Breaking Up Is Hard on Them, Too--The Children of Divorce

In recent years Taiwan's divorce rate has soared, becoming the highest in Asia and fifth in the world, close behind only the US, Puerto Rico, Russia, and the UK. While no one can fail to be concerned at the rapidity of the dissolution of the family in Taiwan, children of the current generation have special reason to worry.

The home is the castle of a child's life--the last bastion where it finds support and refuge in turbulent times. A divorce by the parents represents not only the termination of legal rights and responsibilities between the partners, but also a dramatic transformation in family and parent-child relationships. Once the parents divorce and the family is shattered, it is the children who are most severely affected.

What physical and psychological position do children find themselves in when they cannot grow up under the same roof with both parents, and cannot receive care and attention from two parents concurrently? What kinds of attitudes are these children likely to have as they face life in the future?

The single-parent story

"The troubles of Mother are not for you to see / The recipe for warmth is kept in her heart / Spend more time holding her hand when you get the chance / Going on a fantasy trip hand in hand / Do what your mother tells you, and don't let her get hurt / Grow up fast, that's the only way to protect her."

The song "Do What Your Mother Tells You" by pop-music icon Jay Chou has great lyrics and music, and has been selected by many primary-school teachers for use in their music classes. But if you listen to the words carefully, they are really expressing Chou's cry from the heart of a single-parent child.

Hong Kong star Tony Leung once told a reporter in an interview that the reason he has remained unmarried is that he still feels the effects of his parents' divorce. His trademark melancholy look is in fact a product of the wounds he suffered as a child.

Single-parent children of divorce can no longer be considered a "minority group" in today's society. But just because they are common does not mean that the wounds they have suffered are not deep. Even after many years, such children often cautiously protect their secret vulnerabilities, do not readily show their pain to others, and even have selective memory failure, pretending that the wounds are not there.

"I feel very lucky, very happy now." Hsiao Wen, a first-year student at a top high school, is a happy-go-lucky, healthy sunshine girl. Few people know that she had a turbulent, transient childhood that forced to her to grow up fast.

When she was five her parents divorced, and Hsiao Wen was abruptly taken by her father away from her mother, on whom she had mainly relied for those five years. First she moved to the countryside to live with her dad and paternal grandmother. Then in second grade she was sent to live with an aunt. When she was in third grade her dad remarried. Hsiao Wen became part of a new family with her father, stepmother, stepbrother and stepsister, spending two very lonely years living in America. By fifth grade, it had become clear that Hsiao Wen was not fitting in with her new family, and was very unhappy. So her stepmother arranged for her to go back to Taiwan to live with her birth mother. Thus in her six years of elementary school, she attended four different schools and lived in four different family structures, residing in two different cultural environments with completely unrelated languages. She grew up with anxiety and uncertainty as her constant companions.

"When I was small I felt really unlucky having no mother." In her life Hsiao Wen could not hear her mother's voice, or see her mother's form or even her picture. After being apart for only five years, she had forgotten virtually every impression of her mother that she had.

Those two-and-a-half years in the States were the worst time for Hsiao Wen. Her father was busy learning English and training himself in new job skills, and had no time to look after anyone else. Her stepmother had to earn money to support the family. Her step-siblings, who were after all not blood relatives, were unkind to her, and Hsiao Wen had virtually no one she could talk to at all. How lonely was it? In those two-plus years, there was not one single phone call asking for her. "Every day I borrowed a pile of books from the library and brought them home to read; I took out more books than anyone else in my class." As a result Hsiao Wen learned to read English very well, a silver lining in her otherwise cloudy existence of the time.

"As soon as we saw each other we just hugged and started crying and crying, I don't even know exactly what we were crying for...." When Hsiao Wen talks about the scene in a park the first time her stepmother brought her to meet her mother, she is, as usual, smiling happily and speaking with detachment, as if she were telling someone else's story. It is only when the reporter interviewing her can't hold back her own tears that Hsiao Wen begins herself to get red around the eyes.

The wounds of divorce need to be soothed, but children do not easily reveal their deepest feelings, and schools don't take the initiative to inquire too much into family business, so the support network needs to be bulked up.

After divorce

The story of a couple who cannot stand to live with each other any more has already replayed itself in over 500,000 Taiwanese families. Although every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way, the cumulative impact on children in general and society as a whole deserves closer scrutiny.

The problem of child abuse has been getting more serious in Taiwan in recent years. A report issued last year by the Child Welfare League Foundation pointed out that in the 17 known cases of children dying as a result of abuse reported last year, in nearly all cases the root cause was conflict between the parents, and in over 80% of the cases the children came from broken homes.

