Have you followed the case out of Rutgers that led earlier this week to the sentencing of a former student accused of spying on his roommate, who later committed suicide? I hadn’t followed it closely, but I did follow this suggestion on Twitter:
The New Yorker (@NewYorker)
5/21/12 1:15 PM
Revisit Ian Paker’s in-depth piece on the Clementi case in the wake of Dharun Ravi’s sentencing: nyr.kr/y3umI3#ravi #clementi
It took awhile. I read it in short bits now and then over the last couple of days. Because it really, truly is “in-depth.” And fascinating. And depressing. (And these few reflections took me some time, too. I wrote most of this post late yesterday, and am only finishing it up now.)
It’s a little hard to briefly explain what I got out of the piece. But I quote the following just to make the point that what was found was probably not exactly what anyone would have expected the author to find:
Clementi’s death became an international news story, fusing parental anxieties about the hidden worlds of teen-age computing, teen-age sex, and teen-age unkindness. ABC News and others reported that a sex tape had been posted on the Internet. CNN claimed that Clementi’s room had “become a prison” to him in the days before his death. Next Media Animation, the Taiwanese company that turns tabloid stories into cartoons, depicted Ravi and Wei reeling from the sight of Clementi having sex under a blanket. Ellen DeGeneres declared that Clementi had been “outed as being gay on the Internet and he killed himself. Something must be done.”…
It became widely understood that a closeted student at Rutgers had committed suicide after video of him having sex with a man was secretly shot and posted online. In fact, there was no posting, no observed sex, and no closet. But last spring, shortly before Molly Wei made a deal with prosecutors, Ravi was indicted on charges of invasion of privacy (sex crimes), bias intimidation (hate crimes), witness tampering, and evidence tampering. Bias intimidation is a sentence-booster that attaches itself to an underlying crime — usually, a violent one. Here the allegation, linked to snooping, is either that Ravi intended to harass Clementi because he was gay or that Clementi felt he’d been harassed for being gay. Ravi is not charged in connection with Clementi’s death, but he faces a possible sentence of ten years in jail. As he sat in the courtroom, his chin propped awkwardly on his fist, his predicament could be seen either as a state’s admirably muscular response to the abusive treatment of a vulnerable young man or as an attempt to criminalize teen-age odiousness by using statutes aimed at people more easily recognizable as hate-mongers and perverts….
What follows is a long, appallingly detailed account of several young people’s trek through a latter-day Heart of Darkness.
I say “appallingly detailed” because it makes clear the fact that we now live in a time in which the private thoughts of people who are not makers of history or even (until the tragedy of Tyler Clementi’s death) newsmakers can be strip-mined and laid out in a detail that rivals anything that has been compiled about the thoughts and communications and actions of kings and presidents and generals in the past.
Even when they’re kids. Even when they are lost, confused kids staggering through a world that no longer offers standards or guideposts, social or otherwise, or at least none that they consider to be relevant. Offhand, careless, only semi-articulate bull sessions between adolescents are recorded, rather than being mercifully forgotten, and set in virtual stone like the carefully considered edicts of monarchs and parliaments.
To the extent that the story has a chronological beginning, it starts when high school graduate Dharun Ravi, who I guess we could say is a not atypical teenager (excuse the double negative, but it seemed more accurate than the more direct “typical”), learns the partial name of his roommate-to-be, and decides to research him on the web, and discuss what he finds with friends online. We are exposed to the most trivial, casually cruel, contradictory, insecure, stream-of-consciousness examination over every thought and half-thought and emotion that he experiences as he tries to decide what he will make of this stranger. This goes on for hours and hours in the initial session — much of which is spent discussing the wrong person. About the only thing that is determined in this search is that the roommate is gay.
Ravi’s attitude about that particular piece of knowledge reflects the contradictions of his generation, a generation that contemptuously dismisses any reservations that some older people may have about, say, same-sex marriage, but does not hesitate to use “that’s so gay” as a pejorative. The typical kid of this generation is both more open and accepting toward homosexuality, and yet more willing to say dismissive things about it, than a kid in the 1950s (or at least as willing — certainly more open and candid about it). It is never clearly established what Ravi’s attitude is, at least not in the simplistic terms of “tolerant” or “supportive,” or “homophobic.” He’s all of the above.
