Perspectives on Loss and Trauma, Essay Example

Abstract

Divorce, while no by no means an exclusively American social issue, has issues within it which appear to be both specific to the culture of the United States and which serve to self-perpetuate it. Divorce as such is in fact often and commonly not perceived as a social problem at all, yet this increasing acceptance of it overlooks indisputable social effects it creates. Children of divorce with developmental problems, economic hardships, and personal esteem and entitlement issues ordinarily spring from it, and the growing cultural willingness to see divorce as a largely inevitable element of life fuels these consequences.

Overview

In the 1970’s divorce began to be regarded in the United States as something of an unavoidable, and sometimes comic, consequence of modern life. Various media, in attempts to appeal to the commonality factor of it and thus secure greater audiences, put forth scenarios in which divorce was simultaneously a perfectly understandable and often healthy adjustment to be made when the expected content of marriage was lacking.

This pervasive attitude, spurred by the public awareness in that time of the striking increases in the American divorce rate, accomplished something perhaps necessary for so many people confronting divorce in their own lives: it eliminated a stigma which had been firmly in place prior to the 1970’s. Attitudes changed, as did laws. As the difficulties in obtaining a divorce diminished, so too did its appeal as a “fresh start” and a blameless, ultimately fulfilling action become more evident.

While understandable, this complex cause-and-effect equation leaves a great deal unresolved: “It has only taken a quarter of a century for the stigma of divorce in its harshest form to fade. But the hurt, the long-time pain….and the brutality of the legals aspects have not abated” (Harvey, 2002, p.61). Moreover, and with the greatest potential impact, American culture has in this relatively brief time chosen to view divorce as, not a problem, but as a typical condition of living. This drastic alteration in societal viewpoint, so at variance with previous prevailing opinion, enables a flourishing of the problems inherently created by divorce for they too are seen as, for a substantial portion of the population, difficult but largely unavoidable facts of living. All of this creates a social problem both on the rise and in a radically dangerous state of denial, as any social problem not regarded as such must only increase in scope.

Familial Consequences

Even those most willing to set aside the trauma of divorce and its repercussions as a cultural issue concede that children are, more often than not, “victims” of it. However, what form this victimhood takes is as well either romanticized or treated with relative unconcern. Children of divorce have in a sense been endowed with the societal mantle divorce gives to adults; they must undergo something unpleasant and troubling, but something also typical of modern life and not apart from ordinary development, and this is in itself a pernicious consequence of the problem. The child of divorce who comes to see it as actually not unlike other phases of growing up has yet another sociological impetus to perpetuate the pattern.

“Children who experience parental separation and divorce are a population at risk…Mental health professionals have consistently found that these children face an array of emotional, academic, physical and behavioral difficulties” (Csiernik, Birnbaum, Pierce, 2010, p.169). This is a broad statement and one with which most Americans would not argue. Unfortunately, the very individual aspect of divorce renders addressing these issues virtually impossible, in terms of general remedial responses. The child of divorced parents living in poverty faces different challenges in adjusting than does his affluent counterpart. Children of parents divorcing in an amicable, even ostensibly healthy, manner are far more likely to endure less trauma than the children witnessing parental warfare. Then, even in the most harmonious of families, children vary immensely in their personal development, and on a yearly basis, so the adolescent dealing with divorce is essentially in a completely different sphere than the young child.

However these myriad difficulties for children of divorce are addressed, it is essential that the attitudes of the adults discussed earlier be seen as the pivotal element it is. Modern societal viewpoints in the United States have, if not embraced divorce, validated it. The divorcing man or woman benefits, at least on a surface level, from acceptance and even an implicit encouragement. Culturally, divorce in America today is strenuously approached as an opportunity.

Yet this attitude, its dangers or advantages to the adult aside, hampers children as it enables adults. It is not merely distressing for the divorced parent to confront the issues the divorce is bringing to the child; it is also, perhaps cynically, highly inconvenient. A child’s genuine distress over divorce, manifested in any number of ways, serves to reinforce a trauma inherent in the process the adult and his or her culture have chosen to minimize. Thus do children of divorce more potently reflect the factor of denial.

Financial Issues

Divorce in America does not exist, of course, in a box. It is not a thing itself, but an action people take in the course of living, and all the elements of life intrinsically play into it.

In recent years, economic crises in the United States have forged a new and double-edged sword in regard to marriage. Traditionally, society has taken the side of the divorced woman and the laws were such as to veer far more favorably in her direction. In older days the wife had the expectation of being provided for and divorce, seen nearly as much as a masculine prerogative as that ability to support the family, was no reason for this financial relationship to appreciably change.

Ironically, the greater gender equality in employment of more recent decades has not served to ease the financial burdens divorce places on a couple. On the contrary, vast numbers of married people today maintain dual careers not to greatly enhance their standards of living, but merely to carry on as they have. This has in fact attached a further trauma to divorce; the motivations behind the desire to obtain one may be overpowering, but economic reality means that severe lifestyle changes, and not for the better, will accompany the decision.

