Another Good Reason Not to Divorce

[Arizona_Mike]

It’s the single strongest social risk factor for the early death of your children.

from The Longevity Project: Surprising Discoveries for Health and Long Life from the Landmark Eight-Decade Study:

We were surprised to find that although the death of a parent during one’s childhood was usually difficult, it had no measurable impact on life-span mortality risk. The children adapted and moved on with their lives.

That was the end of the good news. Although losing one’s parent to divorce might seem better than losing a parent through death, we found the opposite. The long-term health effects of parental divorce were often devastating— it was indeed a risky circumstance that changed the pathways of many of the young Terman participants. Children from divorced families died almost five years earlier on average than children from intact families. Parental divorce, not parental death, was the risk. In fact, parental divorce during childhood was the single strongest social predictor of early death, many years into the future.

bakadesuyo.com/whats-the-single-strongest-predictor-you-will-38240

 

[fermat]

Fascinating.

 

[LilyM]

It’s the single strongest social risk factor for the early death of your children.

from The Longevity Project: Surprising Discoveries for Health and Long Life from the Landmark Eight-Decade Study:

bakadesuyo.com/whats-the-single-strongest-predictor-you-will-38240

Divorce is more likely to lead to an early death than living with a parent who beats the c&$p out of you daily for years? Who doesn’t feed you properly? Doesn’t take you to the doctor when you are ill? Who forces you into prostitution when you’re twelve? Gets themself and you kicked out of your house so you’re homeless? But remains married, even if only on paper?

These findings badly fail the smell test.

 

[Gertabelle]

Divorce is more likely to lead to an early death than living with a parent who beats the c&$p out of you daily for years? Who doesn’t feed you properly? Doesn’t take you to the doctor when you are ill? Who forces you into prostitution when you’re twelve? Gets themself and you kicked out of your house so you’re homeless? But remains married, even if only on paper?

These findings badly fail the smell test.

Statistical findings in studies such as these average out the good with the bad. So overall divorce is bad for children. But nowadays, most divorces are not to the extremity of abuse that you describe. They are just two people (sometimes only one) who think they can do better with a different partner. So they walk away rather than try to work things out - and actually have to admit they themselves need interior work.

Just one divorced woman’s opinion on the subject.

Gertie

 

[LilyM]

Statistical findings in studies such as these average out the good with the bad. So overall divorce is bad for children. But nowadays, most divorces are not to the extremity of abuse that you describe. They are just two people (sometimes only one) who think they can do better with a different partner. So they walk away rather than try to work things out - and actually have to admit they themselves need interior work.

Just one divorced woman’s opinion on the subject.

Gertie

I know abuse is thankfully not that common or severe. And I know divorces are usually relatively painless.

That’s my whole point though. We’re expected, according to this study, to believe that the mere fact of a divorce - however painless - is WORSE in terms of its health impact in the child’s later life than anything else - including all the other stuff I’ve mentioned.

In other words that it would in fact be better for a child’s health for it to go through literally anything a parent could dish out to it than for that parent to

 

[LilyM]

Statistical findings in studies such as these average out the good with the bad. So overall divorce is bad for children. But nowadays, most divorces are not to the extremity of abuse that you describe. They are just two people (sometimes only one) who think they can do better with a different partner. So they walk away rather than try to work things out - and actually have to admit they themselves need interior work.

Just one divorced woman’s opinion on the subject.

Gertie

I know abuse is thankfully not that common or usually that severe. And I know divorces are usually relatively painless.

That’s my whole point though. Apparenrly we’re expected, according to this study, to believe that the mere fact of a divorce - however painless - is WORSE in terms of its health impact in the child’s later life than anything else - including all the other stuff I’ve mentioned.

In other words that it would in fact be better for a child’s health for it to go through literally any other horror that a parent could dish out to it than for that parent to obtain a piece of paper from a court formally declaring the marriage to its other parent over.

 

[Gertabelle]

I know abuse is thankfully not that common or usually that severe. And I know divorces are usually relatively painless.

That’s my whole point though. Apparenrly we’re expected, according to this study, to believe that the mere fact of a divorce - however painless - is WORSE in terms of its health impact in the child’s later life than anything else - including all the other stuff I’ve mentioned.

In other words that it would in fact be better for a child’s health for it to go through literally any other horror that a parent could dish out to it than for that parent to obtain a piece of paper from a court formally declaring the marriage to its other parent over.

Well, I’m not sure what you mean when you say that divorce is “relatively painless.” I think the point of the study’s results is that divorce is NOT painless. A child’s experience of divorce, apparently, is much deeper and more painful than it appears.

By all appearances, for example, my divorce was “easy” - no lawyers, no fighting, equal parenting time and conversational decisions regarding schooling, etc. And our son is doing great in school academically and socially. But…

He has been showing increasing signs of stress as he grows into the “age of reason” and becomes more in the concrete world. He says things that indicate that it truly is written on the human heart for children to want to live with both their parents.

I do get what you’re saying though about whether this is really the WORST thing that could happen to a child. Abuse, neglect – our instincts would tell us that these things have to be worse… I don’t know.

But you’ll never find me arguing that divorce is a neutral event, or that if it’s done right it will have no lasting detrimental affects on the children. Divorce - except in the case of the need for safety – destroys children’s lives. That’s my opinion, with or without this study, and I’m sticking to it.

Gertie

 

[Arizona_Mike]

I haven’t read the book from which the quote was extracted, and obviously, physical and emotional abuse would have a worse impact on a negative child than separating, but yes, I would say divorce teaches a growing child some lessons you would want to spare him or her. My own parents’ separation and later, divorce had an effect on me that I only recognized later, when I compared myself to the other kids I knew who had intact families. The life-lessons and examples I should have gotten from my father just weren’t there, and it had an impact on how I related to women, on my commitment (or lack of same) to relationships with girls and with male friends, my demeanor, my feelings of self-worth (that my father left the family right after I was born was not lost on me), all sorts of things, as well as family income and resources.

There is also some evidence that an absent (or present and abusive) father may be a significant risk factor for atheism, BTW:

billmuehlenberg.com/2002/03/16/a-review-of-faith-of-the-fatherless-by-paul-vitz/

treesforlunch.blogspot.com/2010/06/faith-of-fatherless.html

This could also been a factor in my long detour from faith which began as a teenager (thankfully, and by the Grace of God, I returned…).