-502. In Handbook of Marriage and the Family, eds. Marvin B. Sussman et al. N.Y.: Plenum Press, 1999 Harris, Sarah, “How divorcing parents delude themselves about the effect on children”, Dailymail, December 30, 2013, April 27, 2014 from: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2530884/How-divorcing-parents-delude-effect-children-Only-fifth-say-theyre-happy-marriage-split.html Jolivet, Kendra Randall. “The Psychological Impact of Divorce on Children: What is a Family Lawyer to do?” American Journal of Family Law, 25.4 (2011) 175-83 Majzub, Rohaty Mohd & Sabkiah Mansor. “Perception and adjustment of adolescents towards divorce”, Social and Behavioral Sciences, 46 (2012) 3530-34 Smith, Philip H. et al. “Women ending marriage to a problem drinking partner decrease their own risk for problem drinking”, Addiction, 107.8 (2012) 1453-61 Read More