Class of ''82: Effects of Parental Divorce / No-Fault Divorce - 4/14/8

[Smartmarriages]

- THE DIVORCE GENERATION GROWS UP
- NO-FAULT DIVORCE VIOLATES CONSTITUTIONAL PROTECTIONS
- DIVORCE AT SMART MARRIAGES

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- DIVORCE GENERATION GROWS UP

> "When we were growing up, divorce
> loomed as the ultimate threat to innocence, but now it just seems like
> another part of adult life ... What I wanted to know was how divorce had
> affected our class president and Miss Congeniality, the stoners and the
> valedictorian. Did it leave them with emotional scars that never healed, or
> did they go on to lead 'normal' lives? Did they wind up in divorce court, or
> did they achieve the domestic bliss their parents had sought in suburbia? I
> decided to open my yearbook, pick up the phone, and find out."

NEWSWEEK Cover: Splitsville
April 13, 2008 

The 'Divorce Generation' Grows up and Reflects on the 'Ultimate Threat to
Innocence' 

Many From the Class of 1982 Still Deal With the Impact Their Parents'
Decisions had on Them

NEW YORK, April 13 /PRNewswire/ -- During the 1950's marriage was the most
powerful social force. After California Governor Ronald Reagan's 1969, "no-
fault" divorce law allowed couples to end a marriage by declaring
"irreconcilable differences," divorce became the most powerful social force.
Divorce evolved from something shocking, even shameful, into a routine fact
of American life. Its effects, however, are no less profound.

In the April 21 Newsweek cover "Splitsville" (on newsstands Monday, April
14), Senior Editor David J. Jefferson and his classmates from Ulysses S.
Grant High School class of '82 tell their sides of growing up in L.A.'s San
Fernando Valley as part of "Divorce Generation." In a series of intimate
interviews with former classmates, Jefferson examines how divorce changed
the lives of the children who lived through the explosion of the myth of the
nuclear family, the first for which divorce was just another part of growing
up. These interviews show how living through divorce shaped their lives,
influenced their relationships and changed their expectations of commitment.

"Although I grew up a few blocks from the 'Brady Bunch' house, the
similarity between that TV-family's tract-rancher and the ones where my
friends and I lived pretty much ended at the front door," Jefferson writes.
"In the real Valley of the 1970s, families weren't coming together. They
were coming apart. We were the 'Divorce Generation,' latchkey kids raised
with after-school specials about broken families and 'Kramer vs. Kramer,'
the 1979 best-picture winner that left kids worrying that their parents
would be the next to divorce. Our parents couldn't seem to make marriage
stick, and neither could our pop icons: Sonny and Cher, Farrah Fawcett and
Lee Majors, the saccharine Swedes from Abba, all splitsville."

By the late '70s the women's rights movement had opened workplace doors to
mothers-more than half of American women were employed, compared with just
38 percent in 1960-and that, in turn, made divorce a viable option for many
wives who would have stayed in lousy marriages for economic reasons. By the
time Jefferson and his friends entered their senior year of high school,
divorce rates had soared to their highest level ever, with 5.3 per 1,000
people getting divorced each year, more than double the rate in the 1950s.

"Researchers have churned out all sorts of depressing statistics about the
impact of divorce. Each year, about 1 million children watch their parents
split, triple the number in the 50s. These children are twice as likely as
their peers to get divorced themselves and more likely to have mental-health
problems, studies show," Jefferson writes. "When we were growing up, divorce
loomed as the ultimate threat to innocence, but now it just seems like
another part of adult life ... What I wanted to know was how divorce had
affected our class president and Miss Congeniality, the stoners and the
valedictorian. Did it leave them with emotional scars that never healed, or
did they go on to lead 'normal' lives? Did they wind up in divorce court, or
did they achieve the domestic bliss their parents had sought in suburbia? I
decided to open my yearbook, pick up the phone, and find out."

After reuniting with his friends, Jefferson found that despite the dire
predictions, a surprising number of Grant alums wound up in solid marriages.
Jefferson's best friend, Chris Kohnhorst, who he had met in the fifth grade
and the first kid he can remember encountering whose parents were divorced,
got married 15 years ago and is still happily married. Chris's life since
his parents' divorce, "has been shaped to a tremendous degree by the goal of
avoiding divorce as an adult at all costs," says Kohnhorst. Jefferson also
found that the urge to get and stay married is stronger in his classmates'
generation than the urge to get divorced was in their parents'. "Every
honest couple will tell you that it's hard sometimes," says classmate Josh
Gruenberg, who now lives in San Diego with his wife and three kids. "You
have to compromise, and it takes work," says Ruth Kreusch, who's been
married for nearly 17 years and has three kids. David Selig says divorce
isn't as prominent in his social circle now as it was when he was growing up
-- though his circle is admittedly smaller, since he's become much less
social than he was in high school. "My wife and I would rather spend time
with each other and our five rescue dogs than just about anybody else," says
David, who's been with his wife for 18 years.

