Writing in the Daily Mail, columnist Yasmin Alibhai-Brown looks at last night’s BBC documentary Mum And Dad Are Splitting Up which says that couples split up too easily and the children are often the victims of family breakdown. Many children of divorce end up having social and psychological troubles and often have trouble forming healthy relationships later in life. As one child of divorce says in the documentary about his parents, “They do this to us. How do they think we will ever believe in love or marriage?” Another says: “‘You come out of it but are never yourself again. I am insecure, mistrustful, cry easily, expect the worst, break up with men before it gets serious. They did this to me. ” It is almost as if the parent’s divorce was an attack on them.
Alibhai-Brown talks about how too many parents are too casual about divorce:
[W]alking away has become all too easy – and that an intact family unit is more precious than anything else.
While nobody should feel they must stay with bullying, abusive or truly unsuitable partners, once you have children, you can’t just please yourself or indulge your own desires.
It is truly deplorable watching how so many children are treated as objects by divorcing parents.