The boy who killed himself left a similar record of his thoughts and actions, although not quite as exhaustive, as he wasn’t as technology-adept. But he leaves enough that it is positively stunning that there is no clear, cause-and-effect explanation of why he killed himself. Even with all this data, the sequence of events is circumstantial.
Does that make Ravi innocent? No way. No one is innocent in this appalling narrative, in any sense other than, perhaps, cluelessness. Real innocence has long ago been burned out of any of these kids.
I went to college during the alleged sexual revolution, but I find overwhelming the utter lack of a sense of boundaries that afflicts the existence of these kids. It’s one thing to act on one’s sexual urges, or even to have curiosity about those of others. It’s another to discuss such acts and urges in such exhaustive detail, in writing, for publication, for everyone you know and everyone you don’t know, to read in real time and forever after. There are seemingly no boundaries for these kids, either regarding what to do, or what to say about it or whom to say it to or how to say it. They are lost, drifting in a universe without any sort of social norms.
Because social norms have not caught up with the technology. The village had its rules about what should be said and when and to whom. This world does not. And the human animal is a long, long way from having evolved quickly enough to cope with it.
And these kids are lost in it — every one of them, not just the two main protagonists in this tragedy.
I mean, set aside the homosexuality angle — especially since everyone in the story is so ambivalent about it. Imagine that we’re talking about a situation in which Clementi brought a girl to his room. The shocking thing then becomes that no one treats this encounter between apparent strangers as anything deserving of any kind of discretion or privacy or respect, much less censure. It is an open topic, as everyone in the dorm, and everyone within reach of the various actors’ Twitter and Facebook feeds, is a participant in a convulsive, confused, on-and-off, half-hearted form of voyeurism.
What happens, briefly, in the saga’s critical episode, is that Clementi was going to have a guest in his room, and asked his roommate to make himself scarce. Ravi obliged, but left his computer set to automatically receive a videoconferencing request, and with the camera pointed toward Clementi’s bed. Then he went to the room of a girl he knew from high school, and activated the link. They watched for a few seconds, saw the two guys kissing (fully clothed), and then had a reaction on the level of “Ewwwww” and shut off the link.
The girl later said, ““At first, we were both, like, ‘Oh, my gosh, we can’t tell anybody about this, we’re just going to pretend this never happened.’ ”
For Ravi, that resolution last three or four minutes, before he Tweeted, “Roommate asked for the room till midnight. I went into molly’s room and turned on my webcam. I saw him making out with a dude. Yay.”
Later, there was an abortive plan to spy on Clementi on another occasion, with a larger audience, but that didn’t happen — apparently because Clementi realized what was happening (how could he not? he had read the Tweet) and disconnected Ravi’s power strip.
Clementi wondered online to a friend what to do about what his roommate had done, although at no time did he seem freaked out about it. He wrote things like, “When I first read the tweet I defs felt violated but then when I remembered what actually happened . . .
idk… doesn’t seem soooo bad lol…”
He wonders whether to complain, or request another roommate. He never quite makes up his mind.
What does not happen, what never seems to happen, is any sort of real communication between the two roommates. The wasted opportunities for it are tragic. For instance, we read an online exchange, before any of these incidents, that Clementi has with a friend about how to initiate a conversation with new roommate Ravi… with Ravi sitting right there.
Again, the thing that strikes me is how crippled these kids seem to be when it comes to normal human interaction, and how utterly unfettered their online communications are — communications that do damage that they are not equipped to repair. (I say unfettered… but there is evasion, and obfuscation, and false bravado… for instance, “lol” is used repeatedly in a context that suggests it’s more of a nervous giggle of insecurity than a belly laugh.)
The dysfunction is profound. And there are no capabilities in these kids’ nervous systems (evolution can’t keep up) or in our social mores and etiquette for setting things right.
When I first started communicating with people electronically, in the early 80s, I was an adult, with all sorts of social skills to fall back on. I quickly learned the ways that electronic communications were different, and the pitfalls that they contained. Not that I don’t frequently misstep to this day, on this blog and elsewhere.
But these kids, they’re just in a dark void, clueless as to how to cope constructively with other humans, at a time when it is easier than ever (theoretically) to communicate.
And it’s a deep, dark tragedy.
