Question from Focus on the Family Website:
What about parent-child separation that occurs for reasons other than divorce?
Is the pain any less intense for kids when a parent has a good reason to be
away?
Answer
Research confirms that the consequences of any parent-child separation can be
severe. In one study of fathers whose jobs required them to be away from their
families for long periods of time, the children tended to experience numerous
negative reactions, including anger, rejection, depression, low self-esteem, and
commonly, a decline in school performance.
Some of those conclusions were presented at a White House conference at which I
spoke a few years ago. The other speaker was Dr. Armand Nicholi, professor of
psychiatry at Harvard University. That day, Dr. Nicholi explained how family circumstances that make parents inaccessible to their
children produce some of the same effects as divorce itself. Cross-cultural
studies make it clear that parents in the United States spend less time with
their children than parents in almost any other nation in the world. For
decades, millions of fathers have devoted themselves exclusively to their
occupations and activities away from home. More recently, mothers have joined
the workforce in huge numbers, rendering themselves exhausted at night and
burdened with domestic duties on weekends. The result: No one is at home to meet
the needs of millions of lonely preschoolers and latchkey children. Dr. Nicholi
expressed regret that his comments would make many parents feel uncomfortable and guilty. However, he felt obligated to report the
facts as he saw them.
Most important (and the point of his address), Dr. Nicholi stressed the
undeniable link between the interruption of parent-child relationships and the
escalation of psychiatric problems that we were then seeing and that are even
more pronounced today. If the numbers of dysfunctional families and absentee
parents continued to escalate, he said, serious national health problems were
inevitable. One-half of all hospital beds in the United States at that time were
taken up by psychiatric patients. That figure could hit 95 percent if the
incidence of divorce, child abuse, child molestation, and child neglect continue
to soar. In that event, Dr. Nicholi said, we would also see vast increases in
teen suicide, already up more than 300 percent in 25 years, drug abuse,
crimes of violence, and problems related to sexual disorientation.
I have reason to understand a measure of the pain spoken of by Dr. Nicholi. I
experienced it when I was 6 years old. My mother and father left me with my
aunt for six months while they traveled. That last night together, I sat on my
mother's lap while she told me how much she loved me and that she and my father
would come back for me as soon as they could. Then they drove away as the sun
dropped below the horizon. I sat on the floor in the dark for an unknown period
of time, fighting back the tears as depression engulfed me. That sorrowful evening was so intense that its pain can be recalled instantly
today, more than five decades later.
In short, even when parent-child separation occurs for valid reasons in a loving
home, a boy or girl frequently interprets parental departure as evidence of
rejection. If we have any choice in the matter, we should not put them through that painful experience.
188 Judith S. Wallerstein and Joan B. Kelly, Surviving the Breakup (New York:
Basic Books, 1980), 211.
189 Presentation given by Dr. Armand Nicholi, psychiatrist at Harvard Medical
School and Massachusetts General Hospital, at White House Conference on the
State of the American Family, May 3, 1983. Copies of the presentation are
available in the Congressional Record, Extension of Remarks, 3 May 1983.