Divorce prevalent among parents of college students

By John McMahon
Online Forty-Niner
Contributing Writer

It was a cold and rainy day. Travis Schmitt's mother stopped by his fifth-grade classroom to pick him up early from school. When he got to the car his older sister was already in the back seat. All three of them sat in the back seat of the car while a family friend drove them to the park.

His sister asked why they were there. Before their mother could get the words out of her mouth, his sister began to cry.

And then the dreaded words seeped out of his mother's mouth.

"Your father and I have decided to get a divorce."

Schmitt sat in silence staring at the back of the car seat.

"I kind of knew it was coming. I knew it was going to happen but I didn't expect it to happen right then. It was kind of surreal. It took a while for it to hit me."

Like many students at Cal State Long Beach, Schmitt, 22, grew up with divorced parents.

In fact, a December 1999 study by the "College Student Journal" showed that nationwide, only 40 percent of college students have parents who are still married to one another.

Long after a divorce, the effects still linger. On the surface, it looks like two people are going their own way. But the reality is that for the couple's offspring, the consequences of divorce never really end.

Schmitt said there were many factors that led up to his parents divorce; a lack of communication, financial issues, and most importantly, his mother felt her marriage was creating an unsafe environment for her children.

Almost immediately after the divorce, Schmitt's life changed.

He and his mother and sister moved out of the house and into an apartment.

His mother tried to make up for the divorce by continually buying him things.

"I think she felt like she had done something wrong. She was always worried I didn't have enough," Schmitt said.

Part of the week he would stay with his mom and sister in their new apartment, and the other part of the week he'd go back home to visit his dad.

The conflict between his parents was very tense. He would constantly get caught in the middle of the arguments.

Schmitt said the events after the divorce led him to be more introverted.

"I think it made me less vocal. I think that's why I'm so quiet."

Now that he is in college, his mother and father never speak to each other. That created issues for Schmitt and his sister.

"There was a time when my sister and I didn't feel comfortable saying what we were doing with the other sides of the family."

Holidays were also a challenge. After high school, he had to make his own decision on where to go for each holiday. He then had to weigh how his decision would affect each side of the family.

The passage of time has not only helped Schmitt to adjust to his parents divorce, but it has also provided him with new wisdom.

"I've learned a lot more about the concept of marriage," he said.

He thinks that people don't hold marriage in the high regard that it should be held. People don't want to work to solve their issues. Instead of working together to change themselves and settle their issues, too often they take the easy way out.

Despite the emotional pain his family suffered, he found that the divorce experience actually helped him grow up. It taught him how to rely on himself, be independent at a young age, and it made him a well-rounded person.

"That's just how life is," he said. "We can't be responsible for our parents' lives. All you can do is handle how you react to [the divorce] and how you let it affect you."

As for his opinion about divorce, Schmitt said he thinks it has become far too common. Some experts agree.

"It's definitely more acceptable now….There's still a stigma [about divorce], but it is more socially acceptable," said CSULB professor of communications, Norah Dunbar.

Dunbar studies divorce in relation to the communication skills of couples. She also conducts research on dating couples, to determine where they are in their relationships.

She explained the divorce rate in America as shown by a line graph from the U.S. Census. It showed the rate of divorce reaching a plateau in the 1990s to the present.

Today 50 percent of marriages end in divorce.

Dunbar believes that the main cause of divorce is poor communication. People don't learn to communicate very well, she said. When a conflict arises they choose to ignore it rather than talk about it.

Divorce is especially difficult on children, she said.

"When you have children with somebody, you still have to be co-parents," she said. "Your kids are going to be stuck in the middle."

The hardest thing on kids is when parents use them as a ploy to get what they want. The child is left to choose between parents.

Dunbar said the actual divorce is not as hard on the children as the events leading up to the divorce. Negative communication before the divorce has the biggest impact on children.

Long Beach State 2004 graduate, Kathy Carlson, remembered hearing her parents fight before they decided to get a divorce.

Carlson's parents had a year-long separation before they filed for divorce during her freshman year of high school.

"After the separation was the first time I heard them have fights. Once they started fighting, I knew something was wrong,"she said.

Her father was a workaholic. He put work as his first priority and never spent time at home with the family.

It was her father's decision to file for divorce. He had never lived on his own before and wanted to see what it would be like.

Carlson said she wasn't happy about the divorce but felt the separation helped to lessen the impact.

"It was a long process, not an instant shattering of the family."

The hardest part for her was dealing with her emotionally distraught older sister. She felt her sister was overly emotional. Every time her sister cried, it also made her mother cry.

One year after the divorce, her mother remarried. The addition of a stepfather quickly became beneficial to Carlson. Her stepfather was much more carefree than her mother. He allowed Carlson more freedom.

Her stepfather had also been divorced. He added a whole other group of people to the family. During the interview Carlson brought out framed photos of her new extended family.

After wiping away the dust on the frames, she pointed out the members of her family. There were three pictures of her mother with other family members.

There was only one photo of a lone man dressed in a business suit—her father.

Carlson has found divorce easier to cope with over time because she's seen how she and her loved ones were able to survive the experience. Her mother is now happily married and her father is engaged.

Knowing that there are numerous other people her age whose parents have divorced has also helped her to accept her family situation.

As for divorce, Carlson said it's not something she would ever want to go through again.

"It hurts everybody in the process. I don't think that there's any way that no one would get hurt."