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If you want to get really depressed about today’s young adults, catch an episode of the new HBO series “Girls” which claims to be a realistic depiction of young women’s lives in the big city.
Every male character (young and old) is sexually conflicted or abusive. Women are treated as objects and the women go along with it for whatever purpose suits the moment. All the young woman act like they have some talent based on nothing more than growing up being told they were special and that the world revolves around them. The main female character expects a $1100 a month stipend from her parents so she can sit around in her apartment and write in her journal so that she may become a famous writer some day.
But let’s remember, folks, these kids didn’t grow up in test tubes. Who they are is what their parents made them.
I thought that was called “Sex and the City.”
Doug, I hope none of your kids ever have serious problems, because it sounds like you’d never forgive yourself.
We should raise our kids as carefully as though we were the only determinant of how they’ll turn out. But if we want to do a good job, we have to have our eyes open to the fact that there is an unbelievably vast universe of other stuff acting on them, influencing them, 24 hours a day.
I don’t have anything to add. Its just sad. I would like to say that kids aren’t adults until about 30. But then I know many folks who passed that milestone I think of as not quite human beings, to use a term from Little Big Man.
There’s far, far, far, far, far more to how kids turn out that what their parents do. It’s important to do your best as a parent but it can only go so far.
Eloquent post.
1) Clementi should have been more careful. Always assume that any webcam you see is running.
2) If Ravi had filmed/shared his roommate with a girl, people still would have watched, but there would have been high fives all around afterwards. It’s amazing that even now, at a major university with many gay students/faculty/staff and tons of counseling resources, GLBTF groups and whatnot, being gay still carries a stigma.
3) Clementi is the classic “eggshell plaintiff.” The appropriate response wasn’t suicide, it was to punch Ravi in the face, or to prank him back more successfully. That’s what we’d have done.
4) If there wasn’t a suicide involved, this would have just been considered normal college hijinx. Intead, it’s a tragedy.
5) Anyone that watched, or that knew it was being broadcast but didn’t tell Clementi is just as guilty as Ravi.
6) If it was my child, I’d feel that the sentence was too lenient. That not being the case, I feel like the sentence is acceptable for a prank gone awry.
7) Most people I know probably did a lot worse stuff than this growing up, but got lucky/didn’t get caught.
8) It is a tragedy.
Again, that was not supposed to be a smiley face. That was supposed to be an eight.
As much as I love my iphone (with SIRI!) electronics are severely restricted for my son, and none of us participate in social media. No Facebook, no Twitter, zip. My 5yo has excellent conversational skills, vocabulary, and manners (not just me bragging, his teachers and other adults comment on it). 🙂
I want him to have “greatness of soul” like below:
http://www.cnn.com/2012/05/23/opinion/bennett-navy-seal-speaker/index.html?hpt=hp_c1
A more useful New Yorker piece is the profile of Clayton Christensen, also featured on NPR yesterday. He’s a business guru, and devout Mormon, who points out that many of his Harvard MBA classmates, including Jeffrey Skilling, didn’t intend to end up as they did–divorced and/or alienated from their kids, or in jail, but the actions they took over and over again pointed that way. Mostly, not making family top priority–coming home and spending time with them when the kids were young, instead of waiting for the time that the career was secure–at which time the family was long gone.
Sorry, I don’t agree. It’s not 100% sure, but the good kids I see have two parents who don’t helicopter over them or alternatively ignore them, speak with them honestly, don’t impress their on expectations too much, demonstrate affection and concern. That’s a pretty good formula for better outcomes.
I’ve got three kids ages 19, 21, and 23. We never had a call from a principal or a policeman. I can state with 100% certainty that none of them drank underage or used drugs. Not even a speeding ticket.
And I’m not alone. The kids my kids hang out with fit the same model. Are they perfect? No way. But they know for sure that their parents love them and, more than that, like them for who they are.
People still subscribe to HBO? One episode of Real Sex will break that habit… unless you enjoy watching people you’d never want to see naked, naked and simulating sexual movements on other people you’d hope to never see naked.
@Doug – “I can state with 100% certainty that none of them drank underage”
Just like your parents believed the same thing, were they right?
Doug, I find it hard to believe that your kids NEVER drank underage or participated in any illicit or bad activity. They probably just never got caught.
Even the “good” kids I knew growing up did some bad stuff, they were just a little more clever about it than the rest of us.
