Building Caring Communities to Support Families

Barbara A. Brahm, M.S., Family & Consumer Sciences & Community Development Agent, Hancock County & Associate Professor & Chester J. Bowling, Ph.D., Extension State Community Leadership & Management Specialist & Assistant Professor, Ohio State University Extension, The Ohio State University

What Is a Community?

Communities are highly complex human systems that are shaped by the actions of their members. A community isn't just an economic or political system, but also a deeper & more intangible entity that binds people together with a common identity, purpose & culture.

These 3 aspects:

• identity
• purpose
• culture

form the essence of a community. This essence is created thru a rich interplay of the collective/social & geographic or natural history of a place, the shared values of people & how people live, work & play together (Nozick, 1999). Because people grow & develop, the ways they live, work & play together change.

Therefore, the essence of a community is constantly changing. The constant merging of beliefs, experiences, present conditions & future desires for the community is constantly shaping it.

Material wealth & power aren't the community. People & their relationships with one another are what count in developing a strong sense of community.

Why Do Families Need a Supportive Community?

Families need a supportive community for many reasons. Nothing short of their very existence is at stake when we talk about the creation & blossoming of communities.

It's the community that gives us social life & physical health. A variety of studies over the years have shown the importance of strong personal relationships & social ties with family & community, to optimum health, cohesiveness & a sense of unconditional support within the community.

In her book Traits of a Healthy Family, Delores Curran (1988, Harper Collins) shares findings from responses of 551 family practitioners as to traits most commonly found in families they considered healthy.

Two of those traits, teaching respect for others & valuing service to others, indicate the importance of the community in which a family lives & works.

Parents can teach respect for others & show the importance of service in the community by getting their family involved in community service & local family oriented events.

Volunteering to help at a soup kitchen or community benefit event or raking leaves for a neighbor can be fun. These activities also instill a desire to help others & help families to become connected to each other & the community.

Studies by the Search Institute have identified 40 concrete, positive experiences & qualities, “developmental assets,” that have a tremendous influence on helping young people to grow into healthy, caring individuals.

“The asset framework includes everyone. Families, schools, neighborhoods, congregations & all organizations, institutions & individuals in a community can play a role in building assets for youth” (Benson, 1997, p. 1).

Specific  developmental assets that indicate the importance a supportive community include:

• developing caring neighborhoods with boundaries

• fostering positive relationships with non-parent adults who're good role models

• creating a caring school climate

• molding a community that values youth & service to others

• creating a safe place for kids to live

• offering a variety of youth programs

• cultivating positive peer influence 

• promoting involvement in the religious community

Families need supportive communities to provide social ties, enhance health, teach values & develop assets in children & youth.

When living in a supportive community, a family can grow to its full potential & provide the best environment for children to grow into healthy, caring adults.

• Strong personal relationships. These include strong ties among family members, neighbors, schools, peers, youth workers, churches, family-serving agencies & organizations & other systems in the community. Strong relationships build cohesiveness & a sense of unconditional support within the community.

How to Build a Caring, Supportive Community

Many creative steps can be taken to build caring, supportive communities. Parents may want to try one or more of the following:

• Build positive relationships. Spend time together as a family. Share family meals together. Get to know your children’s friends. Learn to know every family in your neighborhood. Volunteer for various community activities & organizations.

• Build a web of connectedness. Ask your neighbors to come over & sit on the porch for cookies & lemonade. Participate in community & neighborhood activities. Be active in your children’s school as a volunteer.

• Share positive stories. When positive community stories are regularly shared, communities begin to include them in the core of their image of their community.

• Cultivate a positive, consistent, ongoing & repetitive message about families & youth in all parts of the community. Work with organizations & media to use an “asset building” approach in their communication.

• Show families & kids that they're valued by their community. Share your ideas with community leaders. Get involved on boards, committees & commissions to be part of the community decision-making process.

• Cultivate intergenerational activities. Volunteer at a nursing home. Help an elderly neighbor with tasks they need done.

• Plan time for your family to be together. Look for free & low cost family activities to attend. Ask community leaders to plan school, sports & community activities so families can have time to have meals together.

• Find safe places for your family to contact & build ties with other families. Organize a family fun night at your children’s school. Host a neighborhood block party.

• Look for opportunities for your family to be involved in community service. Volunteer to train a dog for the blind. Participate in community litter clean-up days.

• Seek out mentoring programs involving children, teens, parents, business & civic groups. Look for job shadowing programs. Sign up as a scout or 4-H youth leader, or coach a youth sports team.

• Educate yourself on community affairs & services available to families. Seek direction on where to find help with their various problems & concerns. When these steps have been taken, you'll begin to see a community that cares & shows community values.  

Caring for children in dysfunctional families

Caring for children within dysfunctional families has never been as important, nor on the minds of politicians as much as the present.

A select committee is still to report on the Care of Children Bill, a bill aimed at offering a framework for resolving issues around the care of children when the relationship between parents breaks down.

Another select committee has just finished looking into the Families Commission Bill, but couldn't resolve a simple issue as to how to define what a family is.

So they included everybody - including themselves as a select committee or caucus could be deemed a “family” & refused to report back to Parliament. So much for resolving issues!

Associate Justice Minister Lianne Dalziel, architect of the Care of Children Bill, says the bill is based on rights & best interests of the child, as opposed to the “ideal family” of the old 1968 Guardianship Act, which is to be repealed upon the passage of the bill.

But what's that ‘ideal’ family - mum, dad & the kids? It was in 1968. Still is some folk reckon. If families don't fit into that ideal, how can relationship equivalence be promoted by our Government when there's a veiled admission that some family forms are ideal & others aren't.

