Is there such a thing? Stacy Harp posted an article from the NY Times and I’m so glad to see it. There are so many people today who believe that divorce can be accomplished with little or no damage done to the children. As a product of a quiet divorce and a witness to many others, I’ve seen first and second hand, the “quiet” damage done to the children of “quiet” divorces.

The main lesson that children learn from divorce (that many parents overlook) is the issue of commitment. It could be commitment to anything, not necessarily just relationships. When the child falls in love with soccer and wants to become a professional soccer player, Mom and Dad will sign him up. But what happens when the child decides he doesn’t like it anymore? He quits. Not always, but the odds of that child sticking with it are slim, since he has been taught that when things get too hard or too painful, you shouldn’t have to do it anymore. So the child lets his team down because he just isn’t in love with soccer anymore.

The second huge issue is trust. Children are taught early on that Mom and Dad love each other and that Mom and Dad love them too. When Mom and Dad split, what is the child’s rational mind supposed to think? Mom and Dad don’t love me either. No matter how much the parents insist it’s not so, that they love the child and that will never change, the child has seen with his own eyes that those feelings DO in fact change and can be revoked.

Divorce is a big deal and anyone who says it isn’t needs to take a long look at the results of that thinking. There are more divorces now than ever before. Why? Because each generation teaches the next, and this one is teaching children that you have to do what’s best for YOU, what makes YOU happy, and the people around you will just have to accept that (even the children).