What a Night!

There are many benefits to ending your marriage peacefully. One big benefit for the entire family is a productive co-parenting relationship. Another, if you happen to have been married to someone who was Berry Gordy's childhood friend, is that you get to attend cool events like the Gala for Motown's 50th Anniversary on November 21st, as Berry's guest.

Technically, I was the guest of a guest because it's my former husband, Bud, whom Berry invites. Either way, it was a lucky day for me as I got to sit and talk with luminairies who were either Motown recording artists (like Stevie Wonder) or friends and supporters (such as Judge Greg Mathis, the Reverend Jesse Jackson, and the Honorable Damon Keith).

The setting was sumptuous, of course, and filled with beautiful dresses and beautiful people at the Detroit Marriott in the RenCen. When we were escorted to the dining hall, 750 people were treated to a lovely dinner amidst the dynamic entertainment of the "new" Temptations, Aretha Franklin, Stevie Wonder, and Kid Rock. (Even the warm up band was good!) There was also a short film honoring former members of the Motown family who have recently passed away (like Levy Stubbs of the Four Tops and of course, the biggest entertainer of them all, Michael Jackson). Sinbad as Master of Cermonies was a riot.

Bud and I were accompanied by our son, Alex, and his daughter Toi. Much to Alex's consternation (he thinks mothers should be wearing a shawl and knitting) I got up and danced to the old tunes I loved and grew up to. When I hear good music, I can't sit down! No one else seemed to mind, as they were having just as much fun as I was.

The Detroit Marriott is pretty amazing. I had never been in this part of it before, and was thrilled to see old posters of all my early favorites (the Supremes, Temptations, and of course the Jackson 5) flawlessly superimposed over the elevator doors so that you are entertained with the history of Motown as you walk to the large halls. I never realized what a beautiful job had been done at the downtown Marriott, or how much Motown is a major theme. It's well worth a visit, just to see it.

Berry Gordy comes from a large and very close-knit family, and any time I am around him I can feel the magic of this web of love that surrounds him. I saw his long-time photographer, Mario, who has accompanied him throughout the years to every event I've ever attended. The Gala was handled with the superb attention to detail I've always seen at any event Berry or his family organized. Everyone was there to have a good time, and when the evening was officially ended we got up and joined Berry and his family at Seldom Blues.

This was a big deal for me, and I am so thankful to Bud, whom I will always love, for allowing me to share it. Just because a marriage ends does not mean there is a villain and a victim. Many times, as with Bud and me, people find that they are able to rediscover what it was they liked about each other in the first place. And to me, that is the kind of love that lasts.

(By the way, the photos above seemed to post in no particular order. They are, me with Stevie Wonder, my son Alex with Sinbad, me with Kid Rock, Kid Rock and Stevie Wonder, the Temptations, and me with Judge Greg Mathis.)

Time to be Tender

“Divorces don’t wreck children’s lives – people do!”
~Vicky Lansky

Do you know someone who is getting a divorce or a separation? With more than half of first marriages, 60% of second, and 90% of third marriages ending in divorce, who doesn’t? If you are one of these, there is something that is important to remember: the children. That is, we need to be mindful of how our behavior affects our children, and take care not to sacrifice their long-term wellbeing for our own short-term emotional release.

Going through a divorce is tough on the parties. But it’s even tougher on the kids. Suddenly thrown into a situation they had no hand in creating, kids find themselves in rough waters. The waves are howling; the wind blows, and they look up to see their parents--the captains of the ship—fighting at the helm! It’s very unsettling.

Parents are people, just like everyone else. But to their children, parents are like gods who shape the very structure of their world. Children learn what they live. Most of us are wise enough to see this as we try to raise our children. But in a divorce, it’s easy to forget what the children are seeing, hearing, and learning from our behavior. The fact that parents begin to live in two different homes can be seen as a tragedy – the “disintegration of the family”- or as abundance: now you have two peaceful homes instead of one conflict riven dwelling. It’s all in how we choose to paint the picture.

I am a divorce lawyer. My goal is guide my clients through the process of dissolving their marriage so as to minimize the impact on their children, and set them up for continued success as parents, during and after the divorce is finalized. Just because Mom and Dad no longer want to live together is no reason for the kids not to love them both. Helping parents see that is the most important challenge divorce lawyers face.