Wouldn't it be better to admit that some family forms are better than others while providing support for those that need it?

However Dalziel says of kids in dysfunctional families, “It's whom they regard as their parents that matters & it would be wrong to fail to provide for the protection of children whose parents don't match that ideal”.

Yet it's more who the Government regards as a child's parents that matters more in terms of legal rights. If Dalziel was serious, she would explain why the Government is attempting to provide all step parents legal parenting rights from day one of moving in with a child's mother, when some of these kids don't regard these people as their parents?

People like Bruce Howse, who killed his two step daughters, one of whom earlier scrawled in her diary “My dad is going to kill me”. Did she regard Howse as her loving nurturing parent?

Take a mum on the DPB who lives w/her 4 kids in a leaky state house in Otara. Is she likely to provide for her 4 children the same as a married mother in Remuera, who, along with her husband, is earning a high income, has the house paid off & the kids in a creche that cost more per week than the sole mum is getting on the DPB?

The United Nations doesn't think so & noted in its latest report on New Zealand that single parent families are disproportionally affected by less than positive outcomes. So it's not possible to promote the best interests of the child & a diversity of relationship equivalence in terms of functionality as they are ultimately mutually exclusive.

Not that you'd get that admission out of Social Services Minister Steve Maharey, who is responsible for the Families Commission bill. He considers that sole parent families are just as good as 2 parent families & told me last week that if a family provides nurturing, support, love & clear boundaries for the behaviour of children then it's likely to succeed.

Maharey maintains that instead of arguing a return to the nuclear family, he wants to “acknowledge the diversity of families & judge their success on the outcomes they achieve.”

Yet outcomes achieved are more likely to be positive within the two parent biological family.

Last week a foster father was convicted for killing a child placed in his care by Child Youth & Family. The reason he is dead? The boy had popcorn that didn't belong to him & his foster parent didn't like him having it. Tamati Pokaia was another in a growing list of children that have been failed by Child, Youth & Family Services & killed by their male care giver.

Also dead are Coral Burrows, Tangaroa Matiu, Lillybing, James Whakaruru, Olympia Jetson & Saliel Aplin, all failed by Child, Youth & Family & all killed by stepfathers who who was supposed to be providing necessities of life for these children. However the only interest these men appeared to have in these collectives was shacking up with the childs' mums.

Note that none of these children were killed after being referred to CYF where the mother was living with the child's biological father. That's because children living with their mum & dad - particularly in a married family - are less likely to get referred to CYF, let alone abused subsequently - although I'm sure it has happened.

Children brought up in two parent biological families in New Zealand are more likely to be nurtured, supported & achieve positive outcomes. Those who live with their mum & her boyfriend are much more likely to be abused.

It's about time those such as the Minister of Social Engineering, Steve Maharey, along w/fellow childless lefties Liane Dalziel, Helen Clark & Margaret Wilson understood how children are brought up & nurtured.

Having kids is a great start. Then they could come out from behind the shadows of their promotion of diversity of relationships, idealogy & relationship equivalence to promote policies, including those for children, based on a good dose of common sense.

By Dave Crampton

Do You Feel That Nobody Loves You or Cares About You?

To feel that there's no one in the world who loves you or really cares about you is awful.

Psychologists actually have a name for this feeling because it's so common in our society. They call it alienation & we'll be using that word throughout this article.

Alienation is actually a number of feelings all rolled into one.

It can include loneliness, isolation, rejection, despair & emptiness, to name just a few. Because there are so many strong feelings involved, it's often a difficult problem to handle.

About the best thing we can do with this feeling of alienation is to find out what's causing it & then try to deal with the cause. That's what we're going to try, to help you do in this article.

Probably the most serious kind of alienation comes from being rejected by your parents, or thinking you've been rejected by them.

You may feel rejected by them because of the way they treat you. You know, if they don't seem to care what happens to you & never have any time for you. Or, they may constantly yell & scream at you, or punish you too severely. Maybe they've actually come right out & said, "I wish you'd never been born," or "I can't wait until you're out of this house."

It's pretty hard to think straight about the situation when you're feeling rejected by your parents. But you're going to have to do just that in order to figure out what's really going on.

Try to look realistically at what's happening. What parents do & say when they're angry is often not what they actually want to do, or really want to say. i.e., when they put you down for bad grades, calling you stupid or lazy, you might figure that they really don't like you.

All that's happening though, is that they're doing a bad job of communicating their concern over your future. The same thing happens when they explode at you for coming in late. Their worry over what was happening to you while you were out turns into anger when you finally do show up safe.

But what if your parents openly reject you & you're sure that they're not just reacting out of anger? Being rejected by your parents is a tough blow -- after all, if they don't love you, who will?

The answer to this question is you. Love yourself. If you can do this, you'll manage to love thru the pain of rejection. After a while, you'll also realize that no one, but no one, can make you feel rotten about yourself unless you let them.

Feeling that no one loves you, or really cares about you, can also happen when you've been rejected by a boyfriend or girlfriend. In the teen years, especially, it's very important to have someone you can be close to emotionally. someone w/ whom you can share your feelings.

If you've found someone like this & then lose him or her, it's only natural that you'll feel alone, abandoned & unloved. We have no miracle cure for this. No one does. But maybe it'll help you to remember that time's on your side.

In time, your feelings won't be quite so intense. Maybe you'll even be able to use this as a learning experience & go on to develop a better & more lasting relationship w/ someone else.

Being alone when everybody else seems to be paired off & having a great time can cause you to feel alienation, too. There are lots of things you can do to meet a guy or girl, but we're not going to get into them in this tape because we have two other tapes that might help you.