@Silence
What do I care what you believe? My daughter just turned 21. She has never had a drink. My oldest son did not have his first beer until he was past 21. What you are saying is that either a) I am lying or b) they are lying. My youngest son spent the past year at USC with roommates who drank to excess most days of the week. They constantly gave him a hard time for not participating.
I never had a drink til I was 21 either. And never have done any illegal drugs. Not even inhaled when my college roommate was hitting his bong all day long. It is possible. For some people.
@steven
Yes, they were right with me. Not with my brothers. It’s easier to have kids who don’t drink underage if you aren’t a hypocrite.
Mark, thanks for that “eloquent post” attaboy. I don’t write like this much any more. This is more like the way I used to write for the newspaper. I took a little time with it, which blogging doesn’t usually allow me.
I didn’t take quite as much time as I would have for print, though. This is over 1,700 words. For print, I would have spent another hour or two rewriting to get it under 1,000. And it would have been leaner, and tighter, and made points more economically.
And I might have changed some things. For instance, it ends, “And it’s a deep, dark tragedy.” Which is a bit trite, sort of like “It was a dark and stormy night.” And actually, it might have been better to say, “And it’s a SHALLOW, dark tragedy.” (Or something a bit more elegant.) Because a lot of the problem is that there is a lack of depth in these kids’ interactions. All of this unfettered communication, and it never goes more than a millimeter deep. Such lack of insight, of real understanding, so many words frittered away along with reputations. All of those communications that Ravi and Clementi had ABOUT each other, without ever truly interacting or getting to know each other.
Shallowness is apparently a significant theme in their lives. Which is another sort of tragedy.
Another point… as to what Silence said, “The appropriate response wasn’t suicide, it was to punch Ravi in the face, or to prank him back more successfully. That’s what we’d have done.”
That would have required a level of human interaction that is probably beyond Ravi as much as it was beyond Clementi. But it is particularly hard to imagine Clementi taking the direct approach, when he couldn’t even bring himself to ask Ravi to open the curtains.
It’s interesting how this relates to the anecdote about Mitt Romney at boarding school. That was another kid who didn’t know how to fight back. He was a natural victim, who screamed and wept rather than fighting — or growling curses at those holding him down. He was weak. And that put an extra moral burden on young Romney. We would want someone who wants to be president not only to not bully a weakling. We’d want him to stand up for somebody like that.
I’m reminded of what one of the marines said at the end of “A Few Good Men.” The not-so-bright private protests, “What did we do wrong? We did nothing wrong.”
But Lance Corporal Dawson says, “Yeah, we did. We were supposed to fight for the people who couldn’t fight for themselves. We were supposed to fight for Willie.”
If young Romney was leadership material, he should have stood up for the kid with the bleached-blond hair. And Ravi should have stuck up for Clementi.
But that would only have happened in a dream world, these kids were so far from any sense of responsibility for each other…
Oh, and as to this back-and-forth about Doug’s kids — I’m calling a halt. Maybe it seemed that Doug asked for your opinion by volunteering that info, but we don’t have to rise to the bait.
Doug’s a good guy, and I’m sure he’s got good kids.
I’ve got good kids, too, but I wouldn’t make any claims like what Doug did — from superstition as much as anything. Even if I felt sure it was true, it would feel like a pitcher talking about having a perfect game going. I’d be afraid that as soon as I typed it, I’d get a call telling me somebody was in trouble.
Doug’s not superstitious, though. He doesn’t believe in luck; he thinks we make our own.
And truth be told, I don’t really believe in it THAT way. But I do believe that God takes a dim view of hubris, and likes to take us down a peg now and then…
One of the things that having five VERY different kids taught me about life was not to be so sure that I’m in control of things. If I hadn’t accepted that no matter how hard I try, to some extent kids themselves are going to decide their paths, I’d have gone nuts.
That doesn’t mean you don’t try as hard as you can. It’s sort of like that saying of St. Augustine’s: “Pray as though everything depends on God. Work as though everything depends on you.”
You do the best you can. But you don’t control everything.
Mitt is a classic boarding school kid. Attacking a weakling doesn’t just speak to his aggression, but also to his own fears about belonging and self-worth.
