More on Divorce
This week we considered Jesus' teaching on marriage and divorce in Mark 10. To follow up:
1. The position paper written by the elders on the topic of divorce and remarriage will be posted on the resource page as soon as we can get around to it.
2. I referenced an excellent book by Judith Wallerstein called The Unexpected Legacy of Divorce. Below are some more extended quotes which I could not read during the sermon. Everyone interested in knowing how divorce is affecting our society - and especially its children - would do well to read this book.
Two faulty beliefs provide the foundation for our current attitudes toward divorce. The first holds that if parents are happier the children will be happier, too. Even if the children are distressed by the divorce, the crisis will be transient because children are resilient and resourceful and will soon recover... Indeed, many adults who are trapped in very unhappy marriages would be surprised to learn that their children are relatively content. They don't care if Mom and Dad sleep in different beds as long as the family is together... A second myth is based on the premise that divorce is a temporary crisis that exerts its most harmful effects on parents and children at the time of the breakup... Thankfully, this second myth is also beginning to unravel because of a new voice that is just now emerging on the national scene. That voice belongs to the children of divorce now grown to adulthood.
Whether the final outcome is good or bad, the whole trajectory of an individual's life is profoundly altered by the divorce experience. We have been blinded to this fact by the sheer numbers of people affected and by the speed at which our society has been transformed. Many people today think divorce is a perfectly normal experience. It's so common, children hardly notice it. No stigma. No big deal. After all, if half the child's schoolmates come from divorced families, how could divorce be so traumatic? And isn't it true, they say, that children raised in bad intact families are no better off?
...People who believe that numbers mute the individual child's suffering have simply not talked to the children. Each child in a classroom half full of children of divorce cries out, "Why me?" ...I can say without a doubt that [children of divorce] have worries apart from their peers raised in intact homes. These worries are reshaping our society in ways we never dreamt about.
-- Judith Wallerstein, Julia Lewis, and Sandra Blakeslee. The Unexpected Legacy of Divorce. New York: Hyperion Press, 2000.
1. The position paper written by the elders on the topic of divorce and remarriage will be posted on the resource page as soon as we can get around to it.
2. I referenced an excellent book by Judith Wallerstein called The Unexpected Legacy of Divorce. Below are some more extended quotes which I could not read during the sermon. Everyone interested in knowing how divorce is affecting our society - and especially its children - would do well to read this book.
Two faulty beliefs provide the foundation for our current attitudes toward divorce. The first holds that if parents are happier the children will be happier, too. Even if the children are distressed by the divorce, the crisis will be transient because children are resilient and resourceful and will soon recover... Indeed, many adults who are trapped in very unhappy marriages would be surprised to learn that their children are relatively content. They don't care if Mom and Dad sleep in different beds as long as the family is together... A second myth is based on the premise that divorce is a temporary crisis that exerts its most harmful effects on parents and children at the time of the breakup... Thankfully, this second myth is also beginning to unravel because of a new voice that is just now emerging on the national scene. That voice belongs to the children of divorce now grown to adulthood.
Whether the final outcome is good or bad, the whole trajectory of an individual's life is profoundly altered by the divorce experience. We have been blinded to this fact by the sheer numbers of people affected and by the speed at which our society has been transformed. Many people today think divorce is a perfectly normal experience. It's so common, children hardly notice it. No stigma. No big deal. After all, if half the child's schoolmates come from divorced families, how could divorce be so traumatic? And isn't it true, they say, that children raised in bad intact families are no better off?
...People who believe that numbers mute the individual child's suffering have simply not talked to the children. Each child in a classroom half full of children of divorce cries out, "Why me?" ...I can say without a doubt that [children of divorce] have worries apart from their peers raised in intact homes. These worries are reshaping our society in ways we never dreamt about.
-- Judith Wallerstein, Julia Lewis, and Sandra Blakeslee. The Unexpected Legacy of Divorce. New York: Hyperion Press, 2000.
posted by Bob | 3:46 PM
3 Comments:
tru dat!
I'm looking forward to the position paper/statement. Thanks for talking about this, guys!
Aaron
The divorce paper is now up on the resource page. You can get there by clicking the "Resource" link on the bar at the top of the blog page, or you can simply click here.
Excellent position statement - very well researched, debated, and written. As noted, this is a very difficult issue, especially as we live in a culture that is so accepting of divorce/remarriage.
Does physical abuse fall under the neglect heading?
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