All divorces damage the children

It happens to about 1 million American children every year. Their parents sit them down and deliver the news that they're divorcing. But not to worry, they say, they're parting amicably and assuming joint custody. The scene might go something like this:

"We're splitting up the week, alternating days," announces the dad.

"How are you splitting up seven days?" demands the son, reeling and confused.

"I've got Tuesday, Wednesday and Saturday, and every other Thursday," says Dad reassuringly. "That was your father's idea," notes Mom proudly.

"Well," the son asks anxiously, "what about the cat?" A pause. "We didn't discuss the cat," says Mom with some consternation.

This scene, as it happens, is from a new movie, "The Squid and the Whale" — 36-year-old director Noah Baumbach's wry take on his own parents' divorce when he was a teen. But for those of us in the first generation to grow up in an era of widespread divorce, it perfectly captures the emotional havoc wrought on children when their parents convince themselves that if they can work out the details of divorce — who goes where on what days — without rancor, they can reduce the pain for the children and pursue their own happiness without a lot of guilt.

Before the divorce rate began its inexorable rise in the late 1960s, the common wisdom had been that, where children are concerned, divorce itself is a problem. But as it became widespread — peaking at almost one in two first marriages in the mid-1980s — popular thinking morphed into a new, adult-friendly idea: It's not the act of divorcing that's the problem, but simply the way that parents handle it. Experts began to assure parents that if only they conducted a "good" divorce — if they both stayed involved with their children and minimized conflict — the kids would be fine.

It was a soothing tonic, and it was swallowed eagerly by many angst-ridden parents. But it was also, it turns out, a myth. No matter how happy a face we put on it, the children of divorce are now saying, we've been kidding ourselves. An amicable divorce is better than a bitter one, but there is no such thing as a "good" divorce.

That's a tough sell to many, I know. Today, praises of the good divorce abound. Countless newspaper articles, television reports and books quote therapists and academics arguing on its behalf. A holiday article last year in Newsweek, titled "Happy Divorce," featured divorced families who put their conflicts aside to spend Christmas together. Researchers, it said, "have known for years that how parents divorce matters even more than the divorce itself."