The Home - Part 1
The origin of the home was in the beauty
of Eden. It was there God first pronounced a problem with His creation,
that the man was alone. So God created Eve from the side of Adam, the
marriage began, and the first home was established. God’s plan from Eden
onward is one man, one women, for one lifetime. The recent past in our
country witnessed an attack upon the home as God designed it. One major
battlefront is divorce.
As divorce became more acceptable and thus more prominent in the nation some
questioned the effects upon the children. “Experts” have said for
years that children are flexible, they are adaptable to changing situations, and
therefore divorce is not a big problem for children. In fact, we were
told, it is better for children to grow up in a single parent home rather than
live in a two-parent home where there is constant conflict. The research
data is in and the results do not fit the picture so often painted.
Diane Medved cited research from a five year study conducted by Judith
Wallerstein and Joan Berlin Kelly in her 1989 book The Case Against Divorce.
The argument for better childhood development in a happy single-parent home
versus a troubled two-parent home was shown wrong. Medved observed, “The
two parent home is better for your child’s development.” Write
Wallerstein and Kelly, ‘There is, in fact, no supporting evidence in
this five-year study for the commonly made argument that divorce is overall
better for children than an unhappy marriage” (page 242). She went on to
note the researcher’s conclusion, “that children develop better when their
parents stay married (italics in original): ‘Unfortunately, it appears clearly
that the divorced family is, in many ways, less adaptive economically, socially,
and psychologically to the raising of children than two-parent families’” (Medved
page 242, 243).
There is more recent research on the subject. Cal Thomas wrote in a recent
editorial about the results of a twenty-five year study conducted by Judith
Wallerstein and Julia Lewis. The study traced the results of divorce on 60
families which included 26 children aged 2 to 6 when the divorces occurred.
Thomas noted that the study showed “that far from just the initial impact on
children, which fades with time, divorce is a cumulative experience that
produces stark emotional scars and shapes the attitudes, behavior and
relationships of children of divorce into adulthood.”
Some of the behaviors are summed up by Thomas: “Half of those studied became
seriously involved with drugs and alcohol. Many of the children,
especially the girls, became sexually active early in adolescence.” The
children also developed negative attitudes toward marriage. Thomas wrote,
“Lewis noted that the long-lasting effects of their parents’ divorce caused
adult children to become ‘very, very anxious about marriage (and ) fidelity.
They don’t trust their own picture of marriage,’ remembering ‘how unhappy
one or both of their parents were (and) the infidelity, the depression and
sadness.’”
Is it any wonder that
“God hates divorce”?