Parental conflicts more harmful than any disaster in the news

There are phrases such as "restraining order," or "she was screaming the whole night," or "when they get back from their dad's they stab everything in sight," that should bother us.

I am upset when I hear, "My attorney says he can only see them Thursday from 4-6." "He has to be at his mother's house and supervised" and "I told the police officer to be careful when he talks to him." When law enforcers, attorneys and judges rear our children, our country is in trouble.

Words of fear and desperation are too often spoken in the clinic by nervous and injured women. The emotional sting is fresh and tangible. As a society, we will always have other things to think about: wars and their rumors and realities, joblessness and poor trade figures, batting averages and professional sports draft picks. These events take precedence in broadcasting and printing of the news. However, at the center of civilization and at future's core is what mothers and fathers do to their children.

As we see and hear about these cultural and personal disasters far greater than any oil spill, there are tears and throbbing. Petroleum can be wiped off animals and cleaned from beaches, but the stain of rejection and fright never scrubs off. The national debt we will bequeath to the next generation is huge. The scars of parental discord are deeper and costlier than any dollar amount.

Pain exhausts us. It can throw someone to bed and never let them up. So it is with parental conflicts. Children's size, vulnerability and limited understanding amplify the trauma that much more. Self-loathing is often the result. The reasoning follows, "Mom and dad don't like each other therefore they must hate me." This abruptly evolves into "it is my fault."

The protectors and providers of love and substance can't be wrong; therefore "I am bad." The children's anguish is seared into them so deeply that with time the hurt can become hate. The list is long of sons who come to the clinic and talk tough and speak of wanting to kill their fathers for leaving them. If free speech were a crime they would be put in jail for what they say about their fathers who have abandoned them.

The words we speak give us scripts to live. The messages parents send to each other are intercepted by children and are interpreted by then. Messages of hate and criticism are expressed too often by people who are supposed to love each other. The confusion of these contradictions in the minds of children is cemented and when the attachment is disrupted the natural path is anger.