Finally, we're going to talk about how groups at school can really make you feel alienated if you let them. If you're not accepted by any one special group, you can be made to feel like an outcast, a real "nothing." It's tough being a non-conformist, but if that's what you have to do in order to be yourself, stick w/what you believe in.

You'll be way ahead in the long run. During her high school years, singer & songwriter Janis Ian didn't belong to any group & was labeled an "outsider." She turned to music & by the time she was 17, had cut a million dollar record. Hers isn't a freak success story that seldom happens.

Studies show that it's the people who had a tough time of it emotionally as teenagers who are quite successful as adults. Janis Ian sums it all up when she says, "Life is easier as an adult. It's almost like my body has settled into itself & I've decided I like me just the way I am.

It was hard to get here but I'm stronger just because it wasn't easy.

Whether you feel alienated because your parents reject you, you've lost someone you love, you don't have anyone you're close to, or you don't "belong" at school, it's a pretty tough thing to handle by yourself. We suggest that you talk to someone about what you're feeling -- someone like a friend, parents or brothers or sisters, a priest or minister, or a counselor or teacher at school w/ whom you feel comfortable.

Feeling that nobody loves you or cares about you can be awful. We've talked about why you may be feeling this way. We've suggested that you try, to figure out what's causing you to feel so bad & then try to do something about that.

There's no easy way to get over this feeling, but some things that'll help are to learn to love yourself & to be yourself. If you can manage that, you'll be able to grow from the pain you're feeling now instead of being paralyzed by it.

There's evidence that personally helping someone makes people feel good - feeling calm, less stressed & self-satisfied, something like a "runner's high."

These benefits from helping others don't occur when you merely give money, pay taxes, help without having close personal contact, or feel compelled to help (Luks, 1988).

97% say they want to help but less than half of us do. If an abandoned child were left on our door step, we'd help & love doing it. Why should it make any difference if the needy child is at our door or 10,000 miles away?

It would be weird if our morals told us to only help people in our family, our community, our ethnic-religious group, our country, our race, etc.

There's a simple, easy place for you to start: DO SOMETHING! Just realize that making the world a better place requires a community effort, probably a world-wide effort & each of us is partly responsible for the world & almost totally responsible for our own behavior. What can you do?

There are personal traits to be developed further:

• confidence 
• independence from friends
• keen awareness of others' needs & of our own emotions & self-centeredness
• empathy for others
• self-esteem 
• courage to offer your help, etc.

These traits lead to altruism. Insecurity leads to distrust & dislike of others.

There is endless knowledge each person needs to know: 

• the steps in helping
• how to handle many kinds of crises
• how to gain the self-control necessary to carry out our own lofty ideals
• exactly where & how to offer help, etc.

Knowledge gives us more ability to do good.

There's a need to create an environment:

• that models & rewards caring

• that discourages prejudice & hostile competitiveness or even isolation & overlooking the needs of others

• that provides ways of helping that don't offend or discourage the person being helped, etc.

Any society that makes it difficult or unpleasant to give to others is surely in deep trouble; i.e., in this country we hate to pay taxes although taxes are our principle way of helping others outside the family.

This anti-helping (taxes) attitude is a major problem but it goes largely unrecognized. In the last few years, however, schools have started to emphasize community service again (something like the Peace Corps ideas).

Thousands of students are volunteering at local kitchens for the homeless, agencies for the mentally ill, Big Brother/Big Sisters, McDonald Houses, etc. What a wonderfully enriching, broadening, & meaningful experience. Even politicians are talking about community service again. Humanity can be our community.

There's a lot of help that needs to be done all over the world, enough to fill the lives of several generations. Yet, there is a simple place for each one of us to start: namely, moving from good intentions to good deeds. DO SOMETHING!

Don't cop out by saying "I don't know what to do." With a little thought we can all find endless things to do.

Examples:

• mow the neighbor's lawn when they are on vacation or have a death in the family

• help a friend move

• offer your friendship to a new person in school or your community

• offer to baby sit for a family who can't afford a sitter

• take an old person to the grocery store each week or to his/her doctor

• give some flowers to someone, etc., etc.

Developing a specific plan of action

Your philosophy of life is merely a statement of valued intentions or hopes. Now, you need to decide exactly how to achieve some progress day by day towards your ideal goals.

First Things First by Covey, Merrill, & Merrill (1994) does not help much in deciding what should by "first" in your life, but it's an excellent book for helping you put your life mission into action. For each of your major values, make a list of daily or weekly activities to be done.

i.e., one person, who is trying to live up to the helping philosophy, might have a list of activities (or self-help projects) like this:

Follow the Golden Rule. I will

• volunteer to be a candy striper or to help in a local teen center

• seek out lonely, unhappy, rejected people near me & be their friend

• waste little money (say less than 20% of my earnings) on junk food, special clothes, partying & luxuries for me

• give 50% of the money I'd spend on meat to support vegetarian causes

Accept myself & others. I will 

• stop & figure out why I'm resentful before yelling & fighting w/ my brother & my mother

• carry out at least one self-help project at all times, using as much scientific information as possible

Be aware & honest. I will

• write in my diary every day, describing as best I can my true motives & deepest feelings

• encourage my friends, especially by my example, to be generous, friendly & respectful to everyone

• to learn & use as much knowledge as they can

• explain & defend my values to friends

I will not change my morals just to keep a friend.

Be loving. I will 

• show the special people in my life that I love & need them

• I'll say "I love you" often. 

• Ask at least one person every day if I can help them & really mean it.

