Annie stll has a clear memory of the day two years ago that she lashed out at her mother during the Christmas holidays.
”We were standing in the kitchen and she asked me if Dad was planning Christmas Eve at his place, or Christmas Day, and I just freaked out. I told her, `I don`t know, ask him yourself, I`m not going to get in the middle of this.`
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”I know it wasn`t a big deal, not like some kids go through, but it was a big deal for me. I felt like I was always having to choose and I hated it.”
For teenagers whose parents are divorced, Christmas often is a bleak, confusing holiday. The feelings of frustraton, anger, guilt and sadness that are so common when parents have divorced become even more intensified under the spotlight of holiday glitter. Just the logistics alone-who will spend what day with whom-is a sharp, unhappy contrast to the image of family togetherness that the Christmas season supposedly means.
At best, the holiday season means adjusting from old memories and old traditions to new ones. At its worst, it`s a time when teens get caught (or feel that they`re caught) in the middle of warring parents who use special occasions as times to get even.
We talked to several teens in the Chicago area about their perspective of the holidays since the divorce of their parents. Their names have been changed. We also talked to some professionals to get their comments of the effects of divorce during this time of year.
This is what they had to say.
Choosing sides
Tom, a high school senior, describes the Christmas season as the time when ”I`m walking on eggs all the time, that`s what it feels like. And if I step too hard on one egg, everything will fall apart.”
He lives with his mother most of the time; his two older brothers have moved out and are on their own. ”I have all these cousins, from my dad`s side of the family, who live nearby and I used to see them during the holidays. They`d have these gatherings and I always liked that. But now she (his mother) minds; she`ll say, `Why are you seeing them? I don`t want you with them.`
”It`s like everything is a power struggle. They (his parents) have always argued about the money; it gets worse during Christmas. They get into these shouting matches over the telephone, she`ll yell, `I`ve got to have the money, it`s for the kid.` ”
The walking-on-eggs syndrome was expressed frequently by teens. They talked about heightened demands during the holidays to ”choose sides”; of being called upon to be a messenger or informant (”my mom and dad both ask me what the other one is doing at Christmas, and they want to know what kind of presents the other one is giving me,” said one); and of being very aware of the emotional status of each parent.
”Holidays can be foreboding,” says Lydia Chapman, a social worker at Wheaton North High School. ”I hear, `Dad wants me for dinner. How can I stay there and then come home, with Mom wanting the gossip?` Kids get caught in the middle, they find themselves in a parenting role.”
Chapman also talks about the issues that come with new ”instant”
families.
”So many of these kids are asked to suddenly relate intimately to a whole group of new people. A new family. Christmas comes, and the spouse who has remarried, wants the children to be part of, to like, the second family. That can be very hard.”
New traditions
That`s the case for sisters Julie, a sophomore, and Claire, in the 8th grade.
The part of Christmas they spend at home with their mother is actually
”more comfortable,” they say, than it was before the divorce, when they had to get dressed and have breakfast before they could open their presents. It was very structured.
”Now, when we`re at home, we can just come down in our pajamas and sit around and be relaxed,” Julie said. ”It seems like there`s a lot less tension.”
Their problem is getting used to their father`s new wife and the new wife`s family. ”It`s a different house, different ornaments, different stockings, everything is different,” Julie said. ”The first year, his girlfriend (now their stepmother) made him a stocking, it was just so cutesy,” her sister, Claire, said.
The hardest part, they agree, is the new set of traditions. ”Their traditions are not what we`re used to,” Julie said. ”It`s worked out OK, but it`s a lot more comfortable to wake up here (at her mother`s home) on Christmas morning.”
Gift-giving can also become a loaded issue.
”My dad`s girlfriend loves to sew and my dad gave me a sewing machine,” said one teen. ”What am I going to make? My jeans? I don`t sew.”
”What happens in my case is that my dad gives me real expensive gifts, but the thing is, it`s because he feels guilty,” says Susan, 17. ”He never came to any of my gymnastics meets. He`d say he was coming, and then he wouldn`t. He wouldn`t show up. He bought me a stereo that year. It didn`t mean as much to me as if he had come to one of my meets.
