One often hears that children will be OK after divorce, but this is far from the truth. It is like saying that surviving the trauma of homelessness or victimization from war will not have a lasting effect on children. It’s simply a falsehood perpetuated to make adults feel better about the lousy choices they have made.
Neither sex has a monopoly on the destruction of marriage, but today it is overwhelmingly women who choose to put their children through the tragedy of divorce. And why do they do this? Mainly because of a temporary feeling of dissatisfaction — they feel that they “deserve more,” and hell if their children will get in the way of that. This isn’t always the case; of course there are legitimate reasons for divorce, but they are only a factor in a small minority these days.
Whenever I have expressed worry about my kids, people always say “kids are resilient.” Well, maybe, when it comes to broken bones and such. But if one looks at statistics, kids who are in intact families do better on almost every measure. Studies have even shown that kids whose parents stay together, despite being in a miserable marriage, do better than kids whose parents break up — even when they do so on good terms!
So I think it’s time people stopped repeating this harmful fallacy that kids will be OK in divorce. It’s time people started being open and honest about what divorce does to children: it hurts them, sometimes badly. Divorce without a good reason is an assault on a little human being’s childhood. Adults need to face the uncomfortable truth about what they are doing when they destroy marriages.
Contemporary family law purports to “put the child’s interest first.” That family law encourages women to divorce clearly shows that this is a lie. If the law really cared about children, it would remove all incentives to divorce.
27 responses so far ↓
1 novaseeker // Jul 21, 2009 at 7:30 am
People are in denial about this because if they were not in denial about it, it would lead to conclusions about their own behavior that they are not comfortable with.
It all, eventually, comes down to how marriage is viewed — what is its purpose. Like Caitlin Flanagan recently wrote in Time, if we view marriage as something that is designed to personally fulfill us continually, then we may as well sing its requiem as an institution, because lifetime monogamy, with all of the ups and downs that this entails, is not a formula for continual personal fulfillment. It is a journey of ups and downs, as the traditional marriage vows indicate — you are to give yourself to someone and *stay* with them in sickness and in health, richer or poorer, for better or for worse, and so on — the exact opposite of the modern view of marriage, which is “I give myself to you for as long as I feel like, and for as long as it makes me feel good, and when we hit a bad patch, I’m out of here!”. Again, the reason is that the purpose of marriage in people’s lives has shifted from being an institution that defines and molds you across the ups and downs of a lifetime to a certification for a long term relationship that lasts as long as both parties find it personally fulfilling.
As long as we have the latter definition of marriage, divorce rates will be high, because by definition, all marriages will go through bad periods. It was never suggested otherwise about marriage as the traditional vows attest. But people don’t want that — they want to be able to walk when they want and just because they’re bored or fed up and want something new. Those feelings are very human and understandable, but marriage cannot be sustained as an institution (without intolerably high divorce rates as we have today) when it permits people to terminate marriages easily for those reasons.
The other, practical, issue is that, not only does the law permit people to terminate marriage for frivolous reasons, but, as you point out, it incents women to do so due to the outrageous custody and support regime that is current family law. If women were not guaranteed to get full custody in the overwhelming majority of cases, there would be far fewer divorces, as a practical matter, even if the no fault regime remained intact. So one way to address some of the problems is to push for the normatization of shared custody. Even that will be a fight, as women’s groups like NOW are predictably aligned against shared custody — which is understandable because a move toward shared custody would be better for kids, but would be a substantial and tangible loss of power for women.
2 miles // Jul 21, 2009 at 7:34 am
If the law was like Sweeden’s apparently is (hat tip Roissy), and joint custody was automatically assumed with no child support, women would be initiating divorce much much less.
There is no downside to a divorce in America for the female.
3 Gaspard Mathieu // Jul 21, 2009 at 8:33 am
Abolish marriage: that will fix the divorce problem.
Why isn’t that obvious to everybody???
4 Lukobe // Jul 21, 2009 at 9:05 am
Some reform of no-fault divorce is probably in order, but I also don’t think we want to go back to the time where it was only possible in cases of adultery or outright abuse, and people would have to go through elaborate legal fictions to dissolve a loveless, childless marriage. Or move to Nevada temporarily.
5 whiskey // Jul 21, 2009 at 2:43 pm
Marriage is in effect being abolished. Single motherhood is the new norm, as increasing rates of it throughout all but the wealthy but not uber-wealthy White populations show. It will take it’s time, but it will get there.
It’s like the tide, there’s no turning it back, women have demographic strength, ever so slightly, and can with a 51% majority, have their own way on this. You can’t ever reform marriage, EVER because women will block it at every turn.
Besides which, single motherhood allows women even more explorations. Women would happily sacrifice the welfare of their kids to explore sexual/romantic liaisons and happiness. This is true of almost all women. Ugly but true.