Life's greatest joys are to love & to be loved. Be loving to many people, not just to one person or to your family.

Treasure life.

In spite of the focus in this chapter on major values & over-riding goals, I will also value hundreds of wonderful little events in life:

• observing beauty

• enjoying music

• watching a sunset

• giving compliments

• sharing candy

• smelling a rose

• taking a warm bath, etc., etc.

These are just general examples. They don't include the specifics (when, where & exactly how) you will need to consider. Now it's your turn to write down specific ways you can start living your values.

Be concrete about what you'll do, when you'll start, how often, w/whom, etc. so that you have a practical to-be-done list to work from each day.

What is Self Caring?

It's easy to confuse selfish behavior & self-centeredness w/ self-caring. Self-centered people are hollow. They constantly manipulate others in an attempt to fulfill their needs for love, care or attention.

Those who're self-caring have concern for others, but it's not at the expense of themselves. They respect other adults enough to allow them to look after themselves. They nurture themselves, seeing that their own physical, mental, spiritual & emotional needs are met.

They get enough sleep, good food & exercise so they have strong, healthy bodies. They find mental stimulation to keep their minds alert. They do what's necessary to remain spiritually healthy.

Self-caring people are emotionally intimate w/ real friends who understand them & like them & learn to deal w/ unruly emotions & life situations. And they only spend time w/ people who like & respect them for who they are so that they can remain emotionally stable. They also don't expect anyone or any group of people to meet all their needs.

Instead of being self-centered, these self-caring people are able to be "other-centered." They're able to care for others because they recognize & find the love & attention they, themselves need.

They do things for others because they want to, not to get something in return. They act w/out fear of what others will think, for their satisfaction lies in the action itself & not in the reaction of other people. They share their love w/ others & are able to accept love in return.

Self-caring people have found serenity. They know they're neither marvelous nor insignificant. The world doesn't rest on their shoulders; they've accepted themselves & others as they really are, w/all their strengths & faults. They're able to wear the world as a loose garment.

In this general context of non-belonging, certain positive group care practices & people took on special significance. Specifically, women fondly remember practices that led to caring relationships & a sense of membership in a group or second "family."

These group care supports combined w/girls’ active roles in maximizing opportunities to experience care & belonging.

I still remember the day that I stood at the skating rink. We had an outdoor skating area outside the walls [of the orphanage] for the neighborhood. Watching these families skating around & watching these friends skating around together, holding hands.

There would be whole family groups those days that would skate together. And I still remember standing there w/my skates in a bleak winter in Wisconsin & suddenly getting, really getting completely, that I was outside the pale of humanity.

And I'll never forget that day.

Rather, these women have become capable & concerned citizens, mothers, friends, daughters, partners & professionals.

As girls, however, many of the women felt defined by who they were not: biological or "real" children, promising future citizens, and/or human beings worthy of respect & love. They also felt defined by where they weren't: in a home, in a family, in a neighborhood or community.

These perceptions were gleaned in part from the behavior of those around them. Abuse or abandonment by family members, unequal treatment by foster parents, nonrelational group care practices & structures & social stigma in school & the community, each contributed to these women’s experiences of alienation.

This experience was often compounded by social factors—girls found themselves discriminated or devalued based on their gender, age, economic status & educational level.

Amazingly, it's partly out of this experience of extreme marginalization that these women built a strong sense of themselves & their relationships & came to locate a meaningful place for themselves in society.

Of course, women also attribute much of their strength & success to experiences of being truly cared for in their families, group care settings & later life, as described below.

Experiencing the "Care" in Group Care

I've always considered myself very lucky, because even thru all the changes that I've gone thru, there's always been somebody there who's been good to me & who've made me feel good enough about myself enough to keep it together. — Sunny

Several women in this study attribute much of their success to the group care settings in which they were raised. Often the positive group care factors named are described as ones that counteract the absence of care & belonging so prevalent in women’s descriptions of early life.

In particular, women name group care structures, programs & staff that helped them as girls to recognize & rely on their own strengths, relate deeply to others & feel prepared to participate in a larger community & society.

In this way, these women describe aspects of group care that fostered psychological health (Gilligan, 1991) & led to future success.

The younger women in the study, April, Sally, Cindy & Sunny, tend to describe these positive supports more often, perhaps because they lived in smaller group care settings common in more recent decades.

They frequently describe those settings as instrumental to their health & later success by providing a sense of home & family. For a few of the women in larger facilities, mainly Changing Leaf & Marion, they remember group care providing a sense of safety & opportunities to play & socialize w/other children.

It's just a group of people that were really an example for seeing what's possible & what you can do & how you can do it. They really gave me everything I needed to go out in the world. — April

[It] means a lot when somebody's really showing you their interest & not just being phony to get thru the day & earn a paycheck. — Michelle

It's like you finally have someone who really loves you & cares for you & you just want to keep giving. — Sally

April, Michelle & Sally are among the women who describe a common support for several girls: valued relationships w/certain male caregivers in group care.

Given the abuse several women experienced by men prior to & after exiting group care, relationships w/men that didn't become sexualized or abusive were of great importance. These safe & authentic relationships w/male caregivers in group care often provided one stable, valuable connection w/an adult over time.

In more than one case, these relationships lasted well into women’s adult lives, w/men becoming like father figures, attending their weddings, the birth of their children & other significant life events.

Coping Creatively

Women’s responses often created a sense of connection to themselves, others & the world.

For example, Cindy sought therapy as a creative way to identify her own thoughts & feelings, but it also provided her w/a lasting connection w/an adult figure, her therapist.

