Why Children of Divorce Grow Into Broken Adults - Erica Komisar - #1081

**Chris Williamson** (0:00)
Why do you think your work is seen as controversial?

**Erica Komisar** (0:04)
Well, a number of reasons. I think some of the things I talk about, even though they're truths, they're inconvenient truths. My first book was about the importance of attachment security the first three years and a mother's presence. And so I think originally when that book came out, it was perceived as a message which it really wasn't, which was an anti-feminist message that women shouldn't work. That wasn't the message of the book at all. Rather, it was a message about the importance of a mother or primary attachment figures' physical and emotional presence as much as possible in the first three years. And again, that's a sensitive message in a society that says work, work, work, everybody should work, work, work, and no one should raise their own children. And so I think that's how I originally became controversial. I think I'm controversial in many ways. I think my most recent book is controversial in other ways.
My book on divorce, which-

**Chris Williamson** (1:03)
Much less contentious topic.

**Erica Komisar** (1:04)
It is, but it isn't because the book actually makes the argument of this idea of 50-50 needs to be looked at very carefully, that we are treating children like possessions in divorces. So that's a sort of controversial idea. Yeah.

**Chris Williamson** (1:22)
I think many people assume that kids are quite resilient. From your clinical work, what do most adults misunderstand about what divorce does to kids?

**Erica Komisar** (1:35)
So, divorce is, we know, is universally not great for children.
It tests their emotional security. It tests their sense of permanence and trust in relationships. So, you know, one would never say it's good for children, and I certainly would never say it's good for children. And there was a woman named Judith Wallerstein who wrote a book many, many years ago, decades ago, about how all divorce is terrible for children and no one should divorce. Meaning the implication is you should stay with your spouse even though you don't get along with them for the benefit of the children. But research that's come out more recently says that, well, no, divorce is not good for children. But there are ways to mitigate how bad it is, and it's that, in fact, chronic conflict, intractable conflict for children is much worse. So to live with parents who hate each other. So the ideal being two parents who love one another, respect one another, are affectionate with one another. That's what's ideal for children. But if you can't have that and you have two parents who hate each other or who are in permanent conflict, that's actually shown to be worse for children's psyches than a good divorce. So what I say is a good divorce is better than a terrible marriage.

**Chris Williamson** (2:53)
Okay. Does that mean that divorce is costless if the marriage is sufficiently bad?

**Erica Komisar** (3:00)
No, it's not costless. It's still going to test children's sense of security. It's going to test their sense of permanence about relationships. These are things that will test. It will test their resilience. One of the things I say in the book, which is controversial, is that you shouldn't divorce till your children are at least three years of age, if you can help it, unless there's some kind of abusive situation going on. If there's physical abuse or sexual abuse, of course you should leave your spouse. That goes without saying. But if you're just not getting along, then if you can hold it and put your children first for the first three years, because we know that the first three years are the period of the greatest brain growth. So from to 3, 85% of the right brain has grown by three years of age. And so you want to give your child as much stability and security and not having much conflict or stress in those years. So if parents can hold it for a few years, I mean, you were together, you loved each other at one point, you made this baby together, hold it for three years. Let your child develop a sense of safety and security.
And then if you have to divorce, do it after three. That's what I encourage people to do.

**Chris Williamson** (4:19)
Why does constant parental conflict damage children so deeply? What's it doing to a child's system and brain development?

**Erica Komisar** (4:28)
Stress. So we know that stress isn't good for children's brains. Well, it's not good for adults' brains either, but it's really not good for children's brains. So you could think of what's happening to the brain is it's, you know, the brain is being architected in those first three years, and stress changes the architecture of the brain. So there is the stress regulating system. So the amygdala is this tiny little almond-shaped part of the brain that is probably one of the oldest, most primitive parts of the brain, and it is responsible for putting us into survival mode, fight or flight. You know, it protects us. So we say that a little bit of stress, which produces a little bit of cortisol can protect us, right? But a lot of stress, which is chronic, which children cannot, their brains cannot handle, actually changes the development of that brain, so that child later on can't deal with adversity and stress as well. There's actually a researcher at Columbia University who talked about how, think about that part of the brain that regulates stress.