• Newspaper Articles On Marriage And Divorce
• News Articles About Marriage And Divorce

• Jun 19, 2018  Research from 2018 demographers’ conference: Migration, self-identity, marriage and other key findings. Migration, racial or ethnic self-identity, and marriage were among the many topics explored at the Population Association of America’s annual meeting last month.
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This article reviews new research on this topic, emphasizing how it can inform policy debates about the role of marriage in reducing poverty and improving child outcomes.

For Better or For Worse: Divorce Reconsidered. Mavis Hetherington and John Kelly. Norton & Company, 2002 1. Marriage as Metonym In John Updike's story of marital breakup, 'Separating,' the daughter, Judith Maples, home after a junior year in England contrasts the American mode of responding to gas shortage (the OPEC embargo) with how the English responded to the electricity workers' strike: 'It was so sweet.

During the worst of it, how all the butchers and bakery shops kept open by candlelight. From the papers, things sounded so much worse here: people shooting people in gas lines, and everybody freezing' (197). This has everything to do with the Maples' divorce, which Updike contextualizes as a national question, implicating American individualism and social irresponsibility.

Is this a stretch? It's not, according to the five books under review. But is divorce a departure from traditional American values or an instance of them? The American right wing sees it as a catastrophic departure that threatens the fabric of American moral identity: 'Observance of Christian model monogamy was made to stand for customary boundaries in society, morality and civilization; the nation's public backing of conventional marriage became a synecdoche for everything valued in the American way of life' (Cott 219). This is not new.

The nineteenth-century novels of courtship Karen Tracey studies focus on 'what female characteristics are most apt to contribute to the happiness of the individual, to the solidity of the middle class family, and to the strength of a nation' (14). But does happiness curl up comfortably with solidity and, if not, which should one choose? Norma Basch shows how Victorian American moralists championed what they believed tobe 'the self-sacrificing communitarianism of marriage against the selfish individualism of divorce,' thereby translating 'the divorce question into a symbolic focal point for competing worldviews' (188). Thus 'marriage was (and is) a metonym for the social order' (3).

End Page 592 Conservatives generally date the decline of America to the 1960s with the crucial 1970s contribution of the spread of no-fault divorce. The divorce rate did then soar, but was this a sign of an abandonment of central American values? There is, in fact, a good case for divorce being a central American value. Glenda Riley's Divorce: An American Tradition documents how America led the world in divorce from the 1600s on. True, it was rare but notably less rare than in England and Europe. Riley posits that 'divorce fit well with American democracy and individualism' as well as underwriting 'the pursuit of personal happiness as a desirable goal' (6).

Thomas Jefferson, who encoded 'the pursuit of happiness' into our national declaration of independent identity, 'related the concepts of independence and happiness with divorce' in his notes for the divorce case of Dr. James Blair of Williamsburg (Riley 31). Jefferson noted that divorce 'preserves liberty of affection' and 'restores to women their natural right of equality' (qtd. In Riley 31), issues that reverberate in all the books here considered. It would be nice to think that happiness and responsibility gotogether, but divorces involving children raise uncomfortable questions. In Updike's story the youngest child protests, 'What do you care about us.

We're just little things you had' (201). Not only may happiness be in opposition to communal responsibility, it may be a questionable concept in itself. Is there in any sense of the word happiness an end to its pursuit? In one of Updike's most cunning lines, Richard Maple justifies the separation to his son by declaring that for some years he and his.

Series About: Many years ago, the myth began to circulate that if parents are unhappy, the kids are unhappy, too. So divorce could help both parent and child. 'What's good for mom or dad is good for the children,' it was assumed. But we now have an enormous amount of research on divorce and children, all pointing to the same stubborn truth: Kids suffer when moms and dads split up. (And.) The reasons behind the troubling statistics and the always-present emotional trauma are simple but profound. As licensed counselor and therapist Steven Earll writes: Children (and adult children) have the attitude that their parents should be able to work through and solve any issue. Parents, who have given the children life, are perceived by the children as very competent people with supernatural abilities to meet the needs of the children.

No problem should be too great for their parents to handle. For a child, divorce shatters this basic safety and belief concerning the parents' abilities to care for them and to make decisions that truly consider their well-being. Children have the strong belief that there is only one right family relationship, and that is Mom and Dad being together. Any other relationship configuration presents a conflict or betrayal of their basic understanding of life.

In divorce, children tend to resent both the custodial and absent parent.' Interview with Steven Earll, M.A., M.S., L.P.C., C.A.C. III, August 2001. Research on Children and Divorce While virtually every child suffers the lost relationship and lost security described above, for many, the emotional scars have additional, more visible consequences.

