Divorce Harms Children
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Divorce Harms Children
Table of Contents: Further Readings
From "The Case Against Divorce," Washington Monthly, January/February 1997. Reprinted with permission from the Washington Monthly. Copyright by The Washington Monthly Company, 1611 Connecticut Ave. NW, Washington, DC 20009, (202) 462-0128.
In the following viewpoint, Steven Waldman maintains that many children are severely harmed when their parents divorce. He contends that divorce negatively affects how children perform in school and how well they will do as adults in the workplace and in relationships. Waldman advocates making divorce more difficult for couples with children to obtain and bringing back the concept that divorce is shameful and undesirable. Waldman is a contributing editor for the Washington Monthly, a journal of social and political commentary.
As you read, consider the following questions:
1. What proportion of marriages end in divorce, according to the author?
2. What are the three reasons given by the author for why there is little debate about divorce?
3. Who does Waldman believe should be praised for getting divorced?
When politicians debate the causes of the family breakup in the inner city, they never mention this statistical couplet: While the rate of out-of-wedlock births nearly doubled in the 1980s, the rate of divorce nearly doubled in the 1970s. I can't prove that the liberalization of divorce laws caused the surge of illegitimacy among the poor, but clearly it was the middle class that led the assault on the "sanctity" of marriage.
It's hard to think of a social phenomenon more harmful, and less discussed, than divorce. More than half of marriages end in divorce, and a mountain of psychological research shows that divorce injures women especially financially and children psychologically. Many argue that divorce cannot be as bad for kids as living in a home with parents who hate each other, but Bill Galston of the Progressive Policy Institute recently...
Table of Contents: Further Readings
From "The Case Against Divorce," Washington Monthly, January/February 1997. Reprinted with permission from the Washington Monthly. Copyright by The Washington Monthly Company, 1611 Connecticut Ave. NW, Washington, DC 20009, (202) 462-0128.
In the following viewpoint, Steven Waldman maintains that many children are severely harmed when their parents divorce. He contends that divorce negatively affects how children perform in school and how well they will do as adults in the workplace and in relationships. Waldman advocates making divorce more difficult for couples with children to obtain and bringing back the concept that divorce is shameful and undesirable. Waldman is a contributing editor for the Washington Monthly, a journal of social and political commentary.
As you read, consider the following questions:
1. What proportion of marriages end in divorce, according to the author?
2. What are the three reasons given by the author for why there is little debate about divorce?
3. Who does Waldman believe should be praised for getting divorced?
When politicians debate the causes of the family breakup in the inner city, they never mention this statistical couplet: While the rate of out-of-wedlock births nearly doubled in the 1980s, the rate of divorce nearly doubled in the 1970s. I can't prove that the liberalization of divorce laws caused the surge of illegitimacy among the poor, but clearly it was the middle class that led the assault on the "sanctity" of marriage.
It's hard to think of a social phenomenon more harmful, and less discussed, than divorce. More than half of marriages end in divorce, and a mountain of psychological research shows that divorce injures women especially financially and children psychologically. Many argue that divorce cannot be as bad for kids as living in a home with parents who hate each other, but Bill Galston of the Progressive Policy Institute recently...