Let's Stop the Divorced Family Bashing

So reading the Herald Sun today, I couldn't help noticing Alan Howe's opinion piece about divorced families and crime. The subtext under the heading had me fuming before I even clicked to read the entire article.

Let's teach union rules to cut divorce rate
A STABLE family is your best defence against becoming a violent criminal and falling in to the ruts of early pregnancy.

Um, excuse me.

I happen to come from a divorced family, and I am yet to become a violent criminal and/or fall into the ruts of early (by which he means teenage) pregnancy ... actually, as has been pointed out to me, I'm no longer a teenager. So it's too late for me to fall into the early pregnancy rut. It's all up to my sister to fulfil that particular stereotype ... and the clock is ticking; she only has three weeks left of being a teenager.

But we can still both become violent criminals!

I mean, by getting divorced, mum and dad failed to provide us with the best defense against that. Or so Alan Howe would have everyone believe. We were let down and failed by our parents, and now we're going to become a burden on society by being unlawful and possibly teenage mothers.

The only way this could've been avoided is if mum and dad had've remained married and provided us with the stable home environment that only nuclear families can provide.

There is just one little flaw with that little arguement, Alan Howe; as a nuclear family, the home environment wasn't all that stable. That's why mum and dad got divorced. In fact, I'm pretty sure that's why most people get divorced. It doesn't really happen like;

"I say, honey, I'm bored!"

"I know what you mean. Little Max seems quite happy these days. We should get divorced just to mess with him and turn him into a violent criminal."

"That's a capital idea! That'll teach the smarmy little git! To the divorce lawyers!"

For most couples that end up getting divorced, the divorce is what provides the stability that is needed.

Just because a family is nuclear (and therefore the only correct form of family) doesn't mean that it's stable.

And saying that the children of single parents will become a blight upon society by becoming violent criminals and young parents (therefore repeating the whole cycle) is a cop out. It's making it easier for us children of single parents to act up and throw our lives away. It's a ready made excuse not to try!

And who says that just because the parents got divorced that the children suddenly stop being divorced?

Sure, the children may be given a little more leniency to begin with by guilt ridden parents. But if the parents are any good at parenting (this doesn't change after divorce), this leniency won't last forever. And if it does and/or the child keeps using the divorce as an excuse for misbehaving, then that child was probably headed down the road of dilinquency before the divorce.

Being a single parent doesn't automatically make you a bad parent. Parenting skills really doesn't care about marriage status. And I'm sick of reading/hearing about how bad single parents are.

Or maybe the sister and I are just really bad at being the children of divorced parents. Maybe we should be doing more to become violent criminals and (in my sister's case) a teenage mother.



http://www.heraldsun.com.au/opinion/lets-teach-union-rules/story-e6frfhqf-1226146005112