What divorce does to children...

It may be more socially acceptable and common, but divorce today has the same kind of devastating effect on a kid’s prospects in life as it did years ago. The National Child Development Study was carried out in the UK, and as a part of it researchers tracked around 17,000 people born during one week in 1958 – a time when divorce was subject to much greater social stigma. Their lives were then compared to people born in earlier and later years.
To their surprise, the researchers found that even with greater acceptance of divorce, the effect on kids’ lives remained the same, reports a newspaper. “It might be expected that as divorce has become more commonplace, its effects might have reduced. Yet a comparison with children born in 1970 shows that this is not the case,” the researchers write. They noted that kids from broken homes are still likely to lack qualifications and benefits and suffer from depression. “The estimates are surprisingly similar in magnitude and not significantly different from one another,” the NCDS team say.
Divorce, the report stated, still “has repercussions that reverberate through childhood and into adulthood.” It added, “Children from disrupted families tend to do less well in school and subsequent careers than their peers. They are also more likely to experience the break-up of their own partnerships.”
Mansi Pillai moved to another city after her divorce to avoid unpleasant situations with her former husband. “Divorce may be more acceptable now in that a divorcee is not looked at as an outcast or with a fair amount of suspicion, but the children suffer, mentally and psychologically.” She gives the example of her son who stays with her “but misses the father figure in his life. He goes into depression fairly often and throws tantrums which are very difficult to deal with. What’s worse, he becomes aggressive and violent at the drop of a hat. I’ll soon have to take him to a counsellor,” she says. Anita Samuel, wonders why her parents couldn’t make a go of their marriage. “I hate it when people ask me why my parents broke up. In fact, my attempts to explain things become pathetic and embarrassing. I miss that secure, warm ‘complete family’ feeling that I see in my friends’ homes and envy them for that.” Anita’s friend Sonal, wonders if that’s the reason she flits from one relationship to the other. Anita often confesses to her that this is because she feels her relationships are doomed because her parents’ marriage ended in a divorce.

What divorce does to children...

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