The parent-child relationship is different from the husband-wife relationship. Yet so often when parents split up, they bring the children into the conflict, with disastrous results. The children are encouraged to take sides, to see one parent as the “bad” parent and the other parent as the “victim.” This does not serve our children.

Unlike marriage, most divorces last forever. This can be a good thing. So often people choose to stay together “for the sake of the children,” but is it a service to our children to stay in relationships which have dissolved into rancor, screaming, or worse? We all tend to recreate as adults what we knew as home when we were kids. If our childhood home was a war zone, then we will recreate the same environment in our homes as adults. Is that what we want to wish on our kids? Of course not! That’s why parties in divorce need to make a commitment to each other to speak well of one another as much as possible. Children need to know that their parents’ breakup was not their fault; that both parents still love them and will always be there for them. The best way to establish these principles in the childrens’ minds is for them to hear it from their parents. Promising not to use the children as weapons is nothing hard. It’s just something to decide and do.

It’s easy to say, “I love you”, when the wedding bells are sounding and hopes are high. It’s hard to show love to our spouse when the marriage has failed and the pain starts getting spread around. Divorce gives us a chance to send our children a message that, even if the spousal relationship did not work out, we as parents can still respect and honor each other. This is using our parental power wisely. The alternative serves no one.

A friend of mine is going through the latter situation. Both parents are well-intentioned people, but the parents have not been careful to keep the children out of the conflict. As a result, they have been made privy to private details of the parents’ lives, and the parent-child relationship has suffered. The kids have identified with one of the parents and made the other their enemy. This is crushing to the ostracized parent, and he talks of nothing else. Although his pain is deep, his children’s pain is worse.

We need to recognize our power in helping our children adjust to a family breakup. Divorce is generally viewed as a negative event in families, and rightly so; because children who experience it are often more susceptible to developing emotional and behavioral difficulties than children who do not experience divorce. But a new study by sociologists Paul Amato of the University of Nebraska and Alan Booth of Pennsylvania State University shows that one of the worst situations for children is actually high-conflict marriages that last.

Research shows that three quarters of children and adults who go through divorce do not experience long-term emotional problems. In many instances, divorce even leads to an improved life. Simply by becoming aware of the ways divorce can impact children, parents can decrease, and even prevent, some of the negative consequences of divorce.

It has been established that educational programs can help parents communicate with their children about issues related to divorce. One such program is Parents Forever, an educational program for families in transition. This program was designed to help parents stop fighting in front of their children, to keep the children out of parent issues, to provide access to both parents, and to put the best interests of the children first. (For more information, visit www.joe.com.)

In truth, divorce can be the catalyst for an extraordinary life. That’s why the best educational programs for divorce issues emphasize the positive impact of the process in helping families turn a page. Whatever the purported grounds, the truth in divorce is that there is no villain and there is no victim. There are just two people who tried, and didn’t make it. Accepting this reality frees us to learn the lessons we need to learn and move on. If we remain stuck in the “blame game” we are doomed to repeat the same mistakes.

Children of divorce admittedly do experience trauma. Yet nearly 80 percent of these children don't suffer long-term damage. The key? If the parents recover quickly from the emotional blows of divorce and resume their roles as parents, the kids will do fine.
"Can you get up in the morning and make breakfast?” asks Robert Hughes, psychologist and professor of human development at the University of Missouri, “"Can you go to work? If you can recover quickly, get back on your feet and become parents again, the kids will be OK," Hughes says.

It’s been said that circumstances don’t make a man, they reveal him to himself. Divorce is an opportunity for us to start anew, not a call to slander our partner. Remember; the door that you close on this relationship is the same door that opens to the rest of your life. Make yours a door of love and healing, for all concerned.

Group of 50 Mental Health Experts Pushing to Add Parental Alienation to DSM

Read the story here: http://www.fathersandfamilies.org/?p=5156

Your Power Years

“The old gray mare, she ain’t what she used to be, many long years ago.” (Song from childhood)

My daughter Alexis and I have started a habit of power walking several times a week. It’s a fun way to get some great exercise. We walk and talk with gusto --at least we do until she brings up a subject on which I feel I have experience to share.

Then the lively conversation stalls, as she informs me with exasperation that she doesn’t need my opinion because she’s already looked it up on the internet! At this point I often decide not to waste my breath. But sometimes I foolishly persist, trying to help her with my unwanted advice. Of course, she is totally unappreciative of my pearls of wisdom.

