Personal Essay on Divorce In reading Judith Wallerstein's essay on div

In reading Judith Wallerstein's essay on divorce entitled "Children After Divorce: Wounds That Don't Heal," I'm reminded that divorce can leave a swirling black hole in a child's life where once a parent had been. Coming from an upwardly mobil middle class background I could relate to many of the experiences formed by the case study participants, even though I only experienced divorce vicariously through my friends.

My very first brush with the phenomenon was in the Third Grade. I was putting away my gold Advanced Level Reading Module when Mrs. Riley announced that Mike Wilson would be henceforth known as Mike Stilton. The other kids in my class looked over to the corner where Mike sat, then just as quickly, returned to their own activities. The concept of last names is arbitrary to most eight year olds, so it occurred to me that if Mike was going to go through all the trouble of giving himself a new name, he should certainly be a little more creative in his selection. I, myself, was partial to slavic derivations ("Kawblowski," for example), because they sounded like incredibly cool cartoon sound effects guaranteed to cover a listener in a fine spray of spit when uttered.

Turning to voice these thoughts to Mike, I noticed his Garfield head pencil resting neatly beside an unopened sky blue reading module in the center of his desk. Mike's face was red and pinched. Tears bubbled under his pale lashes before he turned away.

I'd known Mike for roughly one thir

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longer an alien term to me. In fact, a lexicon of terms like "step mom," "visitation rights," "half-brother or half-sister," and "my father's girlfriend's kids" had sprung up to replace the archaic "family unit." "Doing okay" by my friends' standards, my own situation fell outside the polar fantasies of Brady Bunch reruns and E.T. They knew it was more than a hunch that this group should somehow form a family. That's the way we all became the Brady Bunch. I think this is what happened in Mike's case. He always had the ability to block out everything, completely transfixed by the X-Men comic book super heroes he drew. However, after his dad left home, Mike had a far away look - what my World War Two vet grandpa called the "1,000 yard stare." Dr. Wallerstein refers to "the new opportunities" that divorce brings - opportunities like a chance to move away and start again with new friends and a new school. I often hope and wonder if Mike had such opportunities for a second life. Apparently, marriage followed by divorce was once thought to be a short-lived phenomenon, but to my generation, divorce has become more like an institution. "Until death do us part" has come to be transformed to "until the sight of you makes me viol

Category: Personal - P