Children and Separation

Socio-Genealogical Connectedness Perspective

Kwame Owusu-Bempah

• Publisher: Taylor & Francis
• Year: 2014
• eBook ISBN: 9781317603184
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Psicología
• Subtopic: Psicología del desarrollo

Childhood separation and loss have become virtually a way of life for a large number of children throughout the world. Children separated from their genetic parent(s) and consequently their genealogical, social and cultural roots due to processes such as adoption, parental divorce/separation, donor insemination, single parenthood by choice and child trafficking can face social, emotional and psychological difficulties.

This book explores the premise that a proper understanding of the complex inner world of modern day separated children and their psycho-social development requires a shift in focus or emphasis. It presents the notion of socio-genealogical connectedness as a new theoretical framework for studying and promoting these children's growth and development. This new theory simultaneously challenges and complements existing notions of psycho-social development, including attachment theory and Erikson's psycho-social theory of personality development. Owusu-Bempah proposes that this sense of socio-genealogical connectedness is an essential factor in children's adjustment to separation and their emotional and mental health; much like those adopted, separated children suffer a loss of genealogical continuity, and hence, loss of 'self'. This hypothesis is discussed and ultimately supported through both the author's own research and a broad selection of theoretical and empirical material from other areas.

The book further considers the implications of this notion of socio-genealogical connectedness for childcare policy and practice, as well as directions for future research in this and related fields. Children and Separation is an invaluable resource for academics, students and childcare professionals. The accessible style of the book ensures that it will also be useful to parents and anybody affected by childhood separation.

1 Theories of childhood separation

An overview

For a long time the infant’s sense of self includes too much, since it also encompasses those close to him in a literal sense. To be separated from his mother is to lose a part of himself as much as to be separated from a hand or foot.

(Burns, 1979, p. 148)

Roman mythology has it that we owe the city of Rome, and hence the Roman civilization, to twin brothers Romulus and Remus. According to the legend, they were the sons of Mars, the god of war, and Reha Silvia, daughter of King Numitor. King Numitor’s brother, Amulius, dethroned him. Having deposed Numitor, Amulius forced Rhea Silvia to become a vestal virgin so that she would not marry or have children. This made Romulus and Remus unwanted children because not only were they born out of wedlock, but also because they were a threat to Amulius; that is, Amulius feared that they would grow up and reclaim the throne. To dispense with the brothers, when the River Tiber broke its banks, he had them placed in a trough and thrown into it, expecting them to drown. When the flood abated, the trough, still containing the two boys, came ashore. They were then found by a she-wolf who, instead of eating them, suckled them and protected them from predators. The wolf was assisted in her maternal duties by a woodpecker who also brought them food. As the story goes, both creatures were sacred to Mars.

Fortuitously, one of the King’s shepherds, Faustulus, later found them. He took them home and he and his wife adopted them. Unaware of their origins, they named one Romulus and the other Remus. The twin brothers soon grew up as strong and daring young men who led a bellicose band of shepherds. The brothers killed Amulius and reinstated Numitor, their grandfather, as King of Alba Longa. In furtherance of their achievements, they decided to found a town of their own. Naturally, Romulus and Remus chose the site where the she-wolf had nursed and protected them as the ideal place to locate it. They soon began building walls around the town for protection against invasion or disturbances from neighbouring tribes. The twin brothers got into a minor dispute over the construction of the walls; until then there had been no rivalry between them. This dispute soon escalated into a ferocious fight. Remus died in the fight, leaving Romulus the sole ruler of the town whose initial citizens comprised a gang of outlaws and fugitives. Romulus eventually developed the town into a new city which he named Roma (Rome) after himself. Apart from a short period when he shared the governance of Roma with Titus Tatius, Romulus remained supreme ruler of the city.

