Sociology - families and divorce - Essay Example

Gil Broochian Your 11 April Response Paper A lot has been said about divorce and its effects on the children, and its long term effects especially when compared with children from intact families, however, I feel that the data collected in this regard has a certain bias: the children who come from divorced parents are compared with those children who come from families where the parents are happily married. This, I feel, does not truly depict the effect of divorce on the children. I think that divorce is a very traumatic event in the life of a person, not only for the couple involved, but more so for the children whose parents have decided to divorce.

Of course, when compared with children whose parents are happily married, data shows that children whose parents are divorced do seem to be on a lower level of wellbeing. I believe, the real test would be to see where these children are placed with regard to their level of wellbeing when compared to children whose parents, although married, are acrimonious in their relationship. The results, I am sure, would show that children with single parents are actually much better off with regard to the level of their wellbeing than those children whose parents are acrimoniously living in a marriage.

I feel the effects of divorce on children are actually great because of the fact that a lot of bitterness is revealed not only before but during the process of divorce. In fact, in most cases the bitterness that spouses feel towards each other is carried even after the divorce, to the point where the children feel like they are trapped in a vortex of resentment, and they have no choice but to find some sort of escape from it all. That is one of the reasons why the wellbeing, especially the psychological wellbeing, of children of divorced parents is low.

However, lower still is the psychological and over all wellbeing of children who live with parents who are married and live together, but metaphorically are constantly at each other’s throat over small to big things. Such children are exposed to constant and relentless negativity and this adversely affects them. In the event of divorce, the rancor actually comes to an end, with parents expressing either limited and sporadic hostility, or none at all.More research needs to be done in this regard, however, from the available data that I have gone through, it is clearly established that children whose parents have divorced are actually better off than those whose parents live together but are constantly expressing their resentment towards one another.

I feel that we, as a society, have still not accepted divorce completely and that is why our data collection shows a bias against divorce. However, I think, we should get over our personal prejudices and admit that although divorce might not be in the best interest of the children, it is still better than forcing the children to live in a hostile family environment.