Volume 124 Issue 58
kansan.com
Thursday, November 10, 2011
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FEATURE
Photo illustration by Morgan LaForge Delayed Divorce. When parents split while their kids are in college, it presents unique challenges for the adult children
CHRISTY NUTT
when Megan Watson's parents told her and her 17-year-old brother they were getting a divorce, Watson, a junior
from Overland Park, wasn't surprised. "I read into the situation enough and saw the divorce coming," Watson says. As a 20-year-old student, Watson is now experiencing her parents' divorce, which is in the process of being finalized.
With nearly half of every marriage ending in divorce, it is only a matter of statistics that many college students come from a broken family. But when parents delay their divorce until their children leave the house, college students experience this family change as adults. This delayed timing comes with its own set of unique challenges.
Watson says that because of her age her parents treated her like an adult when they told her the news. "There wasn't any sugarcoating what was going on," she says. "There definitely was no, 'mommy and daddy will still be here and you love,' like you might expect with a child." Watson found the matter-of-fact approach her parents took challenging because it didn't allow her to be the child, but also rewarding because it gave her the opportunity to interact as an adult with both of her parents. "The interesting thing about me being older when this happened is that I've formed my own opinion and have seen both sides for myself," Watson says.
a parent's divorce as an adult can provide the adult child with an opportunity to mature and set boundaries with parents. But it can also cause a sense of uncertainty about family values and affect the adult child's future relationships.
Because Watson is more aware of what is going on than a child, she feels she'll learn more from her parents divorcing than people who grew up in a broken home. Dealing with
The median age for people to divorce is around 40, but that age varies a lot, says Catherine Hess, a divorce lawyer in Lawrence. "I've done divorce for people who have been married for less than a month and for people who got married in the 1940s," Hess says. "Both are easy because there are no kids involved." Hess, a mother of five, says the hardest divorces are ones that involves children. "It really kills me when the struggle comes between the kids. And there always is a struggle," she says. Kids who are 18 when their parents divorce aren't involved in the legal process, but definitely are
involved personally, Hess says.
Adult children are the invisible children of divorce because they are left out of the legal process, says Jeffery Zimmerman, author of Adult Children of Divorce. Zimmerman says there is a misconception that the divorce doesn't matter to adult children and that parents don't need to address it with them. "A divorce is a family event. It is not a happy one, but it's an experience that the entire family must go through," he says. "The adult children need to have a voice in that experience."
A family doesn't end when parents decide to divorce, but the structure dramatically changes. Zimmerman says. The uncertainty of what the new family arrangements will be like can create a sense of disequilibrium for adult children and cause role confusion in the family. However, an adult child has the ability to influ-
to "prove they don't care reveal their bluff.
Kansas officials and coaches have said they have no interest in playing Missouri beyond this season, and many fans feel the same way. There's probably a lot of truth in that, too. Kansas certainly doesn't benefit financially from playing Missouri in basketball, where an annual game in Kansas City would mean a 50-50 split of ticket money. Kansas will make much more than that when they play Davidson there next month.
— Edited by Mandy Matney
But in seven or eight years, when both schools are settled in their respective conferences, some business will try to sponsor a reunion in Kansas City of football, basketball, or both. It will be just enough time to cool off from the messy divorce, and both sides will realize hating someone else isn't quite the same.
Paterno, Spanier fired after Sandusky scandal
MCCLATCHY TRIBUNE
STATE COLLEGE, Pa. — The longest and one of the most distinguished coaching careers in college football history ended suddenly with the firing of Joe Paterno by Penn State's Board of Trustees on Wednesday night. Paterno, who offered his resignation in the morning but said he wanted to finish this season, was joined on the unemployment line by university president Graham Spanier.
The move was in response to the arrest on Saturday of Paterno's longtime former defensive coordinator Jerry Sandusky and the release of a grand jury report alleging he sexually abused at least eight young boys. Although neither Paterno nor Spanier has been charged with any criminal wrongdoing,
Speaking for the board, vice-chairman John Surma said, "The past several days have been terrible, but the outrage we feel is nothing compared to the physical and psychological abuse that allegedly took place."
Paterno received an eyewitness report of one alleged sexual assault in 2002 and just passed it up the chain of command. No one at Penn State pursued a criminal prosecution of Sandusky for that incident.
Surma was pressed repeatedly for an explanation of why Paterno, who is tied with Amos Alonzo Stagg for most games ever coached at 448, was not given a chance to coach the final home game against Nebraska on Saturday at Beaver Stadium. Instead, defensive coordinator Tom Bradley was appointed to replace Paterno on an
"With the difficulties engulfing this university — and they are grave as you all have documented," Surma said, "it was necessary to make a change now."
interim basis.
Perhaps fearing the worst, the 84-year-old Paterno, who has a record 409 wins, attempted to make an end run around the board of trustees in the hope of going out with a shred of dignity. In his statement, which was released through a Washington-area public relations firm as opposed to being approved by Penn State, Paterno expressed regret that he didn't do more to prevent Sandusky's alleged crimes.
Speaking at his house to students, Paterno said, "Right now, I'm not the football coach, and that's something I have to get used to."
MATT ROURKE/AP PHOTO
Penn State football coach Joe Paterno arrives home yesterday in State College, Pa. Paterno and university president Graham Spanier were fired yesterday evening, brought down by their failure to do more about an allegation of child sex abuse against a former defensive coordinator Jerry Sandusky, who is accused of molesting eight boys over 15 years.
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