Therefore, we can only adjust to the new model. Most men will lose out to women unless they thug it up, so thug it up they will. Violence, in the “meaningless” way (it is in fact filled with meaning, a sexual display meant to show dominance and aggression and suitability for mating) will be commonplace, and all society can do is moderate it (a beating instead of a shooting). Since women do in fact respond to displays of dominance like that.
Our best hope is for a “modified West Africa” norm. Men don’t do much, except mooch off women, indulge in substances, act out violent displays, try to impregnate as many women as possible, invest nothing in women and kids (who are likely a rivals anyway), and women get exactly what they in fact want. Girls become sexually active at ages 14-16, boys quickly learn the route to love/sex/affection is through violent dominance, and we devolve into that Matriarchy with it’s attendant violence and poverty. The only thing we can do is mange the descent to be as slow as possible.
6 Lukobe // Jul 21, 2009 at 3:09 pm
Talk about pessimism!
7 miles // Jul 21, 2009 at 3:57 pm
Really Whiskey, you can be ridiculous.
If SWEEDEN can get rid of child support and have an assumption of joint custody, so can we.
Frankly Whiskey, since the Jesus freaks are doing most of the breeding amongst whites, when Gen X and Y get past breeding age (20 more years) and dont care much about feminism anymore, changing those laws will be pretty easy demographically at that time. I guarantee you hispanics and asians would back it (they have good common sense).
You live in LA Whiskey, that place is warped and is unique internationally. The vapidness of the entertainment culture, a place where pretty-extremely narcissitic girls from all over the fruited plain throw away their twenties and are “hard” in the thirties, and no doubt has a well-sub-replacement birthrate, may not be what it is now 30 years from now (when the Chinese and Indians will be watching their own cultural products and movies). Hollywood will be going down at some point, and military contracts will be lessening, not increasing (China isn’t going to lend us money to buy guns forever), and Silicon Valley wont what it is now by that time either.
The baby boomers started a slide, aided and abetted by badly-written law, and its had a bad effect, but it can be turned around. In a way, the birth dearth just ensures cheaper housing for the next generation (not as many buyers) if we have some sensible immigration reform.
8 novaseeker // Jul 21, 2009 at 5:18 pm
I’m not so sanguine about that, miles. Sweden does not suffer from the anglosphere tradition of chivalry.
The main issue is that damned chivalry. Chivalry undermines any effort to reform laws relating to male/female interaction in any way that is not favorable to women. It is not, as Whiskey suggests, about the women’s vote, only, it is also about chivalrous men. When you add together women and chivalrous men, there is no way to reform jack.
I really think that the rising generations of hispanic and asian women in the US will back the current regime — there is no incentive for them not to benefit from the chivalrous tradition that plagues the anglosphere, really.
So while I agree that Whiskey tends to be too categorical in his futurism, sadly I do think he is generally correct about where the trend lines look to be leading. Of course things could interrupt those trends, but … I dunno.
9 Niko // Jul 21, 2009 at 8:56 pm
Whiskey is just ahead of a curve that most people are unwilling to or can’t admit.
The trend began with the inception of Liberalism and like a glacier it is making its inroads into all spheres of life.
10 Lukobe // Jul 21, 2009 at 9:37 pm
Things were so much better in the 1830s, weren’t they, Niko?
11 Justin // Jul 21, 2009 at 10:44 pm
People without children should be allowed no-fault divorce, but families with children should not.
Or, just write the terms in your own marriage contract. Private marriage contracts are the only way we are going to turn this mess around.
12 Lukobe // Jul 22, 2009 at 10:44 am
Seems fair, Justin.
As for private marriage contracts, that does appeal to the libertarian in me, though I think there would have to be some guidelines in place. Perhaps nothing too much more than applies to standard contracts, just to make sure none of it is happening under duress, etc. And I am not sure it would make sense for these contracts to be signed “for consideration of ten dollars in hand paid,” either..
13 Welmer // Jul 22, 2009 at 12:15 pm
To eradicate the practice of Yogini (temple prostitution), and child marriage cum prostitution which still exist in the villages, ability to voice to be heard in court incase injustice done them.
The marriage of Jogini [Yogini] is a formality. It does not matter whom she is married to. It is a passage allow her to be used by anyone for sexual enjoyment.
Can you explain this?
I’ll bet you’re not really Indian — you were probably raised in America.
14 Lukobe // Jul 22, 2009 at 12:54 pm
Nothing wrong with yoga-as-calisthenics. You might try it sometime. You can always choose to ignore the “spiritual” aspect.
15 Lukobe // Jul 22, 2009 at 12:55 pm
By the way, “Female Pick-Up Artist”.. what exactly is that?
16 Welmer // Jul 22, 2009 at 2:30 pm
From one single district of Mayur Bhanj, two thousand Adivasi young girls have been sold and made prostitutes whereas in Nizamabad district there are ten thousand Adivasi girls who have become Yogini, i.e. religious prostitutes in Hindu temples.