According to his subjects, Romulus was immortal; that is, he did not die, but rather disappeared one day in a tempest. Believing that the storm had transported him to paradise, where they hoped to reunite with him in the future, they continued to worship him under the name of Quirinus. Today, the term ‘Quirinal’ may be seen as signifying the legend’s enduring influence on the Italian psyche.

CHILDHOOD SEPARATION

The moral of this ancient story, in the context of the present work, is that the phenomenon of childhood separation has been an aspect of the animal kingdom since creation. In the Christian scriptures, for example, Romulus and Remus’ story reminds one of the circumstances of the birth, childhood experiences and adult lives of Moses and Jesus Christ. Every culture in the world has a similar legend which continues to be narrated either orally or in writing by one generation to the next generation. Human babies as well as animal young are every day abandoned by their parents or separated from them for various reasons. In modern times in the human world, the accompanying sense of loss and its emotional and psychological consequences have been a major concern for developmental theorists and child welfare practitioners for many years. Today, due not only to social changes but also to global political, economic and ecological changes, a large number of children are each day separated from one or both birth parents. In other words, childhood separation continues to be a major concern for society at large. In many cases, the extent of loss inherent in childhood separation extends beyond the biological parent(s). It also entails disconnection from genealogical, social and cultural heritage.

In modern times, initial theoretical concerns for separated children were mainly about those reared in total institutions or orphanages, and those who experienced short-term separation from their mothers (Bowlby, 1944, 1951, 1969, 1973, 1980; Goldfarb, 1943; Spitz, 1945). For example, Spitz expressed grave concern about children who, when deprived of maternal care and stimulation, would curl up, refuse food and literally die, although they had access to resources – adequate food, clothing and shelter – to meet their basic needs. Spitz used the phrase ‘marasmus and hospitalisation’ to epitomize this bizarre phenomenon. Harlow’s early 1960s experiments with rhesus monkeys supported Spitz’s clinical observations regarding children raised in total institutions. Since then, general concern has been for a much wider range of children: children of parental divorce/separation; those involved in domestic and cross-country adoption; displaced/unaccompanied children; children of lone mothers by choice; and the offspring of donor insemination.

Historically, in efforts to understand the effects of separation on the social, emotional and psychological functioning of these children and youngsters, researchers and childcare professionals have presented adopted children as a case in point. In these presentations, the children either ‘sink or swim’. Those who ‘swim’ tend to be presented as heroes and heroines, while little is heard of those who ‘sink’. Today, while some highlight the case of those who ‘swim’, others tend to emphasize the experiences of the children who ‘sink’ or who are rescued from ‘sinking’ through, for instance, adoption. Many of those rescued are seen as among the lucky ones. However, they are rescued at great loss to themselves, the loss of their biological parents and socio-genealogical roots. This is mainly because, in the western world particularly, the effects of an adoption order have historically been to legally and irreversibly sever a child’s link to their birth and extended family and, consequently, from their genealogical roots, ostensibly to foster a ‘healthy’ relationship with their adoptive family. As we will see in this book, this practice has been shown to have detrimental effects on the children. Today, children involved in crosscountry adoption are at particular risk of losing not only their birth parents and siblings, but also, and equally importantly, their genealogical and cultural heritage.

CAUSES OF CHILDHOOD SEPARATION

Children are separated from their birth parents and socio-genealogical roots for reasons other than adoption (Kaplan, 1995). Indeed, in modern times, apart from domestic and cross-country adoption and child trafficking, disasters, both natural and man-made, are major causes of childhood separation. Disasters very often leave in their trail devastation and deaths; they destroy life and ravage whole communities; they may desolate villages, towns and even cities. Civil wars and international conflicts often result in severe damage to communities. Similarly, natural occurrences such as earthquakes, hurricanes, floods or droughts invariably cause timeless anguish. Whether caused by nature or man-made, infants and children are always among the casualties. In these circumstances, communities are often dispersed. In fleeing from drowning (floods) or famine (drought), bombing and killings, or pestilence, families are often split, following different routes to safety. In this process of flight and scattering, large numbers of children become permanently separated from their families and often end up far away from home and their ancestral roots, in a foreign land, oftentimes on another continent. These occurrences have been a part of human history. Today, many children escaping from their countries for safety or other reasons continue to be dispersed around western Europe and North America.

