How Hollywood is Screwing Up My Child of Divorce

This past weekend we took advantage of our child-free weekend to enjoy a night out at the movies. I had heard wonderful reviews of Crazy Stupid Love and so we hit the 7:00 showing.

In the movie Julianne Moore’s character requests a divorce from her husband (played by Steve Carell) of 25 years. Desperate and distraught, Carell’s character hooks up with the womanizer (played by the very hot Ryan Gosling) and learns how to become a womanizer himself. The film is full of humor and sadness, everything that makes up a love relationship.

So how does this relate to screwing up children of divorce? Well (spoiler alert)…

Carell’s son convinces him that if he just fought harder he could win his wife back. And he does. Yay!

But wait, what message did that just send to every child of divorce?

I know Crazy Stupid Love was not intended for a child audience, but the theater did have plenty of tween and teen girls. For any of those girls who are children on divorce, the movie told them that if they just convinced their parents to work harder, fight harder, that their love would save them all and the marriage would work out. It told those girls that they could save their parent’s marriage.

What about younger kids? Well they have all the Parent Trap movies. In those movies, the kids learn that even after years of separation, all it takes is a little ingenuity on the kids part and the parent’s will remember how much they love each other and will once again resume their marriage.

I have been divorced for almost 6 years and my son still suggests the notion of my ex and I getting back together. He works out scenarios in his head and throws them at me at random moments. Each time I repeat that under no circumstances would his father and I get back together. But it doesn’t stop him for having that desire. And who can really blame him, especially if he were to sit in front of a movie that shows him he could make all the difference and fix everything.

What I would love to see from Hollywood, movies that feature divorce with everyone going on their merry way (and not Stepmom because please how many stepmoms actually recognize any of that fantasy). I want to see more movies like The Break Up where people break up and actually stay that way, and in turn discover that they might just be happier without the relationship.

What I would love to see from Hollywood, movies where the children of divorce show how frustrating life can be but learn to make the most out of the life they now live, perhaps even with a happy ending.