That flare-up of conflicting emotions in Romney was still on display in the debates last winter. Too often he had that look of fearful violence when caught flat-footed on stage. I couldn’t put my finger on it until I heard the boarding school story. Then it all fit. He was that kid.
Those kids were never the true leaders; they were the social controllers and whips.
Okay–I was a good kid who never broke any laws–you could drink at 18 and frankly, it didn’t interest me very much. Never ever did illegal drugs. So what.
Growing up in Aiken, though, I can say that most all parents adhered to Doug’s model and their kids didn’t all turn out great–several of my classmates and friends didn’t make it to 25. Maybe there was stuff I didn’t see, but too many came from apparently great homes, yet had problems, or just a lapse in judgment that led to a fatal car wreck.
I have three very different kids as well.. but they all have a set of core values that are consistent with what they saw in their parents.
@Doug – I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone who didn’t have at least one drink before they were 21. Some of the “non-drinkers” in my college dorm were some of the biggest drinkers by the time they left for the summer Freshman year.
It’s a shame you missed out on the ritual of hugging a common space bathroom toilet and just being happy that it was cool to your cheek. Or wondering why you can only find half of the clothes you wore the night before. Or wake up wondering who the ugly girl is sleeping in your bed.
Steven has nicely defined the significant benefits to be achieved through impluse control.
@Steven
Shake Mitt Romney’s hand next time he comes to town. How is it that Mormons can resist as a group for the most part? Comes down to structure, family, etc.
@ Mark–[LOL] Steven is often helpful that way.
@Doug–Mormons live in a social bubble that is squeaky clean.In the real world, adolescents are subject to peer influence far more than parental influence.
Great post and I agree with so much of what you’ve said here. Children born into even sort of the average middle class family in the US have the benefit of SO much that no children in history have had, yet face unbelievable challenges (perhaps BECAUSE of the same factors) that no children of previous generations have quite faced. I suppose one could say that about previous generations, but the exponential rate of technological and thus societal change is so much greater for kids born now than for kids of our generation.
I think I grew up more in the Steven Davis mold than in the Doug mold. I definitely had my share of moments my freshman year. Sophmore year I grew up, got a job and stopped partying(as much).
I recommend working in an urban liquor store to anyone who MIGHT be on the path to alcoholism. Seeing the bums & wine-os queing up before the store opens in the AM will scare you straight.
@ Mark Stewart – Non boarding school kids do the same bullying as boarding school kids. They just go sleep at their parents’ houses at night.
@Mark – Sorry you spent your youth locked in your room and were only allowed to leave the house if your mom went with you.
@Doug – When is Romney coming to town? I’m not Mormon by the way and I came from a two parent family where dad worked and mom stayed home and raised the kids. Neither smoked, drank, or did drugs. I would guess that I saw my dad drink beer about a half-dozen times in my life and my mom would drink one glass of wine with a meal about 4 times per year. All four kids graduated college and/or joined the military. Had to be home by 10 p.m. until I was 16-17, even in the summer and on weekends… life was horrible. The structure was repeated in most of my friends homes… [ad hominem material removed]. My brother and I both went on to play college sports which has its own set of values and structure… and social benefits.
If I had to do it over, I’d do it exactly the same. 18-22 was probably the best time of my life. Then I graduated and had to grow up.
@Doug – I have a family of Mormons who live a couple houses down. “How do they resist”? Who says they resist? This family eats fast food, has pizza delivered, drink soda like they’re going out of style, the oldest kid dips Copenhagen and both kids cuss out their mother like no one else. The father is a lazy slob who can’t keep a job. So much for the healthy, caffine-free, tobacco-free, profanity-free, lend-a-hand family structure the Mormons try to make outsiders believe they live. If their is a football game, baseball game, basketball game, or any other major sporting event on television the whole fat family has their wide-ass butts parked in front of their television.
Mormons from what I have seen are as bad as Southern Baptists when it comes to believing one lifestyle and living the exact opposite.
Doug makes a very compelling case that good parenting helps make good kids grow into responsible adults. I have no doubt that can make a difference.
But come on Doug it is simply not a credible position to assert that good parenting alone can prevent kids from engaging in risky and even illegal behavior. A good friend of mine has siblings that never did drugs, drank or engaged in any questionable behavior. My friend, however, did a few things along the way. All the siblings had the same wonderful and engaged parents. But for some reason my friend was drawn in by a different peer group.
