Divorce as something normal. It’d be better if we didn’t stigmatize it.
By: Lukasz Laniecki
Tags: Life, Divorce, Parents, Parenting, Family

Recently I posted on Instagram a series of aphorisms regarding divorce and its effect on children.

Divorce is bad for children. So is staying in a bad marriage.

Divorce is bad for children. So is telling them that childhood is the best time in their lives.

Divorce is bad for children. So is telling them that their 20s is the defining decade.

Divorce is bad for children. So is telling them that those who will not be good students will clean toilets or sweep streets for the rest of their lives.

Divorce is bad for children. So is religious (other) indoctrination.

Divorce is bad for children. So is sitting in a bad posture.

Divorce is bad for children. So is ultraviolet radiation from the Sun.

Divorce is bad for children and teenagers. So is asking them what they want to be when they grow up.

Divorce is bad for young adults. So is expecting that they should have it all sorted out in their late teenage years or early 20s.

The first post (message) was clear to the majority of people, I guess. And, I guess, at least some people agreed with it. The rest of these posts not so much. I rely on the number of people who liked each post and on the few comments which appeared under all of them. I guess that the posts which had fewer likes were either understood by fewer people, or fewer people were eager to agree. Or there’s some other reason why the first post was way more popular than the rest (a reason which has nothing to do with its content itself).

What’s with these posts? Why did I post them? Why did I write them in the first place?

I think that most people believe there are certain things which damage the life of a child or a young person. At the top of this list of things is, of course, parents’ divorce. I wrote “of course” because it’s kinda obvious to everybody that whenever parents divorce their children suffer. That it’s bad on their children when parents divorce. When someone mentions divorce usually people say things like “Poor kids”, or “Children always suffer the most when parents divorce each other”, or “I pity those kids”.

They say those things because that’s what people do. It’s like wearing black to the funeral. It had become part of the culture (mainstream) that people pity kids when there’s divorce. They’ll do it by default.

But nobody pities kids when they’re told that childhood is the best time in their lives. Why? Because that’s not part of our culture. Nobody pities kids when they’re told that those who will not be good students will clean toilets or sweep streets for the rest of their lives. Why? Because that’s not part of our culture. The same applies to the rest of these aphorisms.

Just like it’s kinda obvious to everybody that when parents divorce each other the child suffers, it’s also kinda obvious to everybody that those who will not be good students will clean toilets or sweep streets for the rest of their lives or that childhood is the best time in our lives (that once it’s over the less enjoyable part of our lives begins — adulthood).

Those things are taken for granted by the majority of people, of course. It’s their belief (which was born out of a certain myth circulating in the society), not the objective truth. But because almost nobody questions it (because it’s always easier to accept these clichés as your own, as most people will do that to, so you’ll be on the same page with those people; you will not be this one weirdo who looks at things differently and, for example, is the only person in a room full of people who doesn’t bitch about the fact that people need to work) it is obvious to people that that’s how it is in this world. Actually, that’s not how it is in this world — that’s how it is among the people who have soaked up a certain attitude, beliefs and values and who, in order to be liked by the majority and feel that they belong to the group (are not outsiders), always prefer to perpetuate the myths and cliches which dominate in that group.

I guess that’s why so many people fail to realize that the alternative to a divorce is not nice for children either. They only remember those clichés about divorce being bad. Bad, bad, bad. They never ask themselves what’s the alternative when keeping this marriage means constant fights and yelling at each other and bad atmosphere which is now a fixture rather than a rarity. Clearly, this is not a situation where a child will be able to thrive. But, you will not realize it if the only thing that sits in your head is the cliché about divorce being bad for children.

I posted these aphorisms in order to direct people’s attention to other things which may be viewed as destructive to children, which most people do (those who were able to stay in their marriage and those who divorced) without even suspecting that there might be anything wrong with that, because they (just like we all) took certain things for granted and never questioned them. Certain things which dominate in a certain culture, and which aren’t questioned because people don’t dare to question them (they just seem so right to people when the majority of people they meet believe in them) become the truth. And then you start to believe that that’s how it is in this world. And you feel obliged to pass this wisdom down to your child, or you do something because other people do it — for example you ask your child What do you want to be when you grow up?, when asking this question is, in my opinion, totally unnecessary and, this is my belief, children who are not asked this clichéd question have a certain advantage over children who are asked it by most people they meet in their lives. They don’t have so much anxiety upon entering adult life.

To direct people’s attention to other things, and, even for a brief moment, away from the clichéd conventional utterances about divorce and its bad effect on children.

I also wanted to show that divorce is (certainly can be viewed as) a normal part of life. Or part of a normal life. Like death of your loved one. Some experiences are not nice and, whether we like it or not, never will be. Usually they’re not nice because they mark the end of something, because they destroy our comfort zone (something we took for granted and to which we were used, or even entitled, no longer exists), and most of us don’t like this moment when our comfort zone (something we had and could count on, something we knew it’s there) is being replaced by something new and unknown, and uncertain (and thus usually also scary). That’s the main problem for children in a divorce, I believe. Not that these people decide to go separate ways. That’s not the gist of the problem. The gist of the problem is that it becomes obvious to them that certain things will no longer be the way they used to be (that it will be impossible to keep things as they always were). Plus, they live in a culture in which divorce is considered as something bad (in and of itself), a failure, a family tragedy, something which shouldn’t have happened, and because that’s what they soaked up from the society of which they are part, they feel bad that it happened to them (to their family). Were it not for the fact that the majority of people in this culture learned to view divorce as essentially a bad thing (something that shouldn’t have happened), at least this part of the problem would vanish. They wouldn’t need to worry that someone will find out, or what this person or that person will say, or how their peers will react, etc.