Some interesting statistics on the probability of first marriages being disrupted by divorce or separation have been released in a new government report drawing on the National Survey of Family Growth. The data are for 1995 and concern all U.S. women age 15-44 who married for the first time in 1980 or thereafter. About 43 percent of these women's first marriages had been disrupted by separation or divorce. (This number is roughly consistent with other findings suggesting that about 40-45 percent of recent first marriages in the U.S. are likely to end in divorce.)
Women who grew up in intact families are less likely to be divorced or separated than women who did not (38 percent compared to 52 percent). Ditto for women who say religion is "very important" to them (39 percent) versus those who say "not important" (54 percent). Women who have children who were born more than seven months after the marriage are less likely to be divorced or separated (36 percent) than either those with children born prior to the marriage (60 percent) or those who did not have children (53 percent). Women who cohabited prior to marriage are more likely to be divorced or separated (51 percent) than those who did not cohabit (39 percent). Those who have suffered from an anxiety disorder are more likely to have experienced marital disruption (55 percent) than those who have not (39 percent). Women in the South in the West are more likely to be divorced than women in the Northeast or Midwest.
Very crudely, then (I realize of course that these are only correlations, and that selection effects are all over the place), it seems that if we want to drive the divorce rate down a bit -- say, from 43 percent to 35-40 percent -- more of us Americans should grow up in intact families; develop ourselves religiously; have children, but only after we get married; don't live together before getting married; be lucky enough to avoid anxiety disorders ... and live in the Northeast or Midwest. Posted by David Blankenhorn. 8/30/02 | Link.
I just saw an old episode (``The Bewitchin' Pool") of The Twilight Zone that stood in sharp contrast to Nickelodeon's ``normalizing" take on divorce discussed below. In the episode, a girl (Scout) and her brother (Jeb) discover a magic portal in their swimming pool that takes them to an idyllic never-neverland full of happy children watched over by ``Aunt T,"a nice old woman. Aunt T invites them to stay, but they go back because Scout insists that her parents (who are caricatures of cold, selfish adults) love her and her brother.
When Jeb and Scout return home, however, their parents tell them they have to choose which parent they want to live with, because they're getting divorced. Scout protests, ``I want things to be the way they were!" She and Jeb then dive back into the pool to stay in the magical land forever.
The episode's writer said, ``I liked ``The Bewitchin' Pool" because I thought it made a valid comment in an original way about the effects of divorce on children."
(Also, though filmed in 1964, the idyllic land was integrated). Posted by Tom Sylvester, 8/29/02 | Link
Apparently at the behest of fathers rights groups and others in Florida, the state now requires unmarried women putting babies up for adoption to publicize their recent sexual histories in newspapers, in order to give the biological fathers of these children the opportunity to exercise their paternal rights -- for example, by seeking to prevent the adoption. When I first heard this story, I thought it must be a case of inaccurate or sensationalist reporting. Surely no group of legislators would pass, and no governor would sign, a law so idiotic and mindless, so harmful to the institutions of adoption and marriage, and so personally demeaning to everyone involved. But apparently it's true. If someone wants to defend this law, please write, and I'll try to post something, in the interest of airing the issues. Posted by David Blankenhorn, 8/26/02 | Link.
Normalizing divorce (cont.): In an earlier post, I mentioned my five-year-old daughters' favorite cartoon show, As Told By Ginger, from Nickelodeon, about a spunky 12-year-old girl whose parents are divorced. Yesterday I learned that their second-favorite show, Pepper Ann, from Disney, is also about a spunky 12-year-old girl ... whose parents are divorced. In the episode I saw, Pepper Ann's mom goes out on a date with one of Pepper Ann's teachers. Pepper Ann doesn't like the idea, but her mom explains that it's been four years since the divorce, and that she wants and needs adult male companionship ("you know, boy-girl ..."). My daughters squirmed with embarrassment, but also watched intently. Almost involuntarily, I said to one of them, "I don't like this episode." She said, "I don't either." Part of me understands, and is even sympathetic to, the idea of popular children's culture seeking to normalize divorce, but ultimately I can't believe that it's good for my daughters, at age five, to be told constantly that divorce is everywhere and that divorce is normal. My daughters have now fully incorporated divorce into their imaginary games. For example, one of the girls, in character, will say to the other character in the story, played by her sister: "Oh, her parents are divorced."
Interestingly, although Pepper Ann's father is not in the picture, she lives in a complex, extended-family household that includes her little sister, her cousin, her uncle (a police officer) and her aunt (an environmental activist). Just like in real life? Posted by David Blankenhorn, 8/20/02 | Link.
``The Virtues of Promiscuity": This AlterNet.org article states that new research on a handful of South American tribes suggests that ```slutty' behavior is good for the species" and that high rates of infidelity and divorce result from irrepressible evolutionary urges. While female promiscuity appears to benefit children in these tribes, partly due to the tribe's belief that a child can have more than one biological father, it's obviously a stretch to extrapolate from what works for a handful of premodern tribes to make generalizations about human nature and family decline in American society today.
