Urban living takes toll on family and married life

JAKARTA (JP): Living in urban areas is exacting a heavy toll on family life -- in the form of deteriorating parent-children relations, and in higher divorce rates, experts say.

Speakers at a seminar on family communication in metropolitan cities said Saturday that many parents and children in big cities do not communicate as effectively as they should, and the same goes for married couples.

Communication breakdown is more prevalent in families where both parents work, psychologist Yaumil C.A. Achir said.

Unfortunately, there is no substitute for a parental role in communicating with children or in raising them, according to the professor and former dean of the School of Psychology of the University of Indonesia.

"More than ever, today's children need parental guidance to help them through the many social and cultural changes that are taking place in big cities," she said, stressing that parental guidance is essential in building children's characters.

The seminar at the Wisata International Hotel was organized by the Center for Architecture and Urban Studies and the Social Problem Assessment Group.

Wealthier families are most vulnerable to communication breakdown, Yaumil said.

Typically, in a wealthy family, everyone has his or her own room, drives his or her own car, and has facilities that make them independent of the others, she said. "As a result, they don't communicate much with one another."

"Poor communication can lead to misunderstandings," she said, adding it also leads to greater individualism and self-righteous attitude.

Yaumil's recipe to overcome this problem is that families have to learn to communicate with one another, appreciate each other's sensitivities, and never let anger shut out communication.

Another speaker, Paulus Wirutomo, a staff lecturer at the University of Indonesia's School of Social and Political Science, said increasing communication breakdowns have also led to a higher divorce rate among urban couples.

In the old days, marriage was founded on various considerations such as economic interests and social status.

Today, people marry solely because of love and this is subject to lapses of communication breakdowns, said Paul, an advisor at the Social Problem Assessment Group.

His recipe for overcoming communication breakdown is for married couples to spend as much time together as possible. (ste)