tissues and issues

Alright, alright, sorry for the Charlotte Church quote, but it did seem suitably juvenile for the topic. I try not to bleat on about my family too much, on the internet as in life, particularly as there is no longer comparatively much to bleat about - but every so often something sticks in my inner child's craw and I want to shout it from the rooftops. Maybe I'm being irrational, maybe everything really is worse when it happens to me(mo), or maybe I'm just taking things too seriously, but I'm still considerably irked following a conversation I had yesterday.

The topic of discussion was Elizabeth, a mutual friend, who has just leapt from one relationship into another with barely a fortnight's breathing space. The popular explanation for this (apparently repeated) behaviour is that her parents divorced when she was twelve. Now, allow me to issue a disclaimer before I continue; I don't doubt for one moment that even relatively straightforward divorce can be traumatic for any children concerned, and I don't think the existence of some people's horrific experiences negates the legitimate effects of other people's only rubbish ones. But, I do think we should all have a sense of proportion.

So, when Jan trotted out the "but her parents got divorced" line again last night, I said so. I said that I thought that 26 was a bit old to still be clinging so resolutely to the trauma of your parents' split, because at some point (I think personally by the age of 21 or at the latest 25) you have to take a long hard look at your life and decide whether you want to live it as a testament or defiance to your parents, or in the most constructive way possible for yourself. I said that it's never particularly fun or easy to do, but it is possible, and I think it's a process most of us have to undertake in some form or another.

Cue utter horror - But her parents divorced when she was twelve! Her dad ran off with her mum's best friend!

And yes, that's a horrible thing to happen - but one that happens to around a third of children in the UK. The fact is, a lot worse things happen too; including myself, I can think of one person who grew up with an addict and alcoholic, several more who grew up with "mere" drinkers and/or domestic violence, and another whose father left her aged 15 in charge of her two little brothers to go and live with another woman, after her mother had already died. Terrible things happen, and terrible things go on happening because of them - but in the end, you have to build some kind of modus vivendi with them in order to have any kind of life of your own.

Jan's response? But if something traumatises you when you're twelve, it can last for a long time.

And that, dear reader, is what really pissed me off. I don't think it's panhandling sympathy to say that if I and a considerable portion of my friends managed to get through situations far worse than a normal divorce (Christ, most of us would love to have had two functioning parents whose marriage fell apart and who went to court and were done with it in a year) then a very well-adjusted, pragmatic, mature, bright (because that is what Elizabeth is) woman of 26 must be able to come to terms with something that happens - not to put too expletive a point on it - all the fucking time. But no, of course (and this is what she was arguing - believe me, I checked) it's far worse to be "really traumatised" by your parents getting divorced when you're twelve than to have parents who are -somehow laughably untraumatically!- addicted, alcoholic, violent or dead.

And what further pisses me off, is that it's so rarely people who've been through comparable things who come out with this stuff, but people exactly like Jan from very solid, conventional, "boring" (but frankly, that's all you want from parents when yours are so "interesting" they're already passed out by the time you get home from primary school) families; it seems always to be the least experienced who assume themselves the greatest authority on these matters. I genuinely cannot fathom what leaden logic leads to such conclusions; is it because divorce is the only thing they can imagine - because other (worse) things are so totally beyond their ken that they don't seem real and thus can't inspire sympathy?

I don't know. I only do know how much I hate the catch-22 in which they leave me; not wanting to be one of those whiny people who choose to blame their entire lives on their childhood, yet also wanting so much to rub in people like Jan's faces how horrific mine was, to make the point how utterly moronic they're being. I doubt there ever has been, nor ever will be, anything so frustrating and divisive in human relationships as such gaps in experiential empathy. Or is that what the internet's for?