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As always the recommendation is the same: to alleviate children's tension and conflict; that mediation is better than adversarial battles; that children should never be made to feel their fault. We will all accomplish this in an ideal world as we know it to be logically real, even though we can't always emotionally carry it through.
This new study of a mere 500 young people is a highly problematic one. I'm not trying to diminish the damage caused to children by a bad divorce, but what do we compare it to? How much emotional damage is caused by a poor marriage? Is it better for kids to remain together in silent animosity or continuing rows?
One component of it may be mental trauma; another may shift in material circumstances. Many of the misconceptions are dispelled by numerous other studies, including that divorce impacts boys more than girls, since they are more likely to become delinquent. Currently, big boys are simply more delinquent in the population than girls. It does not tell us much about calculating the transition of children from intact families against those of separated couples, while excluding any other variable.
But the right, as the only true family structure, the perfect economic unit, continues to drive this agenda for marriage. Although 42 percent of marriages end in divorce, it will certainly be more beneficial to less stigmatization of children whose parents are no longer together than the inference that in the soft play area they would all be on crack.
No one doubts that the purpose is an amicable separation, but this is not always achievable. For children, conflict is clearly awful, which is why some are more affected by divorce than the death of a parent.
The tragic fact of life is divorce. Adults can indeed be greedy, but without them living with each other a child can still have two parents who love them. No one is helped by piling on shame, and the conservative fetishization of marriage, combined with a punitive approach to single parents, is not at all about caring for children. It would not, if it were, fail to trap women and children in poverty. There would be no need to bribe individuals into it through the tax system if marriage is so inherently desirable-a nanny state move if I ever saw one.