When my husband and I decided to separate eight years ago, our daughter was barely 3 years old. She was used to having mom and dad around all the time. Although the breakdown of our marriage was probably more amicable than most and our unconventional living situation meant our daughter would stay in “her house” while mom and dad shuffled back and forth between apartments, houses and, at one point, a sailboat we still worried about how our divorce might affect her long-term emotional, mental, and physical well-being.
We’d both read too many doomsday articles that told us exactly what would happen to our sweet, giggly, chubby-cheeked girl once she became a child of divorce. According to the research, she would eventually morph into a depressed, socially stunted, drug-addicted divorcée with a propensity for crime who couldn’t pass a math or science test to save her life. Oh, and she would probably take up smoking soon, too. And did I mention the shortened lifespan? It was all doom and gloom, and we were more than a little panicked.
Well, I was panicked. My ex was less panicked. But, then again, we’re talking about a man whose favorite expression when horrible things occur is, “Well, that happens.” He rolled with it. I worried about it. In fact, for the first few years after our split, I constantly searched for signs that we’d done irreparable damage to our daughter. Did her disinterest in the math flashcards stem from the separation? When she smashed her Lincoln Log cabin, was she showing signs of repressed anger? Did the fact that she’d “accidentally” brought another child’s stuffed animal home mean she was headed toward a life of crime? And where was she stashing her smokes, anyway? It was maddening.
Eventually, I calmed down. I talked to other single parents and to seemingly well-adjusted children of divorce. I interviewed therapists. I read non-doomsday books about divorce and co-parenting. And I remembered (finally) that I myself am a child of divorce and that aside from a few things, which I’m working on I’m not half bad. No life of crime yet, anyway.
For those of you who are staying up at night worrying over how your divorce might negatively affect your children, keep this in mind: Not only is the research on this subject somewhat inconclusive, most of the doomsday scenarios stem from an era when divorce was still considered a social taboo, and when co-parenting typically meant mom had the kids all week and took care of the day-to-day necessities and hardships, while dad hosted every other weekend and worried over things like which fast food restaurant to hit that evening and whether or not to get extra butter on the movie popcorn.
Things are different now. Divorce doesn’t hold the stigma it once did, and parents are more likely to share the responsibilities of child rearing. In fact, new research suggests that, for many children, divorce can have positive effects.
“If you stay in a bad relationship ‘for the kids,’ don’t fool yourself that the kids will really benefit,” writes California-based psychologist Dr. Shoshana Bennett in a Huffington Post article that explores the positive effects divorce can have on children. “When you model that you deserve to be in a satisfying and supportive relationship, you model something wonderful to your kids.”
Getting to know each parent as an individual is another positive benefit, writes Bennett. “Usually when both parents are together, one of them takes on most of the nurturing and/or logistical planning. After a divorce, the children can have each parent completely focusing on them with the time they have together.”
Most researchers agree that divorce is almost always stressful for the children, but Robert E. Emery, Ph.D., author of The Truth about Children and Divorce, points out that, although divorce increases your child’s risk of becoming depressed, anxious and/or angry, “the great majority of children whose parents divorce do not develop serious behavioral or emotional problems. Most children from divorced families are resilient, especially when their parents do a reasonably good job managing the stress of divorce.”
In fact, if you and your ex (or soon-to-be-ex) have been arguing or avoiding each other around the house, your children may discover a newfound sense of peace once you’ve separated. “In cases where the parents do argue often, divorce can actually be a relief to the children because they no longer have to live with all the tension they had experienced,” writes marriage and divorce therapist Susan Pease Gadoua, author of Contemplating Divorce: A Step-by-Step Guide to Deciding Whether to Stay or Go and Stronger Day by Day: Reflections for Healing and Rebuilding After Divorce. In a Psychology Today article, Gadoua posits that it is the constant fighting between parents not divorce that does the most harm to children.
That’s not to say that divorce isn’t stressful for children, of course. Many parents struggle to cope with reduced income, depression and anxiety, and other hardships that come with divorce, but learning how to work through stress in a healthy and positive way can benefit children in the long run.
I found myself thinking about this recently after taking my 11-year-old daughter on a whirlwind, 10-day tour of six East Coast cities. Upon hearing that my kiddo trekked around Washington D.C. all day after flying all night on a red-eye out of Portland, Oregon, another mother commented that her middle school-aged kids would never have been able to do that. “They would have had a complete meltdown within the first hour,” she told me.
It made me think about how easily my own daughter pushes past small hurdles, and about how she’s learned maybe by watching mom and dad navigate life as single parents to roll with the punches. I’d like to think that my daughter’s carefree attitude is due to my (and my ex’s) awesome parenting skills, but I suspect genetics should get most of the credit. I asked her the other day how she felt about her dad and I divorcing, and you know what she said? “Well, that happens.”