In addition, the Child Welfare League Foundation infers from its own survey results that as many as 160,000 children in Taiwan have to prepare their own meals on school days. Even more painful to think about is that 20,000 primary-school-aged children have no adult supervision or care at all. Most of these children who are forced to grow up and take care of themselves early come from collapsed families.

Divorce means that a child must separate from at least one parent. If both parties want the child, and are willing to put up a fight, there could very well be a vicious custody battle. Nonetheless, the party that wins custody will not necessarily have the means or the time to take care of their "war booty."

A very common situation is that the parent with custody (especially if it is the father), for reasons of work or remarriage, turns the child over to the grandparents to raise.

Childhood should be carefree and upbeat. But in many corners of society, some children are forced to grow up fast when their parents divorce.

Grandma's child

A-kuo was not even two when his parents divorced. After his father remarried and moved in with his new wife in Taipei, A-kuo was left with his paternal grandmother in Hualien. Until age 15, A-kuo and his grandmother formed a two-person household, with A-kuo only having a family life with father, mother, and siblings during summer and winter holidays.

"I would only think of my parents on special days," says A-kuo. No one was ever there to give him an umbrella on rainy days, and for several years no one went to his school on Parents Day, even though his grades were excellent. Finally, in fourth grade, after a heartfelt plea from A-kuo, Grandma put aside her business in the market and went to the parent-teacher conference. A-kuo still remembers clearly how she had her hair done just for that day, and wore a pearl necklace.

"Undoubtedly my grandmother has had more influence than anyone on my character," says A-kuo. When he was little he accompanied her to the market where she sold vegetables, and came to understand at an early age what life is all about. Unfortunately, his grandmother and mother did not see eye to eye, so the latter had to keep her distance after the divorce. Such a childhood left A-kuo with issues that have dogged him for 20 years.

Grandma died when A-kuo was 15, and although he came north to live with his father and stepmother, in his heart he felt that he had no place he could really call home.

"I didn't even know what my mother looked like until I was 17," says A-kuo. His mother only dared contact him after she found out through the grapevine that the grandmother who had prohibited mother-son meetings had passed away. "I don't believe that stuff people say that there is some kind of mystical bond between mother and son," is A-kuo's conclusion today. After the initial rush of emotion, he found himself at a loss for how to relate to this mother with whom he had no common life experiences. Over time they drifted farther apart, and then lost touch altogether; A-kuo didn't even inform her when he got married.

Perhaps in his mother's mind, A-kuo's feeling closer to his grandmother was a betrayal. Or perhaps, with her second marriage also turning out to be a rocky one, A-kuo's mom just didn't have the emotional energy to invest in her son. Either way, the result is that, despite having had the good fortune of being reunited after 15 years apart, they have been fated to end up without any lasting emotional connection.

When parents split up, the kids often end up with the grandparents. There is reason to be concerned about problems resulting from this type of trans-generational upbringing.

Where is my home?

During a divorce, it's hard enough when the parents fight to gain custody of the children. It's even worse when the parents fight to push custody off on each other, turning the child into a human ping-pong ball.

The situation of parents trying to push the kids off on each other can occur quite often among younger parents with poor job prospects. Sung Chia-hui, supervisor of the Department of Clinical Social Work at the Child Welfare League Foundation, has in recent years been in charge of a special program of "negotiated divorce," and she has encountered many cases of the divorcing parties "pushing off" the children. She illustrates this with the case of one couple who had married very young and already had four offspring by the time they split. Both parents relied on doing odd jobs to make a living, and both felt that "whoever ended up with the kids was holding the short end of the stick." During negotiations they even raised the idea of giving the children away or putting them in an orphanage. It was only after considerable persuasion that they agreed to each take two children.

Some children who become human ping-pong balls end up living a nomadic existence, bouncing among relations, short-term foster homes, and finally orphanages. "The orphanage is the last stop for the child who has lost everything. Most of the children who come here are emotionally damaged and exhausted," notes Hung Chin-fang, secretary general of the Chinese Children Home and Shelter Association. Some children from broken homes go from single-parent households to no-parent households to no household at all, not even a place to lay their heads. They become so-called "spiritual orphans," and many cannot even remember what a normal home life is supposed to be.

Permanent scars

Children from broken homes have no place where they can take shelter from the storms of life, and even less do they have anywhere to find spiritual or psychological support.

"Parental divorce changes a child's life forever. For better or for worse, their path through life has been altered." This is the alarming conclusion reached by Dr. Judith S. Wallerstein, a clinical psychologist and professor emeritus at the University of California at Berkeley School of Social Welfare, in her book The Unexpected Legacy of Divorce, which is based on a long-term study tracking 131 children of divorced parents over 25 years.

