The Parable of the Starfish

I became a mediator because I wanted to try to do the right thing for families who were suffering from a problem that I knew had to have a simpler solution. Too many children were suffering from the aftereffects of their parents’ stupidity because no one had been brave enough to show them a better way or to tell them the truth. I realized that I had to take Mohandas K. Gandhi’s advice to “be the change you wish to see in the world.” I knew that I would not make many friends, and I would certainly acquire countless enemies, but as I stated about my uncle when I eulogized him, “Doing the right thing is seldom easy, and doing the easy thing is seldom right.” The easy thing would have been to let families proceed to divorce on a one-way track headed for a train wreck. I believed the parable of the starfish that I recounted in my first book, Two Ways to Machu Picchu. A little boy was rescuing starfish stranded on the beach, where hundreds were dying. “Why are you doing that?” he was asked. “There are so many of them dying, it doesn’t matter if you save a few.” Picking up one, the boy said, “But it does matter to this starfish.” I was going to throw back as many starfish as I could, and once the effort took hold, others would join me and we’d empty the whole beach.

People believe that divorce is evil and destructive. I’m sorry to be so blunt, but that’s simply not true. To assume that idea is to believe wrongly that divorce just happens out of the blue, which it doesn’t. Most states, including Oregon, where I work, have a waiting period between filing for divorce and finalizing a divorce. (Oregon’s period is generally 90 days.) The actions people take, or fail to take, before they ever set foot in a courthouse are what determines how bad your divorce is going to be. Those actions also go a long way toward deciding whether you will even divorce in the first place.

But here’s the deal—people who get divorced when they already have children have at some point lost focus on a child-centered marriage. Having children should require unconditional love and a selfless attitude. All too often, parents haven’t met those goals before they have children, and even if they have, they often don’t stick with them consistently throughout their children’s lives. My objective is to help every family—all the starfish on the beach—adopt a child-centered mentality that will remain their polar star, a vow to their children similar to the one they made to each other when they got married. But when you make promises to your children, you must keep them for life; there is no quick exit for parents the way there is for spouses.