Ultimately my friend got all that nonsense out of his system and graduated college with 2 degrees. He’s married with a great job and has two wonderful children. No long-term harm done by a bit of rogue behavior as a young man. But it certainly can’t be said that parenting, genes, a good home life or anything else is a guarentee of anything.
Holy cow, I agree with everything bud just said. The Mayans may be about 6 months off on their prediction.
Ever notice that minister’s kids are typically the biggest hell raisers? Why is that?
“[ad hominem material removed]”
Censorship has begun… and from history we all know where this is headed.
@bud
I didn’t say good parenting alone could prevent bad behavior. But it certainly will lessen the chance. Take the example of women who enter the stripper profession… care to bet that the vast majority of them come from some less-than-ideal home situation? Not all, but most.
I didn’t use any words that suggested a guarantee. But there is no luck involved. There are events and responses. There are situations and there are choices. Luck has nothing to do with. Luck doesn’t exist.
I have a friend who is a medical doctor, his brother is in prison for the 3rd or 4th time. Same parents, same family structure, etc…
I had excellent parents who impressed the value of education on us kids. We all attended prep schools at great expense to our family, and with great sacrifices made to support the costs.
I was the classic underachiever: 1 year of private university in the Northeast (varsity letterman), then transferred to a large public university. I always had a job after I transferred. I graduated in 3.5 years (total) worked full time for a year, went back to school and did an MBA then a PhD. I married a lawyer and I think we’ve been very successful thus far.
My harder working sister graduated from an Ivy league school that she attended on scholarship (also a varsity letterman). She worked very successfully for several years, making VP at a major P.R. firm. She’s now a stay at home mom of one, married 10 years to her college sweetheart, who is a surgeon.
My youngest sister graduated from a large public university and is an RN, specialized in pediatric cardio. She makes more money than I do, but lives in a high cost area and works weird hours.
I can count on one hand the number of times I ever saw my parents take a drink, prior to very recently. They seemed to have loosened up in their old age.
All three of us kids drank like fish in undergrad at one point or another. The middle sister even had to go to the hospital with alcohol poisoning. We got lots of speeding tickets, but none of us went to jail or anything.
I wish I’d studied harder in H.S. but generally I’m pretty pleased with how us kids turned out. I don’t know what my parents could have done to have made us turn out any better.
Steven,
I was respectful of the advantageous environment of my youth. You may draw any conclusion from that that you desire.
Doug,
I had a good friend in high school who became a stripper. She was a math whiz and had an effervescent personality. She also had a terminal condition. As you surmised, she probably didn’t come from a privileged background, but that was hard to tell from her demeanor.
Not knowing whether she would be around to finish college, she chose to earn money and experience life; she traveled and socialized as long as she could. I heard she died while I was in graduate school.
Carpe diem, everyone.
@Mark
Maybe you and I should head down to a strip club some night to gather soci-economic statistics on the performers.
My first question would be: “When did your parents get divorced?”
@Silence
Re-read your first sentence. “I had excellent parents who impressed the value of education on us kids”. Aside from the different paths each of their children took, do you think the fact that things turned out okay for you all had anything to do with the outcomes you each attained?
Now, imagine your parents WEREN’T excellent and DIDN’T care about your education. Or if they did drink to excess… you think the three children would have the same outcomes? Better? Worse?
Doug,
I’ve got to email my ex-wife this afternoon about our kids’ summer plans; shall I forward your comment?
Unlike Steven’s inane comment about how I missed out on the feel of the wet, cold porcelain of a dorm toilet on my cheek (or the sight of an unknown ugly girl in my bed at dawn), your comment stung.
Divorce is a terrible thing for children without question. But that doesn’t mean that their parents have to give up or that the children are doomed to failure.
And, no, I don’t visit strip clubs for any reason.
My husband has three siblings. He went to Harvard (his fallback school, since he was only wait-listed at Princeton). His oldest sib has an Ivy League law degree, the next one dropped out of Sarah Lawrence to become a Scientologist, and has worked for the Church of Scientology since the early 1970s–she’s actually an excellent ambassador for her religion–a very nice, happy person. The next sib was a juvenile delinquent druggie who has maybe two years of college and still skates on the edge of the law. Go figure.