More and more sociologists are looking into questions related to these children of divorce, who carry permanent scars or who, even if whole on the surface, are highly fragile. What is the impact of divorce on the individual? The family? Society as a whole?

Because of differences in personality, environment, and resources, there are wide differences in the impact of divorce on the individual. But in general, studies suggest that children who grow up in families where there has been a divorce are more likely to show a variety of character traits, including difficulty in trusting others, fear of emotional commitment, problems forming intimate relationships, standoffishness, loneliness, placing great importance on money or achievement, desire for stability, a strong sense of compassion, and independence.

"Divorce destroys the warm nest in which the child could grow up. There is often a deep feeling of pain and resentment, a sense of betrayal by one's own parents, a sense that 'mother and father didn't consider me as the most important thing.'" Childhood wounds may heal, but no matter how much effort goes into compensating, the scars will always be there," comments Leu Yih-shi of Mackay Memorial Hospital's Counseling Center.

It's especially worth noting that there has been an increase in psychological illness among children in recent years, and this is related to the collapse of the family. In particular, the condition known as "borderline personality disorder," once unusual, now often crops up in the children of single-parent families. Leu points out that children in this category crave love, but cannot get it, and cannot find their own value. So they are always walking a border with other people, continually testing the boundaries between themselves and others.

Substitute parents

Although divorce is becoming a generalized social phenomenon, each child must tackle his or her own psychological pain alone, and there will be a variety of outcomes depending upon the child's character and environment.

At the time of her parents' divorce, Hsiao Fen was in third grade, an age when kids seem to be growing up fast but in fact are not really ready to face the world. Seeing first-hand her father's extramarital affair and her mom's emotional collapse (leading to clinical depression) were severe psychological blows. Over time, Hsiao Fen lost interest in school, became increasingly detached from the world around her, and had difficulty making friends. Every day for three years she lost herself in pulp romance novels, seeking solace in their fantasy-like happy endings. Eventually her mother got her act together and took Hsiao Fen for counseling, gradually helping her to release her sadness.

Children of age three or four may not be able to express their sorrow or emotions through language, but it is possible to interpret a child's anguish and fear toward parental divorce through their behavior, doodling, and drawings.

Leu Yih-shi points out that some children will accompany their parents for marriage counseling, but then will continually cry and rant to prevent their parents from talking about divorce. One child drew a picture of "My Family" which included only himself and his father, when in fact his mother was the primary guardian. Another child painted only in black and red, reflecting her inner anxiety over conflicts at home.

Children who have witnessed violence or been themselves victims of abuse during the course of a marital collapse have particular problems. They carry the double psychological and emotional burdens of divorce and domestic violence. Given that children have immature and distorting logic, it often happens that kids in abusive families consider themselves as the cause of the father's outbursts, and at the same time blame themselves for being unable to protect their mother.

The first time that Dad hit Mom, Hsiao Yu was only four months old. As early as two or three years of age, when other infants are raising the roof, Hsiao Yu learned that she had to repress her natural childishness; otherwise her father would get angry and then beat her mom. Before Hsiao Yu's fourth birthday, her mother finally decided to seek a divorce. The day Mother and daughter left home, Hsiao Yu had the flu and a temperature of 40°C, but she knew full well that she had to get out of bed as if nothing was wrong and pack her toys herself.

After her mother took her away from a life of brutality, Hsiao Yu became happier, and learned how to stop repressing her feelings. Sometimes her father would come to see her, but Hsiao Yu by no means looked forward to these visits. In fact, when there were parent-child activities at school, Hsiao Yu not only didn't envy the kids whose fathers attended, she would be so anxious that she would feel an urge to run away. On the other hand, she was always quick to strike up friendships with her mother's male friends, hoping to find a "substitute father" among them.

Lost childhoods

Some children mature rapidly as their parents divorce. They become unusually responsible for their own lives, and even can end up taking care of the emotional and daily-life needs of adults or siblings.

Take the case of Hsiao Wen, discussed earlier. Starting in the fifth grade, every summer vacation Hsiao Wen would, by herself, take a plane to the US to stay with her father. She has seen this as fulfilling a duty that every child owes to its parents.

Her mother says that Hsiao Wen, being insecure by nature, has always tried to keep up the image of the well-behaved child, being thoughtful and kind to everyone. She always gets along great with her classmates, because she memorizes everyone's birthday and calls, writes a card, and gives a small birthday cake to the birthday boy or girl on that day. In her second year of middle school, because she started dating a boy in school, her mother insisted that she move to Taichung, where she lived temporarily with an uncle. Even then, she took it upon herself to make breakfast, and handled getting her cousins out of bed in the morning.