She also made close friends in group care & went to great lengths to maintain these friendships over time. On the other hand, some of the coping strategies that fostered these women’s psychological health & professional accomplishment, were also harmful psychologically.

For example, by focusing her energy on academic & athletic performance, Laura excelled in ways that brought her the recognition & attention of those around her. At the same time, she observed that this singular focus distracted her as a girl from many of her feelings & became a way of numbing herself emotionally.

As an adult, Laura practices & teaches tai chi; she has transformed her love of physical conditioning to one that also creates a sense of spiritual & relational connection.

Transforming Experiences into a Gift to Others

I think it does have something to do w/that little saying "If it doesn't kill you, it'll make you stronger." — Laura

There's some very evolved children being born. I know of a lot of kids who've grown up in a lot of suffering. A tremendous amount of suffering & who come out just pure. It's like a lotus coming straight thru mud. — Changing Leaf

My decision to focus on women who have earned professional recognition, educational accomplishment &/or community leadership arose in direct response to research literature that focuses on adult deficits linked to group care life.

Yet other self-definitions of personal strength & success arose, many of which relate to these women’s early experiences of nonbelonging & represent hard-earned psychological transformations in their lives.

Laura shares an evolving recognition of her strengths, which are unique yet universally human. "I think I know that I'm a viable member of society. And I feel like I’ve really healed a lot & have something to give to people.

But a lot of it involves, I think the best of it involves, feelings that are not the regular run-of-the-mill feelings."

These women’s sensibilities are unique & complex & yet accessible & commonplace. They describe becoming adventurers, advocates for relationships & fighters of justice in ways that have earned them professional recognition, academic achievement & leadership positions.

Parents & the Children’s Home Sydney Samakosky

I write this article from a professional-personal perspective. My work in the children’s home has brought me into contact w/a client group which has taught me much about child care & the realm of family & child services & about the parents of the children in our care.

They've spoken w/me, these parents & w/their permission, some of their comments appear here. I think this is important. They have a lot to teach us.

Dialogue 

At some level, it may be that increased dialogue between child care practitioners & parents could promote a better understanding of what the parents experience, a better perception of their world view & of the process of removal, separation & reconstruction which has affected them & their families.

If this can even slightly improve the attitudes of some social workers & child care practitioners towards parents, then it'll have served its purpose. As one parent commented:

When the system fails 

What happens when society fails the family system, when there isn't support & structure for child rearing, when parents & families are isolated & alone? This is often the point at which the child is removed & placed in substitute care.

One parent said:

If there had been help out there ... some support ... then maybe this wouldn't have happened. Yes, sure it's my fault too ... I could've done things differently ... now my kids are here in the home ... it's like there is no space for me ... no way for me to teach my children & be a parent ... all this was taken away ... And even now you know they're different ... I mean here they've been exposed to, to ... something else that wasn’t part of our home ... I don ‘t know ... maybe different values ... I mean here they get things & ... do things ... are looked after by strangers ... What does this say to my children? ... that I can’t look after them ... parent them? ... this is humiliating ... a punishment. When they come, back I don’t know how we'll give them this stuff & all ... how can I be a parent to them again ... I've let them down for ever ...

Another parent commented:

‘The parents must have failed’ 

Frequently when a child is admitted into a residential program, the agency & it’s worker’s exclude family members from continued involvement w/their own child. The basic value-laden assumption is that the family & the parents must have failed, they're poor parents because their child has to be admitted into substitute care.

One of the many dilemmas faced by children’s homes has to do w/ the role which the child care worker takes in the process of admission, orientation, placement & on-going residential treatment, thru to disengagement.

Often there is ambiguity in our understanding of the children’s home as giving substitute group care vs. substitute family care. There's confusion over the model upon which we base the type of care given.

Children’s homes’ which attempt to provide substitute family care base their care on the so-called 'family model'. In this case, the family is used as the model for the structure & nature of the living context & group homes can easily adopt family-like practices, norms & values, unwittingly reproducing a ‘family’ environment that's doomed to fail on many levels, but most significantly in not making a space for the natural parents.

There's a pervasive encouragement, w/in this model, to see the child care worker as a substitute parent, rather than as an adult performing nurturing, caring, teaching & therapeutic tasks designed to promote the healthy growth & adjustment of the child in care.

The natural family is excluded from participation in this because the 'family model' encourages the child care workers & practitioners to view themselves as substitute parents.

Feeling worse... 

This then inevitably leads to the parents feeling shut out, excluded, isolated & negated as the child care worker now begins to act in their place & leaves them feeling:

... I guess I felt resentful ... angry & even enraged. I mean it was like this feeling of F— you all ... I just didn't care. Yeah, it was very lonely & hurtful ... as a father I still wanted to be part of things but there was not a space for me.

When this changed & the team started to use me as a valuable source of knowledge, I started feeling better ... like, now I counted. I just still get angry when I think that a whole year got wasted before this kind of thing really started happening

 ... us parents, me, being a part of the team & involved ... like the time when my kid busted up the school classroom ... it was bad but you called me in to be part of the thing ... I felt like I was my kid’s father... it was great.

It's not surprising that until an agency sorts out it’s philosophy & approach & finds ways to actively include parents, that parents feel excluded & show a limited willingness to be involved in ‘family sessions’ or to maintain contact w/their own child.

The family model, or the roles & values associated w/this model, so often present as ‘anti’ rather than ‘pro’ the natural family. (Ainsworth & Hansen 1985)

When a Child Becomes the Caregiver

Karen James's visit drove me to continue probing the long-term effects of divorce on children. The minute she left, I went to my study & drew out her family's record to refresh my memory. I have copious files on each family member in our study, including verbatim transcripts of past interviews, letters from teachers, notes describing dollhouse play, children's drawings, comments from parents about their own lives & their beliefs about their children, comments from children showing an astonishing difference in perceptions & my own margin notes about what each family represents.