In more recent memory, Bonnerjea (1994), for example, reported that in the early 1990s, apart from the number of Romanian and Russian children who found themselves in western European nations and North America through adoption, many other children were separated in the battles of Angola and Rwanda, in Thai provinces children were bonded, sold or kidnapped into the sex trade, and ever-increasing numbers of separated children were to be found on the streets of South America. During this period, many children were also separated during the Bosnian conflict, in the Indian earthquake and in Peruvian battles. Bonnerjea estimated that in 1994 the UK received a number of Somali and Sudanese children who fled experiences as child soldiers or whose parents sent them to avoid forced conscription; in the Netherlands, nearly 20 per cent of asylum seekers were unaccompanied/separated children, the largest numbers coming from Angola and China. Bonnerjea estimated that in the USA, many of the unaccompanied/separated children, largely from Central America, who entered the country had been abducted or kidnapped and trafficked, or had travelled independently in search of better life chances. Ressler and colleagues (1988) take a more retrospective look and record the Red Cross’s estimate of around 13 million children who were separated from their kith and kin, taken from their ancestral roots at the end of World War II, including children deported as slave labourers and illegitimate children of labourers who were not allowed to keep them. In the year 2005 alone, thousands of children lost their birth families through natural disasters – the Indian Ocean tsunami, hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, and the Pakistani earthquake. The exact number of these children most probably may never be known.

In times of peace and plenty, children’s need for their birth family is hardly ever questioned. In times of disaster, however, we quickly lose sight of the importance of the family and cultural identity to the child. In these circumstances, Ressler and colleagues (1988) have noted that the physical survival of children takes precedence over all other concerns, such as their emotional and psychological needs, including their need to be close to their kith and kin. Hence, both local and international intervention programmes routinely separate them from their families in order to concentrate rescue resources and efforts on them. Such measures remind us of the programmes and efforts that were mounted to transport en masse children from Vietnam to the USA and western Europe for adoption in the 1970s. Although obviously well meaning, such measures disregard the long-established mass of research evidence showing that, in most cases, children’s emotional and social needs are best served by their own families; that meeting best the needs of infants and children requires the continuity, stability and sensitive responsiveness of family members. Ressler and colleagues argue that during emergencies adult kith and kin remain the primary source of security, protection and comfort for children, so that family attachments and bonding which take on heightened importance in emergencies need to be preserved. Simply put, in most circumstances the best interests of the children are served and protected by the birth family. Notwithstanding, measures taken in times of disaster very frequently result in a large number of children losing their birth families through both domestic and cross-country adoption, refugeeism and child trafficking; and, in many cases, institutional adoption (i.e. orphanages).

CHILDREN OF LONE PARENTS

Other groups of children separated from their birth parent(s) and extended family include children of parental divorce/separation, children resulting from donor insemination, and children of lone mothers by choice or by default. In today’s western world particularly, a large number of children are separated from one biological parent for these reasons. Globally, the USA is at the top of the league table, as in many aspects of life, for having the largest number of these children - dependent children living with only one parent. In the European Union (EU), the UK tops the league. For example, the Statistical Office of the European Community (EuroStat) in Luxembourg reported that in 1996, EU-wide, 10.7 million dependent children lived with one parent. This represents 13 per cent of all dependent children in the EU in that year. Of these, 1.8 per cent were under 5 and a further 5.9 per cent were aged 5 to 15. The UK has by far the highest proportion (23 per cent) of families with dependent children. In absolute terms, between 2001 and 2004, 599,275 children under 16 years of age in England and Wales alone were living with only one of their birth parents (Office for National Statistics, 2005a). At the other extreme, as discerned from the EuroStat report, Greece and Italy had 7 per cent each and Spain 8 per cent. EU-wide, 84 per cent of lone parents were women. The report concluded that the rise in lone parenthood has been one of the most striking demographic and social trends in recent years.

