CHILDREN OF DIVORCE

In recent blogs we have concentrated on outside forces determined to destroy traditional marriage. But what about those forces within marriage that lead to breakup. Easy divorce and increasing common law union make marriage a transitory alliance, and with it the loss of stability and security.

This age cries for conservation, recycling, that we treat the earth with respect. But euthanasia and abortion have devalued earth’s most sacred commodity, human life. Now divorce continues the legacy of abortion, not in disposing of children, but destroying their ability to cope with life. 

Judith Wallenstein’s study of children of divorce, The Unexpected Legacy of Divorce, makes sobering reading. Here is an excerpt.

The life histories of this first generation to grow up in a divorce culture tell us truths we dare not ignore. Their message is poignant, clear, and contrary to what so many want to believe. They have taught me the following: 

From the viewpoint of the children, and counter to what happens to their parents, divorce is a cumulative experience. Its impact increases over time and rises to a crescendo in adulthood. At each developmental stage, divorce is experienced anew in different ways. In adulthood, it affects personality, the ability to trust, expectations about relationships, and ability to cope with change. 

The first upheaval occurs at the breakup. Children are frightened and angry, terrified of being abandoned by both parents, and they feel responsible for the divorce. Most children are taken by surprise; few are relieved. As adults, they remember with sorrow and anger how little support they got from their parents when it happened. 

They recall how they were expected to adjust overnight to a terrifying number of changes that confounded them. Even children who had seen or heard violence at home made no connection between that violence and the decision to divorce. The children concluded early on, silently and sadly, that family relationships are fragile and that the tie between a man and woman can break capriciously, without warning. They worried ever after that parent-child relationships are also unreliable and can break at any time. 

Easy divorce? Easy for whom? Certainly not the children who learn early in life relationships cannot be trusted, and so are prone to repeat the cycle later in life. Most of the grown children of divorce in Judith’s study said vigorously, “I never want a child of mine to experience a childhood like I had.” Sadly, their parents’ divorce robbed many of the tools needed to avoid it. 

Divorce is not subject to laws that tighten or ease divorce. Laws in most countries tend to follow the dictates of its citizens. As I stated in an earlier blog, once sex becomes recreational, children become an inconvenience to personal “happiness.” That idea flows into marriage and, too often, the children become secondary.

None of this denies the intense pain that many go through; divorce hurts everyone involved. While probably no direct fault of our own, we are caught up in a self-absorbed culture. But the culture is a product of individual desires, and any cultural change must start with me, the individual. What are my priorities?

A CULTURAL DEATH WISH

Last week I reported on the program of gender mainstreaming, in process now for several decades. Under pressure from well financed and influential groups many western governments are adopting it—Alberta and Ontario leading the way in Canada. Its end aim is to dispense with the traditional idea of male and female, and replace it with a genderless society.

This may seem far-fetched, but elimination of the terms “father” and “mother” from children’s kindergartens and schools shows how the program is progressing. “Parent one” and “parent two” (or three or more) eliminates the opposite-sex understanding of parenthood.

Gay “marriage” already leads the way to the lesser significance of traditional sexual roles. The inclusion of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Queer (LGBTQ) as alternate genders further dilutes the idea of two distinct sexes. 

Sexual deviation no longer exists, only sexual orientation, which allows freedom of all sexual expressions and removes the stigma. Declare these “human rights,” and liberating our baser instincts becomes human achievement.

However, this direction is unsustainable. Let me present two primary reasons. First, the decay of western nations by attrition is this culture’s death wish.

The rush to satisfy personal desires, masked as “rights,” has resulted in lowering birthrates and populations. Gay “marriage,”—essentially infertile—abortion, euthanasia, and contraception have reduced Canada’s birthrate to 1.61 children per female, which continues to fall far below the minimum 2.4 needed to maintain the population.

Most western nations are experiencing similar inadequate birthrates. While the west promotes the laudable influx of refugees from disaster areas, the need for importing people to make up for birthrate loss is an undeclared motivating factor. It is unlikely that national “adoption” of imported families will be able to alleviate population loss in the long term.

Yet, while our culture demands we preserve the planet’s ecology as nature requires, the culture defies nature’s plan of male and female for procreation and nurture of offspring. We have already seen the disastrous imbalance of men over women after China’s “one child” policy, and India’s infanticide of girls—the two most populous nations on earth.

Second, gender mainstreaming opposes truth. During preceding centuries, the bedrock of Christianity provided a system of complying with nature as God created it. With all its faults and wars, western culture has continued to flourish until this century. The current decline of western civilization follows a retreat from its former godly heritage.

