Family breakdowns and its impact on children

Key words: Marriage, Cohabitation, Surrogacy, Separation & Divorce

Today’s children’s are the tomorrow’s future. From generation to generation from decades to decades we believe this concept and we act according to that. For any country or for any nation their children are the most gifted asset to buildup beautiful tomorrow. With all developments, changes and innovations today we are in a turning point that we priorities materialistic gains than moral and emotional satisfactions. Among that unfortunately we forgot the beauty of life, we forgot the beauty of sentiments, relationships and beauty between the connections among humans. No debate that demographic and social changes in the last three four decades have created more diverse and complex changes in family structure. As a result we experienced serious social issues than economic and financial crisis. Family breakdowns, parental separations, divorce, cohabitation became very common and its impact on children became a global issue for today’s societies.

Especially being an Asian nation we experienced dramatic changes socially as well as economically. One good example is shifting to nuclear families from extended families and losing the support system and mutual inter-dependency between blood relations, neighbors and friends. With the different strengths and weaknesses, personalities and temperaments, and varying degrees of social, emotional, and economic interaction and also with differing family situations each child and each family and their reasons to separation is unique. Divorce affects families and society in a numerous ways. As I mentioned before every family and every divorce is different. In today’s reality, divorce is both possible and allowable in modern society for different reasons and quite easy to obtain. According to the Department of Social Services in Sri Lanka the recorded divorces per day is 400 and its 0.15 per 1,000 people. Our society takes divorce for granted. Without understanding that the divorce should be the last possibility, current generation using it very easily to get away from the normal climax of their unhappy marriage.

There is a greater difference between “what is morally right according to the religious grounds, social customs and values in eastern world”, and “what is legally right as interpreted in the Marriages and Divorce Laws”. The law itself permits divorce for many reasons. It is, however, a matter of regret and concern that Sri Lankan society has switched into where divorce has become common day today practice. 

The eastern society, unlike any other community in the world, is composed of opposites and extremes compiling both beautiful and awful traditions, customs and values. From one end we find the educated and literate and on the other end its vastly ignorant and the illiterate. So we can see thousands of reasons why families became separated and why couple seeking divorce as the ultimate remedy. In modern society most of times there’s a trade-off between the choices of young adults and parents. One highlighted reason is most of the parents seeking educated and wealthy partners for their children without considering the choice of their children.  Secondly due to various social and economic tragedies young people ends up with mismatching marriages.  Thirdly due to the negligence of parents, young children ends up in teenage love affairs, teen pregnancy and other unbelievable social dilemmas where early marriage will be the only solution to settle things back to normal. Many parents misinterpreted the meaning of “marriage”. The ignorant parents use this as a technique to settle their overly spoiled children. They encourage kids to get married early before they are mature enough to face the responsibilities of adult life. These kids became inefficient in their family life and are unable to set up home of their own. Finally this rift the couple apart and will be end up as divorced couples. Other than above reasons some other social practices also creating grounds for family separations and divorce. One known practice is newly married couple starting their life with their in-laws. In Sri Lanka still we can see this custom where the newly-weds living with their in-laws even for years after marriage. Such situations, most of their wants are met and their problems ironed out by their in-laws, often create difficulties. Finally the influence of parents and parental interference lead to strained feelings between husband and wife who ultimately end in the divorce courts. Same time when such set up their own, it’s unable for them to meet the challenge and responsibility of marriage. This will create disappointment about each other and worsen situation is filing a divorce case or living separately.

Those are the so called popular reasons but not the only reasons. Social changes leads us to a different end and there are some developing trends in society where we still terrified to create a social debate or discuss in public such as cohabitation. It’s the darker side of globalization and the result of limitless commercialization. Being Asians it’s new to us and little bit too much to accept under the constructed social norms.

In current environment long term adult relationships are no longer limited to marriage; there are various other forms of adult relationships such as living together and having homosexual relationships. These concepts has become almost universal.  Even though these types are increasingly attractive to today’s younger generation, sociologically these behaviors create high risk to society while touching the boundaries of year’s old societal values and customs. More couples are cohabiting and becoming parents, though the risk of parental separation among this group is higher than among married parents; statistically cohabitation is four times more likely to break down than marriages and finally more than 40% of relationships ends up as single parents. Ultimately children suffers the most coz our society is not that much merciful for illegitimate kids. On the other hand these practices opens up doors for some other social distractions such as abortions, child and adult prostitution, child trade, child abuse & domestic violence etc.  