This calls into play the double-edged sword referred to, for not only are divorcing couples undergoing unprecedented hardships in the process, but there are strong indications that this very difficulty is forestalling divorces which, in more favorable economic circumstances, would otherwise be pursued. “There is debate about whether the current economic climate is actually resulting in the cancellation of divorce plans or merely delaying them” (Engel, Gould, 1992, p.23). It is most interesting to note that the statement, written in 1992, preceded the more recent and far more devastating recession of recent years. Also of note is that, whether the divorces in question are aborted or simply put off, there is no doubt as to the economy’s impact upon them.

The reality in the United States today is that many couples are indeed staying together only because divorce would present unthinkable changes in how the couple lives. The family home, once an indisputable asset, may no longer be relied upon to generate income when sold. Even the selling of it, not long ago an easily counted upon act, is by no means assured. For many couples today, unhappy or otherwise, marriage is in fact a financial necessity.

Cultural Psychologies

Any proper look at divorce in America today cannot help but take note of an intriguing parallel occurring within society, that of the vastly expanded opportunities provided by the Internet for orchestrating potential romance, and unions. So too is it compelling to note that, in a country with a divorce rate still nearly at fifty percent, immense and strenuously fought battles are being waged by gay people determined to secure the legal right to marry.

These two factors, seemingly unrelated to one another and not necessarily even linked to divorce, point up the very cultural motivations and attitudes which perpetuate divorce, at least certainly to some extent. There is a pervasive element of entitlement in Americans as a people, an urge to achieve a desired state of being viewed as commensurate with the value society tells each person he possesses. This is of course a side-effect within a consumer-driven culture; as we are exhorted to hold ourselves high in our own esteem, we are encouraged to demand, and thus purchase, the best for ourselves.

The danger is that a growing sense of personal entitlement often translates to a distancing from realities once known, and not even abhorred as such. In a necessarily general manner, most men and women did not have innate expectations of a sustained “happiness” as they entered life. The current insistence on such a state of being is in fact a recent, and peculiarly American, cultural trait: “Personal entitlement, self-centeredness, acquisitiveness, self-confidence, optimism…are some of the qualities that describe the developing spirit of the postwar era” (Cushman, 1996, p.221). Again, the date of the statement is noteworthy, for it coincides with the beginning of the Internet explosion of the late 1990’s and therefore does not even address how that element was to fuel the trend.

A sense of personal entitlement encompasses all aspects of that person’s life, and romantic union is certainly a major focus of such ambition. Occurring simultaneously in American society is the abetting of this attitude in the media; the more esteem we attach to ourselves as people, the more we are told we deserve, and the culmination of these parallel incentives is a determination to secure a romantic connection that will provide us with what we now believe to be our due: constant happiness. Phrased in this manner, it sounds facile and unlikely as an agenda, yet that is the predominant undercurrent motivating the average American’s pursuit of love and, more tellingly, his or her decisions to marry and divorce. Unfortunately, the basis for the divorce is as weak as that which prompted the marriage, when substantially unrealistic notions of what ought to be are permitted to take the helm, and the divorce is no more an opportunity for happiness than was the marriage.

Summary and Solution

No matter what causes one attributes to the steady rates of divorce in the United States, an irrefutable and culture-wide apparatus is clearly in action. That is, divorce is more accessible and sought after because marriages are entered into in too careless a fashion.

Such a broad generalization demands modifying and it is of course equally indisputable that many marriages end for reasons truly unforeseeable and painful, and not without great efforts made to save them. Yet these divorces could not possibly account for modern divorce rates, and the omnipresent attitude of personal entitlement in the United States is simply too massive to not be a substantial component. Earlier in the country’s life, a gravity was attached to marriage which had evolved from multinational backgrounds and places of origin. It was serious business and men and women were inculcated, from infancy on, with the sense that it was a state to which they must aspire, adhere, and be worthy of.

Modern life and attitudes have shifted the responsibilities. Today, more men and women believe that marriage must prove itself to them and this reasoning, while applicable in other arenas of life, cannot be successfully applied to something that inherently demands submission of the self. Only in a returning to a prosaic and realistic view of how interpersonal relationships can work well at all may we begin to turn the tides on divorce in the United States.

References

Csiernik, R., Birnbaum, R., and Pierce, B.D. (2010.) Practising Social Work Research: Case Studies for Learning. Toronto, Canada: University of Toronto Press.

Cushman, P. (1996.) Constructing the Self, Constructing America: A Cultural History of Psychotherapy. New York, NY: De Capo Press.

Engel, M. L., and Gould, D.D. (1992.) The Divorce Decisions Workbook: A Planning and Action  Guide. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill Professional.

Harvey, J.H. (2002.) Perspectives on Loss and Trauma: Assaults on the Self. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, Inc.