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More than 30 years of research continues to reveal the. Most of these measurable effects are calculated in increased risks. In other words, while divorce does not mean these effects will definitely occur in your child, it does greatly increase the risks. The odds are simply against your kids if you divorce. Did you know that 40 percent of marriages in America end in divorce? You can help save marriages through Focus on the Family programs like our Hope Restored marriage counseling intensives, daily broadcasts, online resources and more.

Restore marriages and families. Research comparing children of divorced parents to children with married parents shows:. 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. Nan Marie Astone and Sara S.

McLanahan, 'Family Structure, Parental Practices and High School Completion,' American Sociological Review 56 (1991): 309-320. Kids whose parents divorce are substantially more likely to be incarcerated for committing a crime as a juvenile. Cynthia Harper and Sara McLanahan, 'Father Absence and Youth Incarceration,' Center for Research on Child Wellbeing, Working Paper #99-03,. Because the custodial parent's after a divorce, children in divorced homes are almost five times more likely to live in poverty than are children with married parents.

Newspaper Articles On Marriage And Divorce

Sara McLanahan and Gary Sandefur, Growing Up with a Single Parent: What Hurts, What Helps (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1994), p. Teens from divorced homes are much more likely to engage in drug and alcohol use, as well as sexual intercourse than are those from intact families. Flewelling and Karl E.

Bauman, 'Family Structure as a Predictor of Initial Substance Use and Sexual Intercourse in Early Adolescence,' Journal of Marriage and the Family 52 (1990): 171-181. Before you say, 'Not my kid,' remember that the children and teens represented in these statistics are normal kids, probably not much different from yours. Their parents didn't think they would get involved in these things, either. Again, we're looking at increased risks.

A few more statistics to consider:. Children from divorced homes experience illness more frequently and recover from sickness more slowly.

Jane Mauldon, 'The Effects of Marital Disruption on Children's Health,' Demography 27 (1990): 431-46, and Olle Lundberg, 'The Impact of Childhood Living Conditions on Illness and Mortality in Adulthood,' Social Science and Medicine 36 (1993): 1047-52, both as cited in Linda Waite and Maggie Gallagher, The Case for Marriage (New York: Doubleday, 2000). They are also more likely to suffer child abuse. Catherine Malkin and Michael Lamb, 'Child Maltreatment: A Test of Sociobiological Theory,' Journal of Comparative Family Studies 25 (1994): 121-133; Leslie Margolin, 'Child Abuse and Mother's Boyfriends: Why the Overrepresentation?'

Child Abuse and Neglect 16 (1992): 541-551. Children of divorced parents suffer more frequently from symptoms of psychological distress.

Lindsay Chase-Lansdale, Andrew J. Cherlin and Kathleen E. Kiernan, 'The Long-Term Effects of Parental Divorce on the Mental Health of Young Adults: A Developmental Perspective,' Child Development 66 (1995): 1614-1634. And the emotional scars of divorce last into adulthood. Wallerstein, et al., 2000, pp. Xxvii-xxix; Catherine E. Ross and John Mirowsky.

'Parental Divorce, Life-Course Disruption, and Adult Depression.' Journal of Marriage and the Family 61 (1999): 1034-1035.

The scope of this last finding — children suffer emotionally from their parents' divorce — has been largely underestimated. Obviously, not every child of divorce commits crime or drops out of school. Some do well in school and even become high achievers. However, we now know that even these children experience deep and lasting emotional trauma. For all children, their parents' divorce colors their view of the world and relationships for the rest of their lives. Wallerstein Study Psychologist Judith Wallerstein followed a group of children of divorce from the 1970s into the 1990s.

Interviewing them at 18 months and then 5, 10, 15 and 25 years after the divorce, she expected to find that they had bounced back. But what she found was dismaying: Even 25 years after the divorce, these children continued to experience substantial expectations of failure, fear of loss, fear of change and fear of conflict. Twenty-five years! The children in Wallerstein's study were especially challenged when they began to form their own romantic relationships. As Wallerstein explains, 'Contrary to what we have long thought, the major impact of divorce does not occur during childhood or adolescence. Rather, it rises in adulthood as serious romantic relationships move center stage.

Anxiety leads many adult children of divorce into making bad choices in relationships, giving up hastily when problems arise, or avoiding relationships altogether.' Other researchers confirm Wallerstein's findings.