Why is youth wasted on the young??

It’s all right though, because we don’t want it. People in my generation are really where the action is. Baby Boomers rock!

A New Stage of Life

Just ask Ken Dychtwald. Ken Dychtwald is a psychologist-gerontologist-yoga-practitioner turned author-speaker-consultant-demographer-futurist-entrepreneur-self-help guru, who speaks to major corporations across the country about what he calls “middlescence.” Middlescence is a whole new multi-decade stage of life, between 50 and 70, that offers rich opportunities for reinvention and exploration.

If you think he is artificially creating this stage of life, keep in mind that the term “adolescence,” a word we now take for granted, didn’t exist a century ago. People went from being a child to an adult overnight.

Unlike our counterparts in “adolescence,” however, those of us in middlescence have the benefit of experience and hard-earned wisdom. As a result, we can make better choices, and we already know what we don’t want. Not to mention that, as the Boomer generation, there are a lot more of us around than the 20 and 30-somethings. So we definitely carry weight.

At 55, Dychtwald refers to aging as a “blast” and says that the longevity revolution will have a bigger impact on people’s lives, on their family, their money, and their work than either the industrial or technological revolutions of previous centuries.

Boomers Rule

Did you know that two-thirds of all the people who have lived past 65 are alive today? Moreover, according to Dychtwald, the 50-plus generation has 70% of all the wealth, 80% of all the money in savings and loans, and invests 66% of every dollar in the equity markets. So, he asks, tongue-in-cheek, how come they’re getting all the discounts?

I love his approach of seeing Baby Boomers as a rich natural resource, and I see the trend myself in my practice. I have women clients in their 50’s and 60’s who are gorgeous. They take care of themselves; mind, body, and spirit; and it shows. (Women, by the way, will control 60% of the wealth in America by 2010.) I have men clients who are equally fit, active, and healthy, into their 50’s and beyond. We are definitely a different generation from the past, when alcohol and cigarettes were a mainstay of daily life.

When I was pregnant with my twins, some 20 years ago, I refused to accept the then-prevailing wisdom that having children caused you to “lose your figure.” I worked out throughout my pregnancy, and discovered a line of clothing (called “Woman’s Work”) that featured attractive business suits for pregnant women rather than simply the tent-like top that said “Baby in the Oven.” I wasn’t the only one who believed there was life after childbirth, and today many of my friends and clients are in great shape, despite having had children.

The Boomers are also the first to reject what Dychtwald calls a linear view of life: Get born, go to school, go to work, rest, then die. The traditional view of retirement as consisting of golf and rocking on your front porch is gone, and in fact even the average age for retirement has increased to 73 according to Fortune magazine. We are now choosing a cyclic approach to life, in which some of us return to school in midlife, try a brand new career, travel, and then repeat the process in a different field. Some of us are constantly learning and growing through seminars, workshops, and individual study. We are dynamic!

We are always at the perfect age, and it is so gratifying to see that this wisdom is being recognized by an entire generation. Even though advertising still focuses on youth, increasingly we are seeing mature models and more “real” people in ads. We have the power to change the advertising industry by making our preferences known.

Our Inner World Creates Our Outer World

I believe that my generation’s awareness of spirituality and being part of the greater whole is a big factor in our awareness of who we are, and our confidence about expressing it. I feel blessed to be a part of the Boomer generation, and excited about moving into my “power years,” as Dychtwald calls them in his book, The Power Years. The book offers advice on the many aspects of the silver years, including relationship advice based on his 22-year marriage to his wife and business partner, Maddy.

I was fascinated to learn that the pair have been married 22 times, once each year, in a different ceremony. Ranging from traditional to Buddhist to a Mayan ceremony atop the Chichén Itzá pyramid, a Hopi wedding in Sedona, Arizona, and in the nude in a Tai Chi ritual at Esalen, it’s clear that with these two the honeymoon is never over! What a refreshing and vibrant way to look at marriage.

The universal wisdom remains true: What we send out comes back, and what we believe about ourselves becomes true for us. As we Baby Boomers move into the next level of life, we have decided that we want to change the world for the better. We are determined that our lives will continue to be a rich, exciting adventure. As a group, the Boomers are loving and powerful. And whether the 20-somethings realize it or not, we rule! And so it is.