The first item that caught my eye was a drawing Karen had done when we met. (Children's drawings often tell you what they're feeling & reveal far more than spoken words.) Karen had depicted each member of her family in meticulous detail - her mother, father, 8 year-old brother Kevin & 6 year-old sister Sharon. Dressed in bright colors, they were standing very close together, each smiling broadly. Even the cat was smiling. "My Family" was printed across the top in large block letters.

I was intrigued by Karen's capacity to maintain an image of serenity in her drawing because by now I was privy to the shrieking disorganization in her family life. Karen's wish for peace & family togetherness was poignantly clear. As I was to learn, this was the central desire of her life.

As I looked over the record & searched my memory, I was surer than ever that the James's quarrels had more passion than content. They weren't fighting over infidelity - which was apparently old hat - so much as wanting to hurt each other. Each heatedly denied the other's accusations.

Yet, like so many divorcing couples, they fought savagely, as the children looked on helplessly or ran away & hid. As happens in many families, there was no disagreement around child custody or visiting. Mrs. James would have done anything to irritate her husband, including making him take the kids - as long as that is what he didn't want.

Anger Doesn't End with Divorce

The marriage was dissolved amid rising chaos within the family. The parents' fury at each other didn't subside over the years that followed, although it was never fought out in the courts. This is a familiar situation for those of us who work with divorcing couples.

Contrary to what most people think (including attorneys & judges), the vast majority of divorcing parents don't drag their conflicts into the courtroom. The 10 to 15% of couples who do fight in court consume the lion's share of our attention but they don't represent the norm. Most parents negotiate a divorce settlement, decide on custody arrangements & go their separate ways.

Unfortunately, many of them stay intensely angry with one another. In our study, 1/3 of the couples were fighting at the same high pitch ten years after their divorce was final. Their enduring anger stemmed from continued feelings of hurt & humiliation fueled by new complaints (child support is too burdensome or too little) & jealousy over new, often younger partners.

The notion that divorce ends the intense love / hate relationship of the marriage is another myth of our times. Like many divorced people, Karen's mother frequently called her ex-husband & got into shouting matches. As a result, the children were exposed to the hurt & anger that led to the breakup throughout their growing up years. Millions of children today experience the same unrelenting drama of longing & anger that refuses to die.

It's, of course, hard to know how often divorce is precipitated by factors outside the marriage. I've seen a good number of such instances. Indeed, it's one of the common causes - or more precisely, final triggers - of divorce, yet few people seem to recognize its importance.

Whenever people are shaken by a serious loss in their lives - be it the termination of a job, death of a parent, serious illness in a child, or any grievous event that can evoke powerful & primitive passions -- the bereaved person will turn to their spouse for comfort.

If the partner responds with understanding & tenderness, the marriage can be forever enriched. But the tragedy can also split people apart when the bereaved person is deeply disappointed in the partner's response & feels rejected in his or her hour of greatest need. Grief turns to rage as the two people end up irrationally blaming the other -- one for not having empathy, the other for making insatiable demands.

The initial loss is soon compounded, anger & accusations take over & the marriage cascades downward. Mrs. James followed this script to the letter.

It's especially tragic when divorce occurs as the sequel to a serious life crisis. The suffering person loses whatever support there was in the marriage & confronts the transition from marriage to singlehood in a depleted state. The children are badly frightened & apprehensive about what lies ahead. It's as if the entire family at its weakest point is expected to deal with an earthquake & its aftershocks.

What happened to this family is instructive. Many people, including lawyers, judges & mediators, don't understand how often in divorce seemingly rational complaints cloak powerful, irrational feelings. Or they assume that the complaints always reflect anger at the spouse & not some other deep sadness.

However familiar Mrs. James's marital troubles sounded to her attorney, her anger didn't arise from the marriage per se but from a secondary loss that fueled her rage. Ideally, her grief over her mother's sudden death & her inability to mourn should have been addressed before she moved ahead to make thoughtful decisions about her divorce & her children.

This is the kind of rage that can last for decades after divorce & it's the kind of anger that leaves lasting residue on a child's personality. As an adult, Karen is terrified of conflict because it's so dangerous. But we're getting ahead of our story.

Becoming a Caregiver Child

Six months after the divorce, Dr. James married a much younger woman whom the children liked very much. She was lively, funny & didn't try to intrude into their lives as a rule-making stepmother but rather befriended them & treated them warmly.

Unfortunately, Dr. James carried some baggage into his second marriage & it, too, was stormy, featuring many unexplained weekend departures by the second wife. Three years later, she kissed the children good-bye & left to marry another man.

"I was a basket case," Dr. James told me during one of our follow-up interviews. The children were stunned, bereft of explanation for the second loss in their family life.

Nor did Mrs. James find much happiness in the years after her divorce. She'd several love affairs followed by a second marriage. The new husband, who ran a landscape business, couldn't tolerate the children & soon grew bored with his pretty wife. The marriage lasted less than 5 years, throwing the mother into continued turmoil.

For Karen, the legacy of divorce was that she moved into the role of substitute parent for her younger siblings & of confidante & adviser to her troubled mother & father. It was an entirely new role for this child who, like many others before the divorce, had been leading a fairly protected life. Yet Karen undertook the classic role of caregiver or "parentified" child with aplomb & grace. In fact, she was a model parent. "My brother is scared of a lot of things," she once warned me.

"What is he scared of?"

