Divorce and Children

Ever since I was young, I have felt that divorce was a really sad thing and I knew I didn’t ever want to have to deal with that. I didn’t want my parents to get divorced, and I wanted to marry carefully to make sure I wasn’t leading myself to a future divorce. When I was a child, I lived in Dallas, Texas. I went to an elementary school that had many children that came from divorced parents. Before I really understood what divorce was, the idea of my best friend’s parents living in two different homes, really confused me. Because I was so young, I didn’t really see much of a trend change from happily married parents to divorced parents. There were just always lots of kids with divorced parents. I do remember feeling so bad for all of my friends that had to live a life where they lived at a different house every other night. Later on, when I was in middle school, I remember teachers sending students home with papers for their parents to sign. The next day, if the student’s name wasn’t on the paper, the teacher had no idea who the parent signature belonged to. I went home one night and expressed my feelings to my mom. I remember telling her how sad I thought it was that most of my classmates didn’t even share the same last name as their parents.

In Amato’s article, he talked about how children in divorced families don’t have as strong of bonds with their parents as they could if their parents weren’t divorced. This stood out to me, because it made me realize that some children probably have a tendency to like one parent more than the other. One of the parents might be wealthier, one might have a bigger house, one might spoil them more, one might be less strict than the other, etc. Children should see their parents equally, and it is so sad that preferring one over the other is so normal. This past week actually, my aunt and uncle got a divorce. It has been so sad to see them go through this, especially for the sake of their children. One of the children absolutely hates the mother now, because she's the one that filed for a divorce and chose to leave the family. The child is terrified when she can hear the sound of her mother’s voice, and has nightmares about her mom coming to take her away. It is so sad to see the close relationship that they used to have, and how the separation and divorce destroyed a mother-daughter relationship. Our families are who we will be with forever in the eternities, and it is so important to establish loving, trusting, fun relationships with our family members.

President Kimball said, “…only those who believe deeply and actively in the family will be able to preserve their families in the midst of the gathering evil around us.” I think that one of the most important ways to preserve our families today, is through faith. Every family goes through trying times, and sometimes the easiest thing to do, might seem like the best thing to do at the time. If we have faith that we can make it through those hard times, we will be able to. The Lord won’t give us more than we can handle. It is extremely crucial in marriages to put God first. You and your spouse should grow closer together because you are growing closer to God. You shouldn’t grow closer to God because you are growing closer to your spouse. It is so important to remember this, even in the hard times. A family won’t be completely broken if the parents stay together. The parents are the glue to the family, and children need to know that their parents love and adore each other and want all of their children to return to live with Heavenly Father one day.

In regards to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints and their feelings about divorce, they strongly discourage divorce if it is “just because” or if things just aren’t working out. They believe that there are situations where divorce might be necessary, but there are so many more reasons why the couple should be able to make marriage work. It is so important to marry the right person and listen to the spirit when you are deciding who to marry. It is better to completely prevent a possible divorce than to try and make it work before you are even married.