Many of our country’s most pressing social problems could be eased if more effort were given to preventing divorce by couples with children, according to a Colorado lawmaker.
The premise that a “stable, two-parent home has no equal in terms of its benefits to children” is behind an unusual bill introduced last week for a second year by state Rep. Dave Schultheis, R-Colorado Springs.
The Children of Divorce Protection Act would require parents with children under the age of 16 who are considering divorce to go through a year’s waiting period and six hours of education focused on the effects of the divorce on the children. The aim is to persuade parents to reconcile, Schultheis told WorldNetDaily.
In Colorado a judge can decide to require counseling, Schultheis points out, but it generally is focused on “coping with the divorce rather than preventing it.”
He calls the bill “fairly cutting edge” and is not surprised that for a second straight year it did not garner enough votes to get past the committee level. This year he got three of 11 votes, and nearly a fourth, from the state’s civil justice committee, but he believes that in the next few years he’ll see success.
“What’s happening is that nobody is focusing on the children in this issue,” Schultheis said. “This bill is creating awareness to alert couples, through counseling, to the statistical damage it will potentially do to their children.”
According to the Heritage Foundation, for every $1,000 spent on the fallout from divorce nationwide, only $1 is spent on divorce prevention.
Schultheis says the fallout takes many forms. Over 80 percent of inmates in Colorado prisons come from homes where one or both parents were not around, he notes. Risks of teen-age pregnancy, alcohol and drug abuse, and other social problems are many times more likely for children of divorce than for children of two-parent homes, according to studies.
Schultheis, acknowledging that he is a child of divorce, points out that many in this circumstance live healthy, productive lives but insists that the data are undeniable: “Divorce has a life-long effect on children that, for many, is never overcome.”
“The moms, who usually have custody of the children, are usually one of the lowest economic groups in our society; they need Medicaid and all sorts of other social programs,” he said. “Our schools are affected. We have statistics that show the academics of children of divorce are lower, so now we have remedial programs we have to pick up in our schools. It just goes on and on and on. And yet nobody wants to stop and look at those issues in the divorce process.”
Some have asked him why a conservative is pushing a bill that brings more government into family life.
“My basic answer is when you’re married and you get a divorce that’s your issue,” he said. “When you start having children it now becomes my issue, because statistics are so strong that society pays a huge price (and) it’s me picking up the tab.”
Frog in the pot
The connection between divorce and social costs is not being made nationwide, Schultheis maintains. He calls it a “frog in the pot issue” that has continually but imperceptibly increased in intensity since no-fault divorce came in the late 1960s.
“Politicians are out there trying to solve the problems coming from it but never trying to say, ‘Well, where are these problems coming from, and what can we do to stop these problems from coming in the future?'” he said. “So that’s the issue we’re trying to deal with.”
Jim Chapman, president of the Rocky Mountain Family Council, believes the legislation would work. He is convinced that some 50 percent of couples could be persuaded to not divorce if they were confronted with the facts.
He cites divorce lawyers working with couples to divide their assets who say about 25 percent end up reconciling during the process.
“They look at what the cost is going to be, the cliff that they are going to fall off of, and say, ‘Hey, maybe we should work the issues out,’ and they will often times seek counseling,” Chapman said. “Our point is if you were to somehow mandate counseling for couples who have children, before a divorce decree, what would you have, a 50 percent, perhaps, reconciliation rate? Man, that’s exciting.”
Schultheis says the “chief myth” he’s confronted with is that divorce is better for a child than a bad marriage. The statistics showing the social cost say otherwise, he contends, and moreover a study indicated more than two-thirds of divorces are a result of parents growing apart rather than abuse, neglect or high-octane fighting. The results were compiled in the 1997 Harvard University Press book “A Generation at Risk” by sociologists Paul R. Amato and Alan Booth.
“Easy divorce is a temptation many in this situation will give in to,” Schultheis wrote in a summary of questions about his bill. “Since most of these divorces involve children, these children will pay a much heavier price than mom and dad for the divorce.”
The National Survey of Marriage and Families shows that 77 percent of marriages rated “not good” at one point are rated “good” or “very good” five years later, he said. “Rocky marriages can be saved and are not doomed to failure.”
A poll run last week by Denver television station KUSA indicated 68 percent of Coloradans would want to see mandatory divorce counseling, Chapman noted. Schultheis urges some caution about that figure, however.
“I’m always skeptical of polls,” he said. “Part of it is because the wording was not as focused as if I were creating the poll. But in general I think people sense there is a real problem here.”
Chapman acknowledges that the bill would represent a “huge change in family law” in Colorado.
“It’s a state in which you have a lot of people who really want to do what they want to do,” he said. “Libertarianism is pretty strong here.”
Opposition
Direct opposition to the bill comes from special interest groups such as the Colorado Bar Association, Colorado Coalition Against Domestic Violence and Colorado chapter of the Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers.
“One of our main concerns is the lengthening of the period of time that a couple is forced to remain in the marriage,” Jennifer Corrigan, public policy director of the Colorado Coalition Against Domestic Violence, told WorldNetDaily.
“The time when a victim of domestic violence actually makes a decision to get out of an abusive relationship can be a dangerous time,” she said. “Domestic violence is about power and control, and a lot of times an abusive partner thinks that he or she is losing control, and violence can escalate during that time,” she said. “So elongating that period can be very problematic.”
Schultheis notes that his bill allows a spouse in an abusive relationship to opt out of the requirements. Corrigan argues that the exception is applied only if the court finds there has been violence.
“Battered women make decisions about their safety and children’s safety all the time, and they choose for one reason or another not to have that all hashed out in court,” she said. “They may be concerned about their safety in doing that.”
Corrigan said she has been trying to find an alternative to the bill that would work for victims of domestic violence.
“I think that trying to do something more like pre-marital counseling, something on the front end, seems like a safer alternative,” she said. ‘I’m just very concerned about the safety issues for battered women and their children with that legislation.”
Schultheis insists he has “bent over backwards” to address these concerns and is convinced that his legislation will not endanger victims of abuse.
He says he is gaining support for the bill, including interest from lawmakers in other parts of the country, but is aware that the groups with a “stake” in divorce, including family law, have a strong lobbying effort.
“Very few politicians are willing to risk the political capital to have all of the stakeholder groups come against them,” he said. “What’s interesting is that none of the groups that get money from the state to help children have rallied for this, because I think deep down their boards realize it could affect their pocketbook.”
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