Divorce
Who are the people of privilege? The people of privilege are the people who have everything going for them. Some say whites have privilege; others say that people of color have privilege. Some say that if you are a part of the past generations, you have privilege. If you have money, you have privilege. If you have both of your parents, you are privileged. Now, it is all fine and good to accuse them of being privileged, but let's take a look at the people that are not privileged in the eyes of society. Half of all the kids in the United States have to witness the end of parental marriage. They do not have the privilege of having both parents in their lives. Oftentimes, the children will be raised by the mother and grow up to hate the father; Sometimes, it is the other way around and the kids hate the mother. Some kids are forced into the foster system and don't get to live with either of their parents because neither of them are competent enough to raise the child. Why is this seen as a privilege to have both parents? Having both parents is a basic human right, but this right is violated for more than 50 percent of children living in the United States! If parents can't get along for the sake of themselves, they should at least stay together for the sake of their child.
In my own friend group, I am aware of two people who have both of their parents in their lives. This is out of more than 50 people that I know from online or in person. Do parents not realize the mental strain that they are putting on their child when they get divorced and make the child live without a mother or father? Many of the people without one or both parental figures in their families end up having depression, anxiety and other mental illnesses.
Much of our generation knows what it is like to have only one parent in their lives. It puts a strain on our mental health that we do not need. The world is broken enough without bringing the problem of parental figures into the situation! We are going to have to solve much of the problems on Earth but how can we solve the problems for others when we cannot take care of our own mental health first? When we get older, how will we learn how to properly parent our own children when we don't know what it is like to have a mother or father figure in our lives. Everything we learn about parenting is supposed to come from, but many of us question how we will be good parents when we don't have good examples of parents in our lives.
Don't get me started on the foster system! The foster system is broken beyond being fixed. Some foster parents are abusive; others use their children just for money. Many of them don't know how to parent for themselves. Siblings get split up, perhaps never knowing each other to begin with and losing contact. Siblings need each other and the foster system splits them up. Some foster parents hurt their children more than physically and it does not get reported because of how scared the children are to report it and the fear that they will not be believed.
Our generation needs parents but everything we learn and hear of comes from online people instead of our own parents. On social media, we find people of our own generation teaching us how to be good parents, to build trust in our children and let them talk to us. They teach us how to take care of our mental health and make sure we eat and drink properly, even making sure we don't stay in bed all day. Our generation feels compelled to listen to these parental figures over our own parents because they teach us how to parent better than our own parents.
Living in a family with a single parent is difficult. We don't understand how we can be good parents, perhaps even a good husband or wife. Our parents are strict and show us only how to make our children not trust us enough to talk to us. Having both parents isn't a privilege to have. It should be a basic human right, but that right is constantly violated!