Hsiao Chen became part of a four-person household, living with her mother and two sisters, after her parents divorced eight years ago. Independent and considerate, she began taking care of everything herself starting in the third grade. She would do her homework as soon as she got home, and get herself on the bus to go to cram school in the evenings. When her choir went abroad to perform, she packed her own bags and arranged to hitch a ride with a classmate's parents to and from the airport. She was always sensitive to her mother working too hard, and took over the role of "homemaker" at an early age, mastering all kinds of dishes in the kitchen.

It may look like a positive thing for a child to be so considerate and understanding of others. But psychologists worry about this kind of child, who "sacrifices herself to complete others." Because they repress themselves excessively, and have no outlet for their feelings, after becoming adults they often suffer from depression, violent tempers, and self-destructiveness.

Moreover, there is often something "inheritable" about an unhappy married life. Many children of divorce tread the same tired pathway as their parents, and have a hard time having satisfying relationships with the opposite sex.

Children can only set down stable roots and absorb nourishment with the watering of love, thus growing into strong trees.

Doomed relationships

It is widely thought that the periods in which children suffer the most from parental divorce are early childhood, when they need the most support with daily life, and the early teen years, when they go through tremendous emotional and physical changes. But research by Judith S. Wallerstein comes to a different conclusion: "It is when children reach puberty and begin to have relationships with the opposite sex that negative effects appear one after another, with deeply troubling side effects."

Of these, the most common is refusal to make a commitment. Because they lack a model of a successful marriage, this severely affects their intimate relations with the other person and their ability to find balance. "It is like asking a person who has never seen anyone dance to take a partner around the floor," is the metaphor used by Wallerstein.

"It was really hard for me to make the decision to get married," says A-kuo (who we described earlier), looking back over the path his romantic life has taken. Having begun to date in middle school, over time he passed up a number of chances to get married, always for the reason that he was "not ready." "I didn't understand how to maintain an intimate relationship with anyone, and it was quite daunting for me to think about living with someone for a long time."

Some children who grow up in divorced households ultimately choose not to marry and/or not to have children. As the American sociologist Carl Zucker says, "The way you treat children is the way they will treat society." There has been a trend in recent years of a rise in the number of unmarried, childless people. Although this cannot be wholly ascribed to divorce, according to Wallerstein's research, two-thirds of the children of divorced parents decide not to have children after they grow up, with the reason being fear of creating more unhappy kids like themselves.

The healing process

Fortunately, children do have the capacity to heal.

Counselor Leu Yih-shi notes that some children are lucky enough to find "substitute counterparts." For example, they might find a teacher or friend who genuinely cares for them. Sometimes just a short period of love and concern can restore their trust in adults and their confidence in themselves, ultimately leading to a successful recovery.

Chen Juo-chiao, a student in the Graduate Institute of Sociology at National Taiwan University, and her thesis mentor Professor Cheng Li-chen, conducted a study of university students who as children had experienced their parents splitting up. The purpose of the research was to look for protective factors--buffers or supports--that helped these apparently well-adjusted young adults to cope with and overcome their parents' divorce.

The study found that most of these people, when going through the actual divorce, though feeling fear and helplessness, were able to look at their parents' decision objectively, and did not emerge with negative ideas like blaming their parents or themselves, or being angry at the world as a whole. Their ability to recover after the divorce was greatly helped if they had positive personality characteristics (such as optimism and openheartedness), a sound relationship with the parent that they subsequently lived with, and the chance to regularly feel the concern and love of the other parent.

Looking at the plus side, children who grow up in divorced homes can come away with some special skills. For example, they may become more understanding of others' troubles, or more responsible for their own lives, and may accept the idea that divorce isn't the end of the world.

"Although the scar will never completely disappear, it does not interfere with my daily life," says A-ju, who grew up in a broken home. She has never felt that the emotional scars she bears have been a bad thing. "On the contrary, they give me a kind of immunity if more bad things happen to me in the future, so that the wounds will never be so deep."

Being unable to live with both parents alongside is a regrettable part of growing up for many children. But be that as it may, as society gives the problem more attention, and as people are more able to openly discuss the sources of their pain, we must work to ensure that it does not lead to lifetimes of regret.

Which direction will the vehicle of early life go in? The steering wheel is in the hands of adults, and children can only silently get taken along for the ride.

It's awfully late, how come these kinds at the Internet cafe have yet to go home? Today, when the family is in crisis, society cannot avoid paying close attention to the spiritual life of children.