Others, however, were not able to avoid divorce. One ugly side effect,
according to research, is that divorce can be passed from generation to
generation, like some kind of genetic defect, with children of divorce
becoming divorces themselves. Tonju Francois married when she was 28 and got
divorced six years later, in part, because her husband didn't want to have
kids (he already had children from a prior marriage). "I loved being
married, and it devastated me when it ended," she says. Elyse Oliver got
married when she was 25 and divorced four years later. "I guess I just
didn't know what to do in a relationship," she says.

Other classmates wound up marrying much later in life than their parents did
(that's in line with the research, which shows that children of divorce tend
to marry either later than their peers, or much earlier, in their teens).
Lisa Cohen, waited until she was 35. "This generation grew up with such a
massive culture of divorce that I think there was an effort to make better
choices about who we married," says Cohen, whose parents wed in their 20s.
"I was pretty clear on the fact that I didn't just want to marry someone for
how good he looked on paper or how crazy in love we were."

Jefferson writes that "Despite the complications and the collateral damage,
my friends from Grant High's class of '82 seem to agree that the divorces in
their lives -- both their parents' and their own -- were probably for the
best. Most don't think ill of their parents for having split up. "As a child
I felt like I was a victim of my circumstances, a victim of the divorce,"
says Deborah Cronin. "But as an adult I learned that my parents were just
two people who met each other, fell in love, had children, and it didn't
work out. They were 18 and 19 years old when they met. They were young kids
having kids." It seems that along with the crow's feet and expanding
waistlines of middle age, my classmates and I have acquired an acceptance of
our parents and their life choices. Some of us have even found healing. "My
parents were good people," says Francois. "And good people get divorced,
too."

(Read cover story at http://www.Newsweek.com)

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- NO-FAULT DIVORCE VIOLATES CONSTITUTIONAL PROTECTIONS

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE - April 10, 2008
Contact Judy Parejko:  715-308-5754

No-fault divorce violates Constitutional protections according to research
conducted by Dr. Kathy Garcia-Lawson, a clinical psychologist who lives in
Palm Beach County, Florida.

³Every divorce filed in the county is granted, none are judicially denied.
In 1971, when state legislators changed the laws, they scrapped the existing
defenses which means the accused party in this type of lawsuit has no
defenses,² she said.  ³The evidence shows that the plaintiff wins every time
and that¹s not how it¹s supposed to work in our courts.²

Dr. Lawson undertook her study after hearing about a similar project in
Texas where Constitutional Law attorney, Shelby Sharpe sent surveys to over
one hundred counties. The surveys yielded the same results.

In light of the growing body of research documenting the myriad harmful
effects of divorce on children, adults, and the nation's infrastructure, an
interdisciplinary team has begun calling for state and federal
investigations.

Dr. Lawson, who is a member of this team, has taken her concerns to top
state officials, providing them with an authoritative report, ³The Effects
of Divorce on America,² co-authored by Patrick Fagan, who is also a member
of the team.  The report shows statistical evidence of the harm caused to
five core American institutions: family, Church, school, economic market
place and government.

Further evidence supporting the need for an investigation will be released
on Tax Day, April 15th at 9 a.m., at the National Press Club in Washington,
where David Blankenhorn of the Institute for American Values
(www.americanvalues.org <http://www.americanvalues.org/> ) will release a
report, ³The Taxpayer Costs of Divorce and Unwed Childbearing: First-Ever
Estimates for the Nation and all 50 States.²

Top Florida officials contacted by Dr. Lawson expressed mostly denial and
showed resistance to looking at this problem.  But officials in other states
have been more receptive.

Michigan legislator, Fulton Sheen, working with members of the
interdisciplinary team in that state, recently introduced a bill that would
limit no-fault divorce to couples without minor children.

Members of the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee have been notified of this
problem, because of the national scope of no-fault divorce laws.

Not by coincidence, the interdisciplinary team will be in Washington during
the same week as Pope Benedict XVI who has not missed a chance to advocate
for restoring the legal and institutional integrity of marriage and family.

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- DIVORCE AT SMART MARRIAGES

Although EVERY session at Smart Marriages is aimed at preventing divorce,
these sessions focus specifically on strategies for divorce reform or
adjustment. -d 

> 516 - Friday, July 4
> Divorce Reform Legislation Strategies
> David Prince, JD, Mike McManus, David Levy, JD
> Three concepts: reintroduction of mutual consent or fault divorce; presumption
> of joint custody; and TANF set-asides for marriage & divorce education, have
> the potential to slash family breakdown by 50%.

> 411
> Children in the Middle ­ TOOB
> Don Gordon, PhD
> Use this award-winning online divorce education program to maximize community
> divorce prevention efforts. Plus how to recruit parents in failing marriages
> and form partnerships with pastors, schools, physicians.

> 813
> Children of Divorce: Change Your Odds
> Beverly Rodgers, PhD, Tom Rodgers, PhD
> According to research, children of divorce are less likely to marry, and if
> and when they do, face higher divorce rates. Learn important steps to change
> the odds.

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