At least this piece on AlterNet, ``We Are Family," refers to family breakdown as ``a crisis" and calls for positive social change, rather than grasp at evolutionary excuses. Posted by Tom Sylvester, 8-15-02 | Link
A Fragile Families Research Brief (Adobe Acrobat Reader needed) based on a recent paper (Adobe Acrobat Reader needed) by Ronald Mincy shows that, while about 15 percent of all married U.S. mothers exhibit "multiple partner fertility," about 43 percent of unmarried mothers have children with at least two men. Now at Columbia University and formerly a program officer at the Ford Foundation, Dr. Mincy is a long-time leader in the fatherhood movement. (We worked together on a report, Turning the Corner on Father Absence in Black America, and are co-editors of a forthcoming book on African American fathers.) He recognizes the "growing evidence that the ideal context to promote child wellbeing is a healthy, conflict-free marriage involving a couple living only with their common biological children," and notes that "some policymakers and analysts" favor using public policy to promote marriage among low-income, cohabiting couples with children, but points that such policies are less likely to succeed in cases of multiple partner fertility. It's a good point. (A similar point is made in a recent policy brief (Adobe Acrobat Reader needed) by Andrew J. Cherlin and Paula Fomby of Johns Hopkins.) New public policies aimed at strengthening marriage should be realistic, flexible, and carefully targeted. On the other hand, I hope that these data aren't used to argue -- in fact, Cherlin and Fomby in their brief come quite close to arguing -- that we should give up on this effort before we really start. Posted by David Blankenhorn, 8-13-02 | Link
Cohabitation and Gender Equality: One of the ``most emailed" stories on Yahoo! News today tells readers: ``Want Hubby to Do the Dishes? Live Together First." It's based on an article by Jeanne Batalova and Philip Cohen of the University of California, Irvine that appears in the August issue of the Journal of Marriage and the Family. They find that couples who live together before getting married are more likely to share routine household tasks. While this outcome may be a positive effect of cohabitation (who wouldn't want their husband to do the dishes?), the Yahoo! article doesn't mention the scholarly consensus that ``cohabitation does not appear to make for better marriages." Posted by Tom Sylvester, 8-9-02 | Link
Why Are America's Rock Bands So Angry?: ``Because their moms and dads got divorced." That's the conclusion of an article in the August issue of Blender, a popular music magazine. In it, William Shaw writes about the remarkable number of rock bands that sing about family breakup and how these songs ``reflect the zeitgeist of an age group coping with the highest marital-breakdown rate ever recorded in America."
This article appears in a magazine that clearly cannot be accused of having a pro-marriage ideological axe to grind (e.g., the issue also includes a cover story on ``The Greatest Shaggers in Rock History"). Here you have Judith Wallerstein interviewed alongside of punk and hard rock artists, all of them essentially making the same argument: divorce is often painful for children, and its effects linger. The story also reveals a split in how divorce and father absence are treated in pop culture. Yes, much of pop culture, especially television (Friends, Sex & the City, Gilmore Girls, etc.), is rather dismissive of the negative effects of fatherlessness. But this stuff is usually fictional and comes from Hollywood writers. But when family breakdown is addressed by musicians writing about their own experiences -- the impact of divorce and father absencein their own actual lives -- the truth comes out, in songs like Stay Together for the Kids by Blink-182, Broken Home by Papa Roach, Father of Mine by Everclear, and Too Bad by Nickelback. Posted by Tom Sylvester, 8-9-02 | Link.
From a Child Trends June 2002 Research Brief: ``Research clearly demonstrates that family structure matters for children, and the family structure that helps children the most is a family headed by two biological parents in a low-conflict marriage. Children in single-parent families, children born to unmarried mothers, and children in stepfamilies or cohabiting relationships face higher risks of poor outcomes than do children in intact families headed by two biological parents. Parental divorce is also linked to a range of poorer academic and behavioral outcomes among children. There is thus value for children in promoting strong, stable marriages between biological parents." Posted by David Blankenhorn, 8-6-02 | Link
``This is what my son has always wanted": Last Wednesday, Juan Merlan Jr., a 9-year-old boy dying of a mixed-cell germ tumor, told a hospice worker his two last wishes. First, he wanted a Chihuahua. Second, he wanted to see his parents get married. He received the dog Thursday night. And on Friday, his parents, who have been together for 15 years but never married, were wed at the Children's Medical Center of Dallas.
At the wedding, Juan's father said, ``This is a very happy and sad moment for me. I am so emotional because this is what my son has always wanted."
Juan didn't give any explanation for his wish, but his doctor said, ``I think it was Juan wanting assurance that his Family would always be together."
Reporter Eva-Marie Ayala described the wedding:
``Throughout the ceremony, Juan Merlan Sr. held his son's hand tightly...And, although he was unable to speak because of the medication, the boy's eyes revealed the importance of this final wish...They were filled with tears..."
Juan Jr. died on Sunday. For more, see here and here. Posted by Tom Sylvester, 8-6-02 | Link.
``Get a Divorce": A woman recently asked ``The Ethicist" whether or not she should divorce her husband. It was not the typical ``Should we stay together for the kids?" though. Her husband has Alzheimer's disease, and, in order to protect their savings, she's considering divorcing him ``in name only" so he'd be eligible for Medicaid coverage.
The Ethicist advises that a divorce might be, ironically, the best way to maintain her marital commitment to her husband: ``you can help him most by offering tenderness and reassurance, not by joining him in penury."
Perhaps he's right, though his statement, ``If you become loving but unmarried companions, your ethical obligations to one another will not be transformed," creeps closer to a ``marriage is just a piece of paper" mentality. But while the moral situation is muddy, it's a clear example of how public policy can discourage marriage. Posted by Tom Sylvester, 8-6-02 | Link. |