Instead of cohabiting another upcoming trend is single parenting through surrogacy.  Previously it was worked as a medical solution for infertile woman or couples which are not able to reproduce. Unfortunately today it became a trend and a fashion among high society and homosexual communities. Commercial surrogacy is legalized in most of countries.  Indian celebrities in the entertainment industry is a very good example for that. Most of Indian celebrities go to surrogate motherhood or fatherhood due to different reasons such as to maintain their body shapes and to avoid aging problems etc. Most of male celebrities adopting their own children through surrogacy without entering into a marital relationship. In that case it became a problem about who is responsible for these kids infant development. On the other hand with the time when these people committed with other relationships its questionable what is happening to these children. At the end of the day these kids end up as mentally damaged kids where poorly socialized and socially disabled.

Anyhow after all those separations, divorce, surrogate motherhood & fatherhood, most of parents undertake the battle of parenting with the belief that they will be able to provide the required emotional, physical and financial security for their children. But with the social and economic changes that associated with their family life always made these goals are much harder to achieve.

These challenges sometimes taking parents to the edge where they take decision which will solve their problems but will create negativism for the future of their kids. Due to the adjustments that parents need to make in their own lives when relationships fail and the necessity to look after their own psychological and social recovery means that they are less able to recognize the requirements of their children. As developing nations when we face the family separations and divorce, it’s very common that one of the partners (most of the times females) going through rough financial difficulties. And such conditions directly affecting to various other social and emotional conflicts of both separated partners and their children. Same time the parents who are the main caretakers (usually the mothers), even if relieved at reduced marital tension, face the challenges of greatly increased responsibilities and the loss of practical support both in household tasks and child discipline.  So family separations, divorce and staying with step families, relatives etc. creates different insecurities to our children & ends up with massive social problems. Children’s with tragic family separation experience terrible emotional breakdowns such as low self-esteem, low self-worth, anxiety etc.

However the outcomes of parent’s separation and divorce on children, range from slight to significant and from short-term to long-term damages. Parental conflict within the family, or after family breakdown, is most strongly associated with adverse outcomes for the children. Parental separation, leads to the exposure of the child to a range of other negative factors, the effects may be additive or even multiplicative and the child will become more vulnerable. These effects and concerns include;

• Mental and physical instabilities of children – serious health issues, behavioral & learning difficulties, emotional breakdowns
• Financial problems – most of times child custody goes to mother and it’s difficult for them to manage the finance.
• Loss of family - the company of current extended family and difficulties to deal with new family members (step-parents, step-brothers and sisters)
• Child abuse - this is more common when children have to stay with their stepfamilies or with relatives
• Tendencies for crime, drug abuse, teen pregnancy and suicide
• Higher rate of school drop-outs

There is a significant difference between children who experience parental separation compared with children from unbroken families. In third world countries where the proper system of re-habitation is not yet developed, children from family breakdowns experience poor outcomes such as poverty, parental conflict and domestic and social violence. It is a feature of today’s society that many children will experience family breakdown and that family structure will continue to be diverse.  So it’s a duty of all responsible parties including government to parents that develop a right and timely policies with the correct focus on supporting maternal mental health, facilitating cooperative parenting and proper communication between parents and their children, reducing and managing parental conflict, encouraging good parent-child relationships, and strategies to reduce financial hardship. That will be just some of the ways that may help to maximize positive child outcomes following parental separation and family breakdowns.

Anyway the root cause of the problem is largely a matters on individual approach, choice and the environment. After all we all are human beings with all our follies and foibles over the built boundaries and divisions of race, religion and ethnicity. Therefore our requirements expectations and ambitions are same only the thinking and our reactions may be conditional and different based on the society we live and the people we associate. Anyway the collapse of individual’s moral fiber reflect the collapse of the backbone of the society as a whole. Therefore it’s both individual and societal responsibility that creates a friendly caring and loveable environment for our children to build their future.

Reference

• “Divorce among Sri Lankan Muslims” By Dr. Fazal Mahmood
• “Impact of Family Breakdown on Children’s Well-Being” - Evidence Review Ann Mooney, Chris Oliver and Marjorie Smith Thomas Coram Research Unit Institute of Education, University of London
• “Parents, parenting, and family breakdown” by John H Tripp, & Monica CocketThe Department of Social Services, Sri Lanka
• www.nationmaster.com
• http://marriage.about.com/od/cohabitation/qt/cohabfacts.htm