Ryan Yankush
Professor Oweidat
English 1510
December 9, 2013
Man
of The House
While we all heard
screaming coming from downstairs, my other three siblings and I simultaneously
gathered on steps to listen. As we
listened closer and longer, we knew things were not going good and all of our
eyes became very watery because we knew the inevitable was going to happen
soon. Finally my mom said the words,
“get out and do not come back!!” We all
knew it was over as my dad shut the door behind him, but none of us wanted to
believe what was going to happen… Our parents were getting a divorce. It was pretty naive of us to not to know it
was coming considering all of the signs: my mom always sleeping on the coach,
my dad trying to stay at work as late as possible, and constant fighting when
they were both home. However, we were all so young and just did not want to
believe that this was happening to our family.
Out of the ways my parent’s divorce made a positive
impact on me, the way I picked my friends is probably the one that has affected
me most. Their divorce made me have some
trust issues, which is a good and bad trait, but it this sense I look at it as
a good thing because I based all of my friends off of people I can only
completely trust. There is nobody I
trust more than my twelve bothers on my soccer team. I can go to them with anything at anytime,
and knowing this during that time of my life really gave me a sense of well-being. I always knew that if I was every feeling down, I could pick up the
phone and they would be on their way to get me right away.
On the other hand, having these trust issues have
also affected me in a negative way as well.
First and foremost, my parents divorce really but a halt on any sort of
relationship I could have been in because I was just not ready to trust anyone
with all my feelings like that. But even
before the divorce, I was hesitant to enter a relationship, because like I
stated earlier, my parents were always fighting anyways. So I grew up hardly ever seeing any affection
in a relationship so I never really knew how to act towards girls. Once they actually got the divorced, I knew I
was not ready for a relationship for sure, so I kept all my feelings inside and
to this day I still do not tell people about my feelings, whether it be to the
girl I have feelings for or to my friends.
To go along with this, another problem was my social skills. I am a pretty social guy, and I always have
been but after my parents got separated, I got a little shyer. I got shyer because like I said before, we
are from a small town where divorce does not happen often and the word gets
around quick if it does, so I didn’t want people to look at me or treat me
different because of it. With that,
there were always the awkward situations I encountered, such as, when my
friends came over to spend the night they would always ask where my dad was, or
at soccer games or banquets they would ask me the same thing. At soccer banquets and things of that nature
I would always worry about my parents having to see each other, so I never
really focused on what was going on. Another
one is when people just randomly say they have never seen my dad, and I just
was not mature or comfortable to answer those
types of questions when I was at that age. It takes a man to get over these
kinds of bumps in his life and that is just what my parent’s divorce made me, a
man.
Another way my parent’s divorce affected me in a
positive way was by making me into more of a man and holding down the
house. I knew I had to become the man of
the house once my dad moved out so I got a job once I got in high school and
the disciplined me very well. I got the
job because I knew things were not going to be the same (money wise) as when my
dad was there and knew if I wanted something I was going to have to get it
myself, and rightfully so, that is what happened. So this really made me respect and value to
the actually value of a dollar, and this has really helped me so far and will
continue to help me through the rest of my life. With money being scarce, I knew I had to
start focusing a lot on my schoolwork as well so I can try and get scholarships
for college. However, this isn’t normal
for children with divorced parents, “Children from divorced homes suffer academically. They
experience high levels of behavioral problems. Their grades suffer, and they
are less likely to graduate from high school.” (Desal, Marriage
& Relationships). I knew I
had to do the exact opposite of this because my grades were awful up until the
divorce and I knew the only hope for me to go to college was to start getting
better grades. I also had too start
doing all of the chores around the house (dirty work).
I would mow the lawn, take out the trash, get on the roof and clean the
gutters… I did everything around the house, but I am not going to complain
because I learned many things doing this stuff on my own, such as fixing lawn
mowers, toilets, and handyman things like that.
They do not really sound like positive things, hell, I was even pissed
when it first happened and I had to start doing
all of them, but hard work pays off. I
would have never learned those skills if my dad never moved out, so there is a
little bit of a silver lining.
However,
the good comes with the bad. Being man
of the house was nice and all but having that much responsibility was hard to
handle at the young of an age. Between
work and chores I hardly had anytime for my friends and schoolwork, which set
me back a little. My freshman year of
high school was the year I did my worst and ended up getting my only C. I couldn’t handle all of the pressure/ work/
schoolwork, and it showed in the end. Then with my social life, it was pretty
much non-existent after soccer season.
So I started to get a little depressed and exhausted at this time in my
life. To add on to that my mom was even
more depressed and stressed because of the whole money situation. She was just really upset because she wanted
us to be happy and get us everything we wanted but she knew she could not
because most of our money came from my dad before he moved out. Seeing her sad like this really made things a
lot worse for all of us. These years
were the toughest on me by far.
What
made these years real tough was only seeing my dad only once a week and only
for a little bit on holidays. I never
really had anyone to take to about guys stuff, in fact, my best friends dad
gave the infamous “talk” that dads usually give to their sons. It was really uncomfortable and rough for me
to have to go through most of my childhood with out a definite father figure to
look up to and guide me through my adolescents.
I know he would have done anything to be there for me but it was just an
unfortunate time in our lives and I cannot blame him for it.
This divorce really made an impact on my life, for
the good and the bad, and really made me dig deep and make adjustments in my
life in order to get a sense of belonging and really made be the person I am
today. If it were not for my soccer
team, I do not know where I really would be right now in my life because they
really gave me the extra kick to keep moving forward and get over the negative effects. Every divorce is going to have negative
effects on families, and especially children, but it takes a lot of courage and
character to find some good in it and take advantage of that. I believe I did
that and it did positively affect my life in some aspects. However, with the positives that may come
with divorce, I would never wish a divorce upon another family, and will hopefully
not put my kids through it. A study by
the University of Utah showed that children with divorced parents are more
likely to divorce when they get older (Hansen, 9 Negative Effects). When I am older I pray that I remember how
hard this was on me and can only hope for my future children’s sake, that I
beat the odds and do not put them through this situation.
Works
cited
Desal, Amy. "Marriage & Relationships." How
Could Divorce Affect My Kids? n.p., n.d. Web.
09 Dec. 2013.
Hansen,
Lauren. "9 Negative Effects Divorce Reportedly Has on Children - The Week." The Week. n.p., 28
Mar. 2013. Web. 08 Dec. 2013.
Hawkins, Alan J., and Tamara A. Fackrell. Should I Keep
Trying to Work It Out?: A Guidebook
for Individuals and Couples at the Crossroads of Divorce (and Before). Salt Lake City, UT: Produced on
Behalf of the Utah Commission on Marriage,
2009. Print.
**would not let me indent the 2nd and 3rd rows of each citation cause i copy and pasted from word...??? kind of confused but sorry!!
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