Christianity is struggling against increasing hostility and persecution, aided by the apathetic response of most Christians. If Christians pursue their personal goals in place of the imperatives of the faith, Christianity will continue to weaken and the errors plaguing our culture will grow.

Christianity is resilient, however. Repeatedly, as Christianity’s end is predicted and persecution intensifies, its basic message of hope revives the hunger of people for God’s transcendent order of life and the equality and dignity of all humans before God. Genuine, concerted prayer for revival, and fearless proclamation of the truth, will unmask the false directions of our times.

THE DECLINE OF MARRIAGE

A friend once suggested to me that the introduction of the contraceptive was responsible for the chaos of marriage and sex today. I had to think about that. Eventually I concluded she was partly right. The contraceptive has furthered a major change in the attitude towards sex.

 

The sixties sexual revolution grew out of a growing outlook that sex was primarily for recreation; then procreation is a side effect. That may be simply put, but its general acceptance means children are a by-product; useful when a child is required but a disposable problem when not.

If children are not the primary reason for sexual activity, why restrict sex to marriage? The youth of the sixties were simply picking up where their parents were going, following the logic of this thinking. Now, the one-man one-woman (OMOW) marriage remains an option but no longer a necessary principle.

This movement naturally evolved sexual freedom, to any sexual activity. “Date nights” commonly include sex and common law “marriages” outstrip regular marriage four times according to the 2011 Canadian census. Sexual pleasure without responsibility and termination of pregnancies at will is the war cry of most political parties.

Recreational sex has logically led to same sex unions, where pregnancy is not an issue. Homosexuality appears contagious, and I fear that liability free sexual practise and strident feminism’s impact on lowering of men’s esteem has drawn many men to gay unions, passing or permanent.

Since the door is open beyond OMOW unions, other alliances seek the same rights as gays: polygamy—many wives, polyandry—many husbands, polyamory—group union of both sexes. The polyamory Society already exists to promote group marriage, and pedophilia, sex with consenting youth, is on the horizon.

These current and growing practices are only steps to a gender free world. The latest “bathroom wars” regarding transgender use, a third category of “other” for sex on official documents, are leading promotion of the movement for gender mainstreaming.

Gender mainstreaming, promoted by rich and influential elites, is persuading governments that removing male and female labels as well as barriers to all sexual practices, will guarantee freedom and equality for all. The homosexual lobby is the engine for this transformation.

The rainbow symbol, designed to expresses inclusion of all sexual preferences, also symbolises a time when every person has and practises a variety of “natural” sexual tendencies irrespective of sexual physicality. Obviously, in this proposed world, marriage is meaningless, and all children from sexual unions become wards of the community or state.

 

Liberal governments will continue to power this juggernaut unless natural responses correct it or convincing arguments contest it. Check in next week as we discuss ways that may reverse the direction in which our culture is heading.

Welcome to Salt and Pepper

Welcome to Bryan's new blog dedicated to marriage, the benefits that accrue from it, and the challenges it faces. I plan this blog as a weekly journey that discusses current affairs relating to marriage.

First, what does the header on my new blog conjure up for you? Some have assumed a blog on interracial marriage. If so, I would approve. Marriage designated as the union of one man and one woman includes the union of a couple across all ethnic origins. Humans of every race share equally in human dignity.

However, this blog primarily celebrates the wider issue of traditional marriage. Each dinner table and restaurant booth provides salt and pepper, and here they represent the foundation of continuing humanity, and the archetype for companionship: the marriage of one woman to one man.

But this blog will also recognize the forces arranged against it. Let me be clear. Any union based on anything other than one man and one woman is a parody of marriage and a dilution of its meaning. Calling or legislating other unions as “marriage” does not make them so; they can only be poor copies of the original.

However, let me also be clear on this. Proposing or engaging in alternative unions does not reduce the dignity of the proponents; they also share equally in human worth. They have taken a wrong path leading to the deterioration of the culture as a whole, and wrong views on marriage will eventually have a related outcome.

The basis for one man and one woman (OMOW) forming marriage is simple. It takes one man and one woman to produce offspring. Of course, some marriages cannot produce offspring, but this side issue does not validate other unions that cannot produce children as “marriage.” The fundamental fact remains that childbirth requires an egg and sperm connection from each sex.

Furthermore, a registered OMOW marriage is a pledge to society that each has made a commitment to the other, and they accept responsibility for children from the union. Raised in a OMOW marriage ensures children build a balanced and practical assessment of the attributes of each sex that will inform each child later as they engage with the opposite sex.

Join me next week as we glimpse the future of marriage.