Today, the two main routes of entry into lone parenthood are marriage or relationship breakdown and the birth of a child outside marriage or a stable relationship. Both have increased since the early 1960s. In the UK, according to the Office for National Statistics (2005a), the number of divorces recorded increased from 27,224 in 1961 to 153,399 in 2004. EU-wide, the UK is reported to take the lead here – with the highest divorce rate and the largest number of children born outside marriage. In this respect, the UK comes second only to the USA which has 40 per cent of dependent children living in lone-parent families. Anderson (2002) contrasts these data with those of Italy where practically every child is born within marriage and has a much lower probability (7 per cent of all dependent children) of experiencing family disruption due to parental divorce or separation before the age of 15 (http.//europa.eu.int/en/comm/eurostat/compres/en/9798/6309798a.htm, accessed 18/04/2005).

Yet another group of children (and adults) disconnected in many ways from one or even both parents’ biological, social and cultural roots are those who resulted from donor insemination. Worldwide, this group comprises a significant number. In a keynote address to the Annual Conference of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority in 2004, the then Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Public Health reported that since 1991 (when the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act came into force), over 73,000 babies had been born in the UK alone as a result of treatment procedures regulated under the Act. This is consistent with Blyth’s (1999) estimate that in 1995 alone 7510 children were born following treatment using donated gametes. Blyth and colleagues (2001) estimated that 1612 of the 2143 donor-conceived births were recorded in the UK in one year, between 1 April 1998 and 31 August 1999 – the most recent period for which data were available. These figures, however, did not take into account the births resulting from self-insemination.

There is a consensus amongst researchers that because donor insemination, by and large, requires minimum medical intervention or none at all, it has been practised for considerably longer than either egg or embryo donation, and remains the most prevalent form of assisted conception. As we will see in later chapters, in the UK, as in many other western nations, until very recently, the offspring of donor insemination have been, de jure as well as de facto, denied any information that would lead them to the donor. Thus, they have no means of contact with that person, their genetic parent. In the less extreme case of parental divorce or separation, research consistently shows that a substantial proportion of the children involved also lose contact with the non-resident parent, usually the father.

DEVELOPMENTAL IMPLICATIONS

Review of the clinical literature clearly indicates that one of the major features which all groups of separated children share in common is their negative psycho-social developmental outcomes. From this literature (which will be reviewed in later chapters) these problems seem virtually endless. In childhood, the symptoms range from emotional problems such as enuresis to physical growth problems such as dwarfism; in adolescence and adulthood these range from psychiatric problems such as depression to affectionless personality (or psychopathy). Psychologically, these individuals are characteristically associated with identity confusion, especially in adolescence. Furthermore, not only are many of these difficulties manifest in adulthood and old age, but some of them, including social and marital relationships, mental health, and maladaptive parenting skills, are also claimed to be generationally transmitted. Thus, in the past century, particularly since the 1940s onwards, psychologists and clinicians have endeavoured to find explanations for these problems and also to design intervention programmes for solving or, at least, ameliorating them.

EXPLANATIONS

The thesis about to be presented agrees with many traditional as well as contemporary theories that human need for connection to other human beings is ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• Preface
• Acknowledgements
• 1 Theories of childhood separation: an overview
• 2 Socio-genealogical connectedness: in theoretical context
• 3 Socio-genealogical knowledge: a missing dimension in Bowlby's ‘Forty-Four Juvenile Thieves’ study?
• 4 Socio-genealogical connectedness and the well-being of children of divorce
• 5 Further research evidence: the gender question
• 6 Socio-genealogical knowledge and self-identity
• 7 Divorce and parental alienation syndrome: socio-genealogical implications
• 8 Research, policy and practice implications
• Bibliography
• Author index
• Subject index