”The first Christmas day he and Mom were divorced (four years ago), he called up, all the relatives were there (where she and her mom were living). He was crying on the phone; he was saying he wanted to come back. He kept saying he couldn`t live without my mom.
”Then it seemed like he was dating someone right away. I couldn`t figure that. Now I have to go over to where he`s living with his girlfriend and her kids. I don`t like going there, but I have to, it`s in the court order.”
Have a heart
Divorce is difficult for all children at all times-not just teens during the holidays-but teenagers have a special set of problems.
Adolescence is a tumultuous, emotional time under the best of circumstances. It`s typically a time of rebellion, of testing and breaking ties with the family. Friends are often far more important than family.
”Kids in high school like to do things with their friends, they might think sitting around with the relatives on a holiday is a bore,” says psychologist, Sara Bonkowski, who has a private practice in Du Page County and is author of ”Teens Are NonDivorceable” ($5.95 paperback, Acta Publicatons). ”Sometimes it`s hard to interpret whether a teenager`s reactions are perfectly normal, or whether they`re divorce-related. I see a lot of teens staying away from their family as much as they can, being with their friends instead. Part of it is pain of divorce and part of it is being a teenager.”
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Both parents have a right to spend time with their child during the holidays, she says, and both parents should listen to what their teens want and try to ”have an open heart about their children.”
In reality, she says, the ”open heart” is often not there. ”No one knows for sure, but my guess would be that 15 percent (of divorced parents)
share the children, do the best for their children, with a really open heart. I`d say 30 percent are embittered, engaged in ongoing hostility, using their children. And the midrange are doing OK, trying to do the best for their children but with their own feelings still coloring their actions.”
In the middle
Andy, 17, says he thinks it would be ”nerdy” to have a lot of ”really family sort of stuff going on (at Christmas). I`ve got a lot more freedom than a lot of my friends. They (friends) think it`s really neat that I can go here, go there.
”There was a time when my mom got very jealous, she gave us a guilt trip about not spending enough time with her. My mom and dad would always ask about each other, trying to find out what the other was doing. It was really weird at first. Now I`m used to it. Now they`re talking about getting back together. I don`t care anymore.”
Jaclyn, 15, who has lived with both parents at different times since their divorce and is now with her mother, says she would like to be left all alone this Christmas.
”My dad is in New York. He smothers my sister with all these gifts, she`ll be with him. I refuse to go there for Christmas, but my mother is going (out of town) and wants me to go (to her father`s). She says, `I want you to go and keep your sister from being brainwashed.` But I`m not going, and that means I`ll be alone in the house. I`m so glad about that. I don`t want to be with anyone.”
Isolation, feeling different than other kids (even though estimates are that one-third of all children born in the 1980s will experience the divorce of their parents), is a commonly expressed feeling.
”I look around at the other kids in this school, and I think, they don`t know how good they have it,” says Vicky, 14, whose parents are in the middle of a divorce. ”It seems like they`re worried about whether they`re going to get a car for Christmas, stuff like that. And they`re so judgmental, it seems like (when your parents are divorced), you get classified automatically.”
Your parents` keeper
Children often feel that they`re responsible for the happiness or well-being of a parent after a divorce. They can feel-and resent-that squeeze even when both parents are making an all-out effort to make the situation as painless as possible for the child.
Judith Wallerstein, in her book ”Second Chances” (Tickner & Fields, $19.95), talks about the long-term, devastating effect of divorce on children. Despite adults` wishful belief that children are resilient and bounce back quickly, the chilling reality, she says, is that divorce can mark a child for life. Children become ”overburdened,” with taking on too much responsibility for their parents` emotional well-being, she says.
Annie, 17, the teen who told her mother not to put her in the middle as far as making Christmas arrangements, talks about her conflicting feelings.
”The social worker at school told me that I was really lucky, both my parents love me a lot and they`re both active in my life,” she says.
”And I know that`s right, but when I`m at my dad`s, I`m feeling bad that my mom is alone. And when I`m with my mom, I know my dad wishes I were with him. I feel like I have to be the good girl all the time. Like I have to make both of them happy.”