Honey I Got the Kids!
When a marriage breaks up, the life of every family member is turned upside down. A home is something with which are associated feelings of security, warmth and comfort. It is the refuge of everyone from the big bad world out there. Coming back to your home after a hard day at work recharges your batteries and freshens you up so that next day, you can again be ready to face whatever life throws at you. A family and its home are the foundations on which the entire society stands. The arrangement is essential to the propagation and progress of human race.
A divorce, therefore, is like a spanner thrown in the works. The entire family structure is jeopardised. The adults are quite capable of handling the consequences arising out of the marital split. They are mature and emotionally secure. They can take care of themselves and earn enough money to take care of their basic needs. However, the real victims of divorce are the children. They are the ones who suffer the most silently.
Children have a different mental makeup than adults. They are vulnerable and soft. Family and home comprise their only survival mechanism in the hostile world. Children instinctively know that they are too small and weak to fend for themselves and they will simply be unable to last long if abandoned by their parents. The worst thing that can happen to the healthy psychological development of children is a feeling of insecurity at an early age.
Divorce damages the personality of children by making them insecure about their future. Deep down, as they see their parents separating, they enter into panic mode. “What will happen to us now?” is the question uppermost in their minds. They develop a guilt complex and blame themselves for not being able to get their parents to love them enough.
Indeed, the scars of divorce on children’s psyche run deep and take a long time to heal, if they ever do at all. Such children later on in life find it difficult to form intimate relationships and make their own place in the society. They often become shy or introvert and some even indulge in delinquent behaviour.
In divorce cases, therefore, it becomes very important for the court as well as the partners to arrive at an arrangement that will minimise the effects of parental separation on children. The needs of the children for security and financial support are paramount and child custody issues dominate divorce proceedings, along with division of property among the partners.
The judge usually grants custody of children to the mother and orders the father to pay alimony and child support directly to her. This is for several reasons. Children have a very close bond with mothers since their birth and they trust her totally. Women are more sensitive to children than men and provide them tender emotional and psychological support and a feeling of security and safety.
It is assumed that though children can live without the father, they simply cannot do without their mother. A female presence is necessary to take care of children and give them the warmth of an intimate and secure relationship. It is assumed that separation from the mother will cause children more psychological damage than staying away from the father. Due to this, the courts almost always give child custody to the mother. The interest of the children remains paramount while deciding issues related to child custody.
Another important thing that is taken into account in deciding child custody is the behaviour of individual partners in the marriage and their role in the break-up of the relationship. Who was responsible for bringing the marriage to an end? Who did not fulfil his or her family obligations? Was there emotional or physical abuse involved? Who was the culprit? Was a partner alcoholic or prone to substance abuse? Was the family abandoned by a partner, as in cases of extramarital affairs and elopement? These questions have great significance. It makes little sense to hand over custody of the children to a drug-addicted mother!
It is also a myth that single fathers make poor parents. Some of them are really more caring, sensitive and affectionate than mothers. Fathers provide a sense of security, supervision and guidance to the children that a woman cannot. Especially for boys, it is very important to have a father figure they can relate to and grow into healthy adults. Fathers find it easy to provide for the family because of their earning potential. If the children are of school-going age, fathers can also make excellent lone parents.
In a divorce, child custody issues are the most stressful and bitterly fought. It is a decision that has to be taken very carefully by treating the interests of the children as supreme, rather than the emotions of each parent.
