Parental divorce and the importance of fathers’ roles in children’s lives

Abstract

INTRODUCTION According to the data obtained by Turkish Statistical Institute (TÜİK), it is seen that there is a dramatic increase in the number of divorcing couples within the last decade when it is analyzed year by year. The number of divorces is 94.219 in 2007, in 2008 the total number of divorces is 99.663, when we look at 2009, it is 114.162. After that, in 2010, total number of divorces is 118.568, in 2011 total number of divorces is 120.117, in 2012 total number of divorces is 123.325, in 2013 total number of divorces becomes 125.305, in 2014, it is 130.913, in 2015 it was found out that 131.830 couples were divorced, in 2016, the number of divorced couples was calculated as 126.164 (TÜİK, 2007-2016). According to the results of the data, in the last decade 1.184.266 couples were divorced. The number of divorced couples were constantly increased in all the years except 2016 in comparison to the previous years. Although the number of divorced couples decreased in 2016, it does not change the fact that divorce is a crucial problem in our country. Many children can be forced to grow up without being their fathers because of parental divorce. When children form their identities for their future lives, they more or less take the same features of the person who lives nearest. For this reason, the most important factors to form character are parents. One of the most common mistakes generally committed after divorce is to cut the communication between the father and the child. In most cases, the communication between the father and the child can be cut in time unintentionally though. It is important to maintain the role of a father which is not known or recognized after the divorce. In most cases, children can be victims and they pay the price and they are forced to be away from their fathers and mothers without their will. In some cases, mothers do their best to cut the communication between the child and the father completely because of their anger or the feeling of revenge. However, it is very important for children’s healthy growing to provide them convenience to communicate with their fathers. In the beginning of the divorce period, fathers try to keep in touch with their children carefully. Although unintentionally, their effort weakens in time. Moving to another place, new marriage, mothers who are trying to ruin the communication can be seen as the reasons of this situation in most cases. Most of the time, mothers make it difficult for fathers to see their child on meeting days by saying that the kid is sick. If it happens one after another, it is observed that the father and the kid act like strangers to each other when they come together. In some cases, when fathers do not realize the importance of their role in children’s lives for their health, they can neglect their children after divorce. Besides, in some other cases, the opposite case can be seen, and mothers try to do their best to maintain the communication between fathers and their children, but fathers neglect or reject to keep in touch with their children. This second case is generally rare. Some of the fathers do not want to keep in touch with their children, because they express that when they see them, they suffer a lot more and their longing is becoming stronger.