"Of the dark. Of going upstairs. Of being alone. I try to take care of him. I go into his room every night, so he won't cry." Many young girls voluntarily move to fill the vacuum created by parents who collapse emotionally & sometimes physically, after divorce.

The caregiver child's job, as she defines it, is to keep the parent going by acting in whatever capacity is needed - mentor, adviser, nurse, confidante. The range is wide depending on the parent's need & the child's perception. One 10 year-old in this group got up regularly with her insomniac mother at midnight to watch television & drink beer. She frequently stayed home from school to make sure that her mother wouldn't become depressed & suicidal or take the car out when she was drinking.

A father told me how his 12 year-old daughter had packed his clothing, helped him to find an apartment & arranged to do his shopping. She called him nightly to make sure that he'd gotten home safely & to beg him to stop smoking. Although most caregivers are girls, we've seen several dramatic instances of boys who undertook similar roles.

One 14 year-old boy, whose mother abandoned the family, stopped going to school & undertook all of his mother's responsibilities, including shopping, cooking, cleaning & caring for his father who was in a state of collapse.

Such children soon sacrifice their friends, school activities & most important, their sense of being children - childhood itself. In return, they gain a sense of pride & the feeling that they've saved a parent's life.

When there are siblings at home, the caretaker child moves forthrightly into the parental role & takes charge of running the house, making dinners, seeing that homework is done, putting little ones to bed, cleaning bathrooms late at night. Karen was well suited for this caretaking job & quickly learned to keep her own feelings under tight control.

To her great credit, Karen had enormous compassion for both of her parents & was especially comforting to her mother, who in turn acknowledged how much she depended on her 10 year-old.

With no hint of embarrassment, Mrs. James told me, "Karen takes care of me. She understands me without words." Like most parents who come to rely heavily on their children, she had little or no awareness of the child's heavy sacrifice of her own playtime & friendships. She wasn't aware of the fact that Karen was missing school & not paying attention to classroom work.

Instead, she spoke as if Karen were an adult or even a much older person. "When she sees me sitting alone in the evening, she knows that I feel sad & she puts her arms around me. She's also very wise. She told me to get rid of my boyfriend. 'He'll only hurt you,' she said. I've learned to listen to her."

And who, I wondered, does Karen turn to for soothing words? Who does she have to comfort her in the years following divorce? Or does she gradually learn to block her own feelings & needs because they are too painful?

Karen told me how she liked to sit alone in her grandmother's garden where it was quiet & she felt safe. I regretted that she didn't have many friends but was pleased to hear she had at least this one oasis. I remember Karen years later telling me, "My grandmother saved my life."

There's no way for a sensitive child to see her mother cry or her father fall into depression without worrying that she's the cause of it & so she takes full responsibility for her mother's tears & father's moods.

I watched Karen with a feeling of great helplessness, realizing there was nothing I could do to alleviate her pain or slake her thirst for protection. I remember once asking her, "What will you be when you grow up, Karen?"

She blushed. "I want to work with children who are blind or retarded or who can't speak." I thought of Karen's mother who sat alone & cried, of her brother who was afraid of the dark, of all the sorrowful people in this family, including herself, whom this amazing child wanted to rescue & I almost cried.

When a child forfeits her childhood & adolescence to take on responsibilities for a parent, her capacity to enjoy her life as a young person, develop close friendships & cultivate shared interests is sacrificed. Beyond this loss, there's a major psychological hazard if the upside-down dependence goes on too long. The child may become trapped into feeling that she alone must rescue the troubled parent.

When she attends to her own needs & wishes, she feels guilty & undeserving. This happens if the parent's unhappiness continues for years & the parent comes to rely on the child for comfort or when the child herself assumes the role & won't give it up. Whatever its origins, the child feels obliged to care for the parent in whatever capacity is needed - as caregiver, companion, mentor, or the person who keeps depression at bay.

Karen said, "My mom has no one. Only me."

As strange as this sounds, many of these youngsters believe that it's their duty to keep their parent alive. Without them, the parent would die. This is an awesome responsibility, especially for a child who has no one to confide in. It's far beyond the kind of help a devoted child gives to a parent in a temporary crisis, divorce or otherwise.

It's an overburdening that seriously inhibits the child's freedom to separate normally & to lead a healthy adolescence. Bound to the troubled parent by unbreakable strands of love, compassion, guilt & self-sacrifice, the child isn't free to leave home emotionally or to follow her heart in love or marriage. In fact, the parents & siblings may not feel able to function without her.

They may cling to her & block her exit. As I was to learn later, many of these child caregivers reinstalled the rescue relationship that they had with their parents into their adult relationships with the opposite sex. This is a serious long-term consequence of divorce for those who become caught up in the caregiver role.

The Diminished Parent

By the time Karen was 15, her home situation had changed very little. She made no waves in high school & got just passing grades. Her teachers described her as being quiet, reserved & ladylike. They made no inquiries about her frequent absences, perhaps assuming too easily that someone at home was ill & she was needed. Clearly she wasn't working to her potential. How could she?

Again I asked Karen about her plans for the future & she replied in what had become her customary grave, thoughtful manner. "I'd like to get married & maybe have kids. But you never know, you might get a divorce. I don't ever want that."

To understand how divorce affects children over the long haul, we need to explore the fact that the divorced family isn't just a cut-off version of the 2 parent family. The postdivorce family is a new family form that makes very different demands on each parent, each child & each of the many new adults who enter the family orbit.

For millions of American children the experience of growing up - of simply being a child - has changed. For millions of adults, the experience of being a parent has been radically transformed.