See Andrew J. Lindsey Chase-Lansdale and C. McRae, 'Effects of Parental Divorce on Mental Health Through the Life Course,' American Sociological Review, 63 (1998): 239-249; Catherine E. Ross and John Mirowsky, 'Parental Divorce, Life-Course Disruption, and Adult Depression,' Journal of Marriage and the Family 61 (1999): 10341035. Specifically, compared to kids from intact homes, children who experienced their parents' divorce view premarital sex and cohabitation more favorably.

Axinn and Arland Thornton, 'The Influence of Parents' Marital Dissolutions on Children's Attitudes toward Family Formation,' Demography 33 (1996): 66-81. (This is disturbing news given that cohabiting couples have more breakups, greater risk of domestic violence See Stanton, 1997, pp. 55-70; see also David Popenoe and Barbara Dafoe Whitehead, 'Should We Live Together?'

A Report of the National Marriage Project, 1999,. And are more likely to experience divorce. Alan Booth and David Johnson, 'Premarital Cohabitation and Marital Success,' Journal of Family Issues 9 (1988): 255272; Paul Amato and Alan Booth, 'The Consequences of Divorce for Attitudes toward Divorce and Gender Roles,' Journal of Family Issues 12 (1991): 306-323.) Behind each of these statistics is a life — a child, now an adult, still coping with the emotions brought on by the divorce. As Wallerstein put it, 'The kids in my study had a hard time remembering the pre-divorce family.

News Articles About Marriage And Divorce

But what they remembered about the post-divorce years was their sense that they had indeed been abandoned by both parents, that their nightmare of abandonment had come true.' Jane Meredith Adams, 'Judith Wallerstein: Forget the Notion Divorce Won't Hurt Kids. Biography 1 (1997): 79-81.

Parents tend to want to have their own needs met after a divorce – to find happiness again with someone new. But not only do the old problems often resurface for the adults, new problems are added for the children. As Wallerstein observed, 'It's not that parents love their children less or worry less about them. It's that they are fully engaged in rebuilding their own lives — economically, socially and sexually. Parents' and children's needs are often out of sync for many years after the breakup.'

Wallerstein, et al., 2000, p. Children again feel abandoned as parents pursue better relationships after the breakup.' Feelings of abandonment and confusion are only compounded when one or both parents find a new spouse. A brings complications and new emotions for children — not to mention new stepsiblings, stepparents and stepgrandparents, who often are in competition for the parent's attention. (And the adjustment can be even more difficult — because it is the adults who choose new families, not the children.) Lilly expressed it this way: 'My loss was magnified as my father remarried and adopted a new 'family.' Despite attempts on my part to keep in touch, we live in different cities, and his life now revolves around his new family with infrequent contact with me.

This has only increased the feelings of abandonment and alienation from the divorce.' And the high rate of second-marriage divorces can leave children reeling from yet another loss. Full 'recovery' is nearly impossible for children because of the dynamic nature of family life.

While you and your ex-spouse's lives may go on separately with relatively little thought, your children will think about their loss almost every day. And 25 years after the fact, they will certainly be influenced by it. Life itself will remind them of the loss at even the happiest moments. As Earll explains: 'Children never get over divorce. It is a great loss that is in their lives forever.

It is like a grief that is never over. All special events, such as holidays, plays, sports, graduations, marriages, births of children, etc., bring up the loss created by divorce as well as the family relationship conflicts that result from the 'extended family' celebrating any event.' Earll interview, August 2001. Not an Easy Out What parents see as a quick way out often results in emotional damage that the children will carry for 30 years or more.

Divorce is no small thing to children. It is the violent ripping apart of their parents, a loss of stability and often a complete shock. While we often think of children as resilient, going through such trauma is a lot to ask of our kids. In light of the fact that most marriages heading for divorce can be salvaged and turned into great marriages, parents should take a long pause before choosing divorce.

While it may seem like a solution to you, it's not an easy out for you or your kids. Put the Pieces of Your Marriage Back Together You may feel that there is no hope for your marriage and the hurt is too deep to restore the relationship and love that you once had.

The truth is, your life and marriage can be better and stronger than it was before. In fact, thousands of marriages, situations as complex and painful as yours, have been transformed with the help of professionals who understand where you are right now and care deeply about you and your spouse’s future. You can restore and rebuild your marriage through a personalized, faith-based, intimate program called, Hope Restored. Will my divorce have any serious long-term effects on my kids? Our marriage has been very difficult, and I recently contacted a divorce attorney in order to discuss and explore my options. My children are still young – between 8 and 14 – and sometimes I become extremely depressed and anxious thinking about how the divorce is going to impact them. At other moments, however, I find encouragement in the thought that kids are extremely resilient and can bounce back from almost any kind of negative circumstance.

Can you help me resolve this issue in my mind? Should I be concerned or not?