There are several fmailies like this that I am aware of from growing up in Aiken–several of the kids “made something of themselves” and one or two struggled and often didn’t overcome.
At the same time, I had occasion to become familiar with the families of juvenile delinquents back when I would represent them. most of the time, only one or maybe two of the kids in a ridiculously large family would have been in trouble with the law, even if one or both parents had been (so many were raised by grandmothers)– and yes, it’s probably a lot harder to succeed from that sort of background, but certainly not impossible, or even improbable.
Studies show that children of alcoholics are three times more likely to become alcoholics themselves. Since the population at large is only about 10% likely to be alcoholics, this is 30%. That still means 70% adult children of alcoholics do not become alcoholics.
and, Doug–while divorce is not ideal for children or their parents, neither is a strife-filled home or an absent workaholic parent. Most children of divorced parents turn out just fine, studies repeatedly show. I think far more divorced parents have “figured it out” than ever before, and many children of divorced parents spend far more quality time with the parent they don’t primarily reside with than ever before.
A friend who is a workaholic was no longer able to postpone spending time with his kids when his marriage blew up, and says that was the best thing to come of it all: he was forced to spend time with his kids at set intervals, to the benefit of all concerned.
Kathryn,
Divorce is a very serious partnership failure. That shouldn’t be glossed over.
Nor should the negative impacts that it brings to children be papered over with excuses and rationalizations. The toll divorce creates should be regularly discussed and articulated by society – people failing their way to divorce are too often in a “me” mode and resistant to hearing what they really need to know, especially about themselves. Wearing a thick helmet of denial isn’t ever going to enable anyone to make the right decisions for the right reasons.
I just reject Doug’s assertion that failure for the children is inevitable.
My kids had if rough after my divorce. I’m 100% certain it would have been much worse had we struggled to stay together.
You all keep trying to apply my comments about general conditions to your own specific situations. Isn’t Kathryn the one who says something like “Anecdotes aren’t statistics”?
If you are going to try and tell me that having a stable family life with two caring parents has no impact GENERALLY on outcomes, I don’t believe it. Kids need structure, discipline, support, stability, encouragement, love, etc. Sure there are divorced parents who can do that (but don’t tell me it isn’t HARDER to do).
Here’s my anecdote – there is no divorce in my family tree. Today is my 26th anniversary. Both brothers are past 25 years. All of the parents of myself, my wife, my in-laws are past or near 50 years married. I guess that was all luck… just pure randomness.
@ Doug – I fully admit that my parents’ attitudes towards education and character played a major role, if not the major role, in making us who were are today.
It eventually comes down to nature v. nurture though: I knew lots of children from all kinds of broken homes who turned out to be wonderful and successful adults. I knew plenty of children from textbook families who turned out to be royal screw ups and never really got it together.
What we’ve got here is, failure to communicate. Some men you just can’t reach.
Here’s a website with an abundance of studies showing the impact of divorce/single parent homes on crime rates. Your personal situations may be different/better but the data is pretty overwhelming.
http://www.divorcereform.org/crime.html
Congratulations on 26 years, Doug!
@susan
My wife is very lucky.
Big 🙂
Seems like a lot of comments and bickering over something we all seem to agree on: good parenting is a very good thing.
@Mark Stewart– I used to act as guardian ad litem in custody disputes. I am well aware of the issues many divorces present, especially to the children. In custody disputes, it seemed that at least one party had a personality disorder–“me” issues writ large.
I just thought that stigmatizing children whose parents are divorced went out with the mandatory wearing of hats and gloves.
Yes, Doug, you are lucky, as am I–no divorce in my family tree either. Truly fortunate. Only married 22 years so far, though.
As a guy who has been divorced almost as long as married, my outsider’s view is that, while we are each responsible for our own actions and words, successfully married couples seem to understand that each partner is 50% responsible for the marriage – it’s hard to blame and resent oneself. Divorced people seem better at putting me before we.
Congrats to all of those who created a lasting partnership.
Serving as a volunteer Guardian ad Litum is a worthy activity representing the victims of bad parenting. It’s tough to see just how many children don’t have the the stability and care that we have commented about today. It’s also tough to see just how overwhelmed the legal system is and how little concern is given to the neeeds of neglected and abused children. Mostly, they are penalized as if they were criminals.