“Divorced Children”

“Divorced Children”

Ma. Theresa C. Clerigo

Marriage is a union between a man and a woman for the purpose of procreation and mutual support, or love. Each spouse in a marriage gives up some rights over his or her life in exchange for rights over the life of the other spouse; this is perhaps the exact definition of this thing called “marriage”. It simply means that legally and spiritually married couple should not consider divorce in solving marital problems. Purposely, its natural form is meant to be lifelong union.

In western countries, divorce is permissible as long as it is agreed by both parties, that is why majority of the children came from broken families. On the other hand, in the Philippines, it is still an unresolved issue. Since, we are the only Christian country in Asia; we intensely value the sanctity of marriage. However, due to the western influence to us, we view “marriage” and “divorce” in different perspective.  Some agree but some do not. There are many reasons why couples separated, commonly because of adultery, financial problems, and domestic violence. I don’t set aside those reasons because I know that divorce, though not God's desire, is sometimes the only alternative when all else has failed. But make sure that the husband and wife’s responsibility and obligation as parents to their children is not neglected.

          For me personally, though my marriage is a failure but, I strongly believe that divorce is not the only option. Hence, it will just give both men and women the license to neglect and not to value the marriage. I also know that being in a relationship is not at all times cheerful; there will always be ups and downs, difficulties and quandary. Thus, every relationship is tested and shaken that’s why, it is very necessary for the couple to plan out everything and ensure each other to stay together no matter what. It is a covenant agreement, meant for life; therefore it must not be broken under any circumstance.

Consequently, we might forget our children who are primarily affected of the situation. What would be its implication to them? In 1991, Amato and Keith examined the results of 92 studies involving 13,000 children ranging from preschool to young adulthood to determine what the overall results indicated. The overall result of this analysis was that children from divorced families are on "average" somewhat worse off than children who have lived in intact families. These children have more difficulty in school, more behavior problems, more negative self-concepts, more problems with peers, and more trouble getting along with their parents. A more recent update of the findings indicates that this pattern continues in more recent research (Amato, 2001).

Despite this general finding across many studies, there are important qualifications of these findings. First, the actual differences between the two groups are relatively small (Amato, 2001; Amato & Keith, 1991). In fact, the children in the two types of families are more alike than different. Amato (1994) reminds us that average differences do not mean that all children in divorced families are worse off than all children in intact families. These results mean that as a group, children from divorced families have more problems than children from intact families.

Its implication therefore is that most children in divorced families do not need help, but more children in this group than in intact families are likely need help.

Similarly, if we allow divorce to our country, there will come a time wherein Filipino children will suffer more than what Amato & Kate elaborated. We would be no different from other countries. Let us give worth and value the Filipino family by disallowing divorce in our country.

REFERENCES

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Amato, P. R. (1993). Children's adjustment to divorce: Theories, hypotheses, and empirical support. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 55, 23-38. 

Amato, P. R. (1999).  Children of divorce parents as young adults. In E. M. Hetherington  (Ed.), Coping with divorce, single parenting, and remarriage (pp. 147-164).  Mahwah, NJ:  Erlbaum.