The first thing we need to acknowledge is the close link between the marital bond & the parent-child relationship. Every parent & child knows this is true. When the marriage is working & the couple is content, the parent-child relationship is nourished & rewarded by the parents' love & appreciation for each other & supported by their cooperation.

But when the tie is severed, the break sends messages throughout the system that quickly reach the children. The first message is that parenting is diminished. The adults are now each on their own & occupied with building separate lives. How will I manage & where am I going & how can I put my life together?

How does this diminished parenting show up? Ask any child of divorce. In every domain of the child's life, parents are less available & less organized, provide fewer dinners together or even clean clothing & don't always carry out regular household routines or help with homework or offer soothing bedtime rituals.

But the big picture is more troublesome than the details. When the marriage breaks, children take on a new meaning for their parents. They may become a much heavier burden. Or they're an unfortunate residue from a dream that failed. Or they may give hope & meaning to a parent's life.

After divorce a surprising number of otherwise well-functioning adults reach out to children for help with their grown-up problems. In Karen's case, this kind of behavior became the norm, leading her into the role of caretaker child. But in many families, the reversal of parent & child roles is more or less temporary, albeit shocking.

One father told me that he revealed all his business & personal plans in Castro-like lectures to his 7 year-old son who "understands everything." In our playroom, this child's play consisted of running a Mack truck over a little car. Parents who are otherwise mature & responsible in their social & professional commitments will choose to be vulnerable in front of their children.

Suddenly they place tremendous stock in the child's opinion - even when the child knows absolutely nothing about the issue at hand. Thus the adult will ask for advice about a lover, how & where to live, whether or not to remarry & whom to choose. Others share their disappointments in love with very young children.

I was startled when Sammy, who was 4, comforted his grieving mother whose lover had just left by saying, "He shouldn't quit in the middle. That's not right."

The parents' motives aren't hard to understand. Even women who choose to leave their marriages & have successful careers will feel alone & beleaguered as they face new responsibilities & have to make decisions alone, without advice from a partner.

Men are also depressed & lonely at this time. They need help setting up a home for themselves & to be reassured that their children want to see them. Men & women alike feel isolated & alienated from former friends who may be reluctant to take sides & thus stay away from both.

Other friends are concerned about the cracks in their own marriages & will keep a safe distance. Family members often disapprove of the divorce & don't hesitate to say so. Feeling hurt & defeated, each parent naturally turns to the children as their most loyal confidants.

Both rely heavily on their offspring for sympathy & companionship. These youngsters literally help keep the parents going. They're remarkably intuitive about adult depression & protect their parents from pressures outside & inside the home. 25 years after divorce, many men & women still say to me, "I wouldn't have made it except for this child."

Given how emotionally dependent on their children many parents become, it's not surprising to see bitter custody or visitation fights over who has priority in the child's life. Many parents come to believe that without that child, they have no one.

Their only remaining important life relationship & loyal support lies with that child. Thus the legal battle often has its roots in adult despair & not, as many people think, in the parents' simple desire to spend more time with the child. Men & women tell me that when the child is with the other parent they become seriously depressed & wander restlessly from room to room unable to bear their loneliness.

Sometimes this behavior occurs only during the months following the breakup. But it can also endure, providing the basis for endless litigation over custody & visiting. Such battles may distract parents from their personal misery but they hardly resolve it.

As these relationships develop, parents & children often become more like peers than separate generations, which in turn can make the children more independent & responsible. They're justifiably proud of their achievement. Many of our efforts to understand the impact of divorce on children have assumed incorrectly that the child is a passive vessel who is shaped by the changes ushered in by a divorce.

But the child is an active agent. (This is a theme I'll develop in depth in a later chapter.) No one asked Karen to step forward. She did it on her own. Her role in the postdivorce family was entirely different from her role in the predivorce family. In some homes, everyone benefits from the child's new role.

Adults gain needed help. Children gain maturity & self-confidence. They also show a moral sensibility & compassion for others far beyond their years, which they can draw upon later in their adult relationships & often in their career choices. Karen's decision to study public health & to develop programs for crippled children was by her own account rooted in the early responsibility she took as a child.

For the fortunate parent who is able to rely on the child to get thru the extended divorce crisis, the child's availability may tip the balance between chronic dysfunction & recovery.

Of course, caregiving by a child can occur in intact families when a parent is ill or troubled. I recall one little girl, Martha, the oldest of 3 siblings, who took overrunning the household for a year when her mother was recovering from a serious car accident. Martha & her father shared in parenting the younger children & in taking care of Martha's mother.

The difference was that although the mother was in a wheelchair for many months, she maintained close touch with what was going on in the home. Both parents maintained adult responsibility for all their children at home.

Martha matured as a result of her experience & was rewarded by both parents with appreciation & praise. In many immigrant families one of the older children often is responsible for helping the adults to understand the new language & strange culture.

Here, too, the child performs vital functions that enable the family to keep going, but the adults maintain their responsibility at the head of the family.

In contrast, in a postdivorce family, the child often takes responsibility for the one or both parents who are temporarily or lastingly overwhelmed by the crisis. This situation can be compounded by the adult's subsequent disappointments in relationships.

A formerly competent mother or father is unable to carry on as before. Recovery from a divorce is a lot harder than we've realized & it lasts a lot longer.

As a result, the burden falls on the child who steps forward to take charge - out of compassion & often out of unrealistic guilt. This is one way that divorce profoundly changes not only the child's experience but, as Karen illustrates, the whole personality of the child as she grows up & becomes an adult.

Caregiving that involves sacrificing one's own wishes for the needs of others is poor preparation for happy choices in adult relationships, as we'll see in coming chapters.