78 DIVorCe wItH DeCenCY
is for his dad to be at his Saturday ball game cheering for him.
Unfortunately, dad is now spending Saturdays looking for a new
apartment. Furthermore, these kids often get deprived of a wide
range of economic, logistical, financial, and psychological sup-
ports that they could otherwise have expected as entitlements if
their folks had stayed together.
The kids’ conclusions. One discernible phenomenon that seems
to result is that children of divorce embrace a morality that is more
conservative than that of their parents. They want to achieve what
their parents did not—a good, long-term, committed marriage.
They want romance, fidelity, and permanency in their own rela-
tionships. They are somewhat more careful, perhaps inclined to
live together before getting married and not to marry too young.
Kids who are products of divorced families become extremely
concerned about their own ability to preserve lasting relation-
ships as they grow older. On the one hand, they seem to hunger
for some kind of stable relationship, but based upon their own
frame of reference, they are scared stiff about ever being able to
achieve it. A divorce tends to fundamentally change the nature of
the relationship between children and their parents. I frequently
witness role reversals in my clients’ kids where the children will
begin to compensate by assuming responsibilities far in excess of
what is normal for their ages.
The Children of Divorce
Americans, indeed, often seem to be so overwhelmed by their children that
they’ll do anything for them except stay married to the co-producer.
—Katharine Whitehorn
Children of divorce often literally feel that one or both parents
acted badly. They can remain critical of their parents for years
thereafter and continue to blame them for having betrayed the
marriage. Generally speaking, these children tend to feel less of
a sense of entitlement than do other kids. They know from harsh
experience that their individual needs may well be considered a
lower family priority. Gone are the days when they could expect
mom to be their personal chauffeur to every game. Instead these