children of divorcing parents tend to be good actors. they put on different masks to fit into their parents' different worlds.
all of us put on and take off masks depending on whom we're with. i once studied personality by studying letters that famous authors had sent to various people in their lives. i looked at the letters that virginia woolf, emily dickinson, and charlotte bronte had written to three different life-long friends, over the course of their lives. each woman had taken on a different but consistent voice for each friend. in other words, woolf was a different woolf--goofier, or bolder, or more submissive--when writing to her sister, her close male friend, or her female lover. (indeed, you can study spoken and written language to study personality. in work with computer programs that count and categorize the words we use, james pennebaker and others (see here) have shown that when we use certain words instead of others, different personality traits are at play. for instance, increased use of the first pronoun "i" signifies increased depression.)
but we don't need computer analysis to know that when we're with different people, we play out different roles, or different parts of our personality come into relief while others parts retreat. young children of divorce might just have it worse than most: being one side of themselves with mom, and another side with dad.
for example, i know a nine-year-old boy caught between two of his selves. his father essentially left his mother and is now in a new romantic relationship. the boy's mother, a bit nostalgic, would like to fix the old marriage. when the child spends weekdays with his mother, he does his best to align himself with her world. he allows the sad side of himself to rise to the surface, regretting what's ending, saying he wished his parents were still a couple. but when he is with his father, every other weekend, he aligns with his father's wave-length, so to speak, being more active, engaging with his father's new girlfriend with an exaggerated buoyancy. the boy knows what each parents' respective worldview is, and he tries to fit into that worldview to have fun with that parent. he's performing roles, fuelled by cognitive dissonance: it's easier to believe in the atmosphere around us than to constantly fight it.
one massively confusing part of all this for a child is that he doesn't often know he's adapting to two different worlds. he just feels moody, and might blame himself for that moodiness: he thinks he's sometimes really depressed and sometimes too buoyant, and doesn't know why other people don't experience such drastic shifts. he's on a merry-go-round that's inexplicable. in essence, he's resistant to recognizing that he's playing roles to please two parents who are so different from each other.
in her 2006 book between two worlds, the inner lives of children of divorce, elizabeth marquardt wrote that children of divorce experience a split existence: they report that they feel like different people with each of their parents, that their parents are polar opposites (even when they're not), that they need to keep more secrets from their parents than other kids do, and that they don't want to resemble one of their parents too much, because it might alienate them from the other parent. marquardt also claims that children of divorce experience especially early pressure to create their own moral systems, because they can not wholeheartedly endorse the rules of two different households.
marquardt is famous for saying there is no such thing as a "good divorce." but there is a chance that some of the difficulties of divorce can strengthen personality traits in a child. unfortunately, these children are forced into an form of adolescent "splitting"--keeping two sides of their personality in two different realms. but they are also forced to stitch together their own code of behavior. if they are able to move from a world of "splitting" (dancing between two radically different selves) toward a world in which these various masks are integrated, perhaps they find themselves with a more varied toolbox for approaching life than many of us have.
在离异家庭长大的孩子会是一个好演员,因为他们带着不同的面具生活在离婚后父母各自不同的世界里.
我们是否带上或摘下面具取决与我们跟谁在一起,我曾经通过研究著名作家在生活中写给各色人等的信件来研究她们的个性.我看了virginia woolf(被认为是二十世纪现代主义与女性主义的先锋之一)emily dickinson(美国隐士女诗人) charlotte bronte(英国女小说家,小说简爱的作者)在不同生活阶段中写给故交的信件. 在信中她们对每个朋友都用了不同但是一致的语气.换句话说,woolf好像变了一个人，在写信给姐妹或亲密的异性朋友,或她的女性恋人的时候,有时傻里傻气，有时大胆放肆，有时又俯首帖耳。(你确实可以通过谈话和写作用语去了解人的个性.用计算机程序来分析或归类人类用语,james pennebaker同其它人一样显示了不同的个性特点影响着我们用固定的词语代替其他的词.比如,越来越频繁的使用第一人称代词"我"显示心境越来越忧郁.)
然而当我们和不同的人在一起的时候我们不需要由计算机的分析来告诉我们这些,当其它部分隐藏的时候,我们就运用不同的规则,在个性中的不同部份来找出答案.离异家庭里年幼孩子们也许在这方面做的尤甚:因为他们要做一个母亲一边的自己,再做一个父亲一边的自己.
比如,我认识的一个9岁男孩生活在两个自我的中间.他的爸爸彻底地离开了他的妈妈,现在正同别人展开着一段新的浪漫关系.男孩的妈妈,对过去没有忘情,还想重修旧好.当孩子周末与妈妈在一起的时候,他努力使自己和妈妈的世界保持一致.他表露悲伤的一面,为这样的结局嗟叹, 说着多么希望父母重归于好的话.但是另一个周末,当他和爸爸在一起的时候,他又与爸爸波动的情绪保持一致,譬如,在与父亲的新女朋友相处时,他会带着略显夸张的轻松心情,表现得更为活跃.这个男孩知道父母各自不同的想法,于是他试着与他们保持一致而迎合他们.他在表演一个角色,差异性的认知助长了这个行为:他更容易相信周围的气氛不同而不是抵制它.
给这些儿童造成重大混乱的部分是他们不会意识到他们处在两个不同的世界.他只是闷闷不乐,而且可能会因为太过喜怒无常而责怪自己:他觉得自己一会儿很消沉,一会儿又很高兴,也不知道为什么其它人没有这种情绪上的巨大反差. 他无法解释自己的情绪为什么总像座在过山车上. 本质上讲,他不会承认自己扮演角色以取悦父母,因为那和其他人太不一样了.
2006年elizabeth marquardt出了本书叫做 between two worlds, the inner lives of children of divorce，在书中，她描写了离异家庭的孩子存在的经验：他们说跟父母在一起时觉得自己是不同的人，因为他们的父母两极对立的（即便他们并不对立）所以他们也需要在父母前保守比其他孩子还多的秘密，他们不想和父母中的一方太相像，因为那可能使他们的父母疏远自己。 marquardt在书中还声称父母离异迫使儿童更早地去建立自己的道德体系，因为他们不能一心一意地支持两个不同家庭的原则。
marquardt说过的著名的一句话，不存在一件“好的离婚”这样的事，但是经历离婚的遭遇能够增强孩子的人格特质。不幸的是，这些儿童被迫成为 “”的青少年 --在两个不同的环境保持不同的个性。他们也同时被迫将自己的不同标准和行为编织在一起。如果他们有能力走出“”的世界（周旋于两个截然不同的世界之间）而朝向需要各种不同面具集成的世界（影视世界--译者注）可能他们会发现自己用了这些各色的化妆工具后比我们更多地接近生活。