What parents who divorce teach their children

I am very thankful for Jordan Peterson. I've been listening to him talking about living together before marriage and how it's not a very solid foundation to go forward. I hope you all listen to it sometime. One of the things he talks about is what you are saying to your partner you are living with: "You're the best I can do for now, but if something else comes along, I have the option of moving on." That's a paraphrase, but that the gist of it. I've been thinking about what children learn when their parents' divorce. I haven't got it anywhere near all worked out yet, but it helped to listen to Peterson talking about marriage and its permanence (or at least that's the intended purpose). So here's what I think now about what parents who divorce are teaching their children. 1. Parents who divorce teach their children that there are always other options. 2. Parents who divorce teach their children that vows mean nothing, (3) commitment means nothing and (4) perseverence in relationships is not valuable. That's a good start, I think. Besides those (1. other options. 2. Vows mean nothing. 3. Commitment means nothing. 4. Perseverence in relationships is not valuable), the fifth thing parents who divorce teach their children is that love does not endure. All of these lessons that parents who divorce teach their children are pretty grim, I think. The longer I live, the more I discover just how corrupt we are. As a Christian, I know this is all because of sin. We come into the world sinful, even though we can seem kind of innocent as very small children (maybe not for long, in many cases). But the longer we live and the more exposure we have to the world and its corruption, we either conform to that corruption or we are uncomfortable in it and look for another way, and if we are fortunate, we find God in the process, in the person of Jesus Christ. The bottom line of all five of those points is that people are disensable. One is as good as the other, they are something to use and when you use one up, you get another one, and when you use that one up, you get another and so on and so on. So, people are just things and when they displease us, we are free to leave. When you think about it, that is really a bad foundation for children to build a life upon. I am appalled by the various custody arrangements children are forced to endure these days. Most of the children I know whose parents are divorced have two homes, two bedrooms, one with Mom and one with Dad. Sometimes they see both parents in the same week, so they have to pack up and move back and forth every week. I'd like to really sit down with some of the lawyers that deal these arrangements out to children. At least my dad let my brother and me live in one place and have one bedroom. Good grief. I honestly don't know how I would have survived an arrangement like that. We saw our dad on Tuesdays, Fridays and Sundays. I am forever grateful for that.Sometimes we also went on vacations with the other family. And then there are those parents that move away, to another state, and the children live half a year with one parent and half a year with the other parent. Or they live all week with one parent and spend every other weekend with the other parent or something like that. Or kids travel on a plane or a train by themselves across the country to see their other parent. Or they simply have no relationship at all with the noncustodial parent, because he or she can't handle it or is not equipped to deal with it. It makes my head spin to think about it. I can't imagine what it's doing to the children, the victims of this horror. Dad picked us up on Tuesdays and we usually went out to a restaurant. Sometimes we had a meal and spent the evening with him and his new family. Fridays, the same. Sundays we often went to Grandpa's farm and rode horses or went fishing. But we always ended up back at home with Mom. I understand that people have "irreconcilable differences" but what does that mean really? Maybe it means they shouldn't have gotten married in the first place. They weren't ready for marriage, or they didn't know what they were getting into, or they really didn't know their partner or...all of these things point to one thing: Not valuing the personhood of the other individual, and might I also say, probably having some issues within themselves that they are unwilling to get straightened out. I don't mean to be judgmental here or condemn anybody. I just think it's a HUGE problem. I had a professor during my undergraduate program at Kansas University. He called what we have now (and this was in the 60s) "serial monogamy." All the multiple marrying that goes on. When you think about it, it really is crazy. Children adjust, children are "resilient," everybody says. Oh, are they really? I see a lot of issues children have, on a daily basis, working in a school. Of course now, all behavior issues get lumped into the "disorder" pile, and get drugs prescribed to calm them down. And when they are having a particularly bad day it's common to hear someone say, "They didn't get their meds today." It's a huge problem. I suppose sending kids off to school for the day relieves parents of some of the difficulties their children are having, but I'm just as sure that if they're having problems at school, they're probably having problems at home too. Do I know what the answer is? Not completely. I just know the answer to everything is found in some of the traditions and values we have had in society but which are now kind of thrown by the wayside. I recall the "golden years" of the 1950s, before the divorce. We were a happy family. I know a lot of adult children of divorce say they are glad their parents split up because they had so many miserable fights, but I was never glad when my parents split up. I cried on my desk for two months. I forgot that but a classmate told me years later at a high school reunion. And I have dealt with issues related to my parents' divorce and related problems all my life. Divorce hurts children. It just does. And the sooner people figure that out, the better off we'll be as a country. I firmly believe that. Yes, I'm very biased about this. But there is plenty of evidence from science about this too. I am not going to try to prove anything by quoting studies right now because this is just a "web log" as I've mentioned before, not a treatise, not a formal paper, not a professional article. But I think our intuition will concur with this assumption: Children do better in intact families. They just do. I am just one person and my story is unique. Everybody's story is unique, but I am convinced that divorce is one of society's greatest destroyers, and everyone should do everything they possibly can to stay out of the divorce courts, or lawyers' offices, or however this is dealt with today, since "no fault divorce" arrived. I'm concluding this for now. I may return to it again soon, or maybe not. I think another thing divorce does to kids and what it did to me, it makes you "flighty." One of my friend's fathers described me that way. I think that's a good word, now, looking back. Flighty. Flying around from one thing to another, never settling in, never staying focused on one thing, interested in everything, never landing, always up in the air. Jesus Christ is my anchor, I would be lost without that anchor. I'm just saying. The peace of God that passes understanding. That's what I have. I may not have "all my ducks in a row" (my father's fourth wife gave me a T-shirt with that on it) but at least I am aware of the problem, and have a friend in Jesus to help me stay on the path toward what is right and good. I will close for tonight. Peace to you or as Paul the Apostle said many times, "Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ." Goodnight.