Well, I’ll take your word for it that certain sectors of Indian society now all do yoga in front of the TV, but you ought to admit that the term “Yogini” does also mean temple prostitute (maybe you didn’t know that before, but you do now).
Afrocentric? As far as I can tell, that is NOT Runoko Rashidi’s site, if that’s what you’re thinking of. How about the “Stockholm Challenge” link? And do you deny that Adivasis and others are still exploited by the practice of Yogini today? I mean, come on… These people can’t all be making this up.
Anyway, thanks for the invitation. I would like to visit India. Maybe if I go back to China I will take a trip to Kashmir (the rest of India seems too hot for me).
However, I wonder, how can you host me in India when you are writing from Orlando?
17 Gunlingergregi // Jul 22, 2009 at 3:21 pm
This looks like it is about to kick off world war iii
18 Gunlingergregi // Jul 22, 2009 at 3:22 pm
Might as well take her up on the offer though to go see the yogini maybe it will be free.
19 Welmer // Jul 22, 2009 at 3:33 pm
Ah, I see. My family has an ancestral fish and chips shop in Ireland, but I’m still American.
It was a poorly worded post. What I should have written was: men who would practice yoga with Yoginis (i.e. working out of a Yogini temple) would be considered scum, because they would be practicing with prostitutes, and would most likely be prostitutes themselves.
Now, now. Let’s be polite here. If you really want to correct and inform me and my readers, facts and examples are more compelling than fits of indignation.
Here’s an example of something you could have posted:
How yoga’s popularity in the West is changing the way Indians approach a practice created in their country thousands of years ago.
It shows that the kind of yoga traditionally practiced in yoga is being supplanted by the Western form, because ordinary Indians didn’t practice it much until very recently, and even now it’s mainly the upper classes.
20 Welmer // Jul 22, 2009 at 3:52 pm
Now I’ll take you up on your offer for free room and board in India.
21 Lukobe // Jul 22, 2009 at 5:09 pm
“We have ancestral land there. Ever heard of that? Probably not.”
What’s that mean?
“Yoga is a default culture of India.”
Do Indian Muslims practice yoga?
22 Welmer // Jul 22, 2009 at 5:45 pm
Do I have to state the obvious, IFPUA?
A female pickup artist is known as a “prostitute”. It has never been otherwise. That you practice yoga and bedeck your personal space with phalluses, therefore, is little surprise.
23 Welmer // Jul 22, 2009 at 7:16 pm
So, as Lukobe already asked, what is a female PUA?
Do you have sex with random men just for the thrill of it?
Or is it something that only a tantric, Indian American yoga practitioner can understand?
Actually, we’ve always had words for these women. Those who are professionals are just that, and everyone understands. Those who are not are arguably far worse, considering the destruction they visit on families.
24 Lukobe // Jul 22, 2009 at 10:57 pm
“typical ignorant American”? Let’s not start insulting nationalities here..
25 Welmer // Jul 23, 2009 at 3:37 am
She’s worn out her welcome, Lukobe. Just a troll.
26 as // Jul 23, 2009 at 8:22 pm
Adivasi means aborigine, i.e. “first people.” They aren’t Hindu. They have their own aboriginal religions.
As far as aboriginal and untouchable (dalit) prostitution go, my understanding is that they are very very poor and they breed A LOT. Members of their communities (other aborigines and untouchables) or perhaps people outside their communities sell them into prostitution. And that’s how they make their living.
Yoga, again my understanding of it, has been that it has traditionally been a man’s discipline.
27 as // Jul 23, 2009 at 8:30 pm
As far as divorce goes, my story:
My parents had a terrible marriage, and I really think it was my dad’s fault. He simply didn’t like my mother all that much and wasn’t very nice to her. But he was good to her and my brother and me in other ways, a very good steady provider.
Anyway, my mother didn’t like her marriage and made my life and to a lesser extent my brother’s life absolutely miserable. When I was a kid, all she’d talk about was her problems with my dad. She used to run up huge phone calling her mother and sister and talk to them about her problems. She was utterly and completely self absorbed and always in a foul temper. She’d work herself up into a rage over things my father had said and take her anger out on me, that sort of thing. Honestly, even though I think she had reason to be angry at my father, I hated HER and not my father.
Anyway, my mother would periodically scream and cry and threaten divorce. She’s make a big show about packing suitcases. When we visited my grandparents, she’s scream and cry about not going back to my dad.
I don’t think she even once thought about her children’s happiness. In fact, one day she told me, I just thought about how awful it, the way your dad and I fight sometimes.
Anyway, they didn’t divorce, and I’m so glad they didn’t. After I’d gone away to college, they somehow came to some sort of understanding, and miracle or miracles now have a marriage which isn’t half bad.
I feel kind of angry wondering why they didn’t do that while I was kid, but whatever.
Leave a Comment