[HN Gopher] Parents of daughters are more likely to divorce than...
___________________________________________________________________
Parents of daughters are more likely to divorce than those with
sons
Author : jkuria
Score : 170 points
Date : 2021-02-06 16:10 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.economist.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.economist.com)
| username90 wrote:
| > In the Netherlands, by the time their first-born is 18, 20.12%
| of couples will have divorced if that child is a son, compared
| with 20.48% if she is a daughter
|
| Ok, so 0.36% of couples divorce over having a girl, and it only
| happens when the girl reaches puberty. This could just be the
| cases where the dad sexually assaults the girl and the mom finds
| out and divorces him, the numbers are small enough for me to
| believe that is possible at least.
| vmception wrote:
| What? Where did that come from aside from your own personal
| experience!?
|
| Your insight was so good and the conclusion was so radical!
|
| Why wasn't your conclusion: Or the numbers are small enough
| that its a rounding error of which no conclusion can be
| derived.
| username90 wrote:
| I'm not sure why you react so strongly, do you have any
| reason at all?
|
| A couple of percent of girls gets sexually harassed by their
| biological dads, that is more than enough to believably
| explain the discrepancy in divorce. The fact that it only
| happens when the girls reaches puberty reinforces my
| interpretation. The researchers in this study didn't research
| why the difference exists, so my interpretation is as good as
| theirs.
| vmception wrote:
| > I'm not sure why you react so strongly, do you have any
| reason at all?
|
| Because your comment and others are grasping at demonizing
| one thing in a fairly sexually prejudiced ways, prejudiced
| because the assumptions don't factor in any
| counterbalancing force, such as boys being sexually
| harassed by either parent or outside the family unit. Or
| creating a laser focus so quickly to there being a
| perpetrator and victim of sex assault at all!
|
| Plenty of other strife, such as with the boys, is also more
| than enough to counteract the discrepancy in divorce here.
|
| The reaction is about how this topic reflects a lot more
| about you, and the additional negative affects on society
| that are centered around pre-judicial judgement on males,
| and a society that ignores where males are victims.
|
| In this thread, and this current point in time, I
| completely understand how this might seem like a completely
| left field reaction to you and many people. But it
| shouldn't be and I can do my part by pointing that out.
|
| Regardless, it is shocking to me that people would
| gravitate toward "aha this must be what happened" out of
| the _universe_ of possibilities in what could just as
| easily be a rounding error.
|
| I can simultaneously acknowledge that maybe during the time
| of this study, that population did do exactly what you
| imagine. Its just has to factor in so much more for that to
| even be the first thing one thinks about.
| username90 wrote:
| The increase in divorces as girls reaches the age of 13
| is extremely noticeable, that isn't a rounding error:
|
| https://www.economist.com/img/b/300/346/90/sites/default/
| fil...
|
| If it was just dads refusing to understand girls etc
| you'd see at least some difference before then.
|
| And since the reported incidence of sexual abuse by
| biological dads is larger than the total increase in
| divorces over the entire period I'd argue that is likely
| the main culprit, and that daughters aren't really a
| problem with non abusive dads.
| vmception wrote:
| that is more articulate,
|
| the 0.36% difference was just in the netherlands and not
| the rest of the population polled?
| TheRealPomax wrote:
| No really, no. Note that the text says "first born", not "only
| child". That 0.36 percentage point difference is covering so
| many combinations it's effectively meaningless, and any opining
| about the "why" of what is essentially an error value is not
| just equally meaningless, but actively damaging, because it
| convinces you that there is something that needs explaining and
| can be taught to others, lending credence and validity to an
| incredible, invalid line of reasoning.
| username90 wrote:
| A couple of percent of girls gets sexually harassed by their
| biological dads, that is more than enough to believably
| explain the discrepancy in divorce. The fact that it only
| happens when the girls reaches puberty reinforces my
| interpretation. The researchers in this study didn't research
| why the difference exists, so my interpretation is as good as
| theirs.
| croissants wrote:
| This hypothesis ignores the fact that "when the girl reaches
| puberty", the excess divorce rate (which looks to just be "% of
| couples divorced if child is daughter - % of couples divorced
| if child is son") is a lot higher:
|
| > [I]n the five years when the first-born is between the ages
| of 13 and 18, that increase goes up to 5%. And it peaks, at 9%,
| when the child is 15. In America, for which the data the
| researchers collected were sparser than those in the
| Netherlands, the numbers are roughly double this.
|
| A gap of 5-15% of all couples is, I _hope_ way too much to be
| explained by fathers who abuse their daughters.
| username90 wrote:
| You misinterpreted the data, that is 5% more divorces during
| those years, not that 5% of couples got divorced over it. The
| total increase in divorces over the entire childhood is 0.36%
| of all couples.
| croissants wrote:
| You're right, I misunderstood the statistic. It's saying
| that the fraction of couples with a first-born daughter who
| have divorced when she's 15 is 9% higher than the fraction
| of couples with a first-born son who have divorced when
| he's 15. Bleh, comparing rates is unpleasant business.
| drjasonharrison wrote:
| Is there a free way to access the article? What are the
| citations?
| guerrilla wrote:
| The title here on HN isn't right. There's no indication that
| daughters provoke this in the title or article itself, only that
| having daughters does, which is not the same. The actual cause is
| barely touched.
| klyrs wrote:
| > Earlier research has also shown that one of the most common
| things parents fight over is how much they should control their
| teenagers' personal choices, such as how they dress, whom they
| date and where they work.
|
| Sounds kinda like sexism is the wedge driven between the father,
| and his wife and daughter. One effective way to reduce bigotry is
| through compassionate exposure: knowing, and sympathizing with a
| member of a population different from yourself.
|
| > In light of all this, it is intriguing to note that Dr Kabatek
| and Dr Ribar found one type of couple who seem immune to the
| daughter effect: those in which the father grew up with a sister.
|
| I have friction with my stepchild. He doesn't want me to be a
| part of his life. Sometimes, I wish that he was older and we
| could try MDMA therapy to build a compassionate bond... he's not
| even in elementary school yet; that's a great way to get your
| child taken away. But I wonder if one-sided interpersonal
| problems like this can be addressed by giving the adult MDMA and
| the child a placebo...
| kareemm wrote:
| > Sounds kinda like sexism is the wedge driven between the
| father, and his wife and daughter.
|
| That's a bit of a stretch. N of 1 but I (male) can easily see
| myself being more open about my daughters' personal choices
| than my wife. (Yes I read the article and saw the point about
| strife between fathers and daughters. If I had to guess my
| sense is that a dad's intent is not to be sexist, but to keep
| their daughters safe. Whether that's an effective approach is
| another question.)
| klyrs wrote:
| > If I had to guess my sense is that a dad's intent is not to
| be sexist, but to keep their daughters safe.
|
| It can be both. Infantilizing, being overprotective, on the
| basis of gender is an expression of sexism. I'm sure that
| it's well intentioned, but if one only examines their
| intentions and not impact, then they're not actually reducing
| harm
| da_big_ghey wrote:
| The world is more dangerous in many ways for women. Is a
| father seeking to therefore protect a daughter differently
| than a son sexist? There are certainly things that a father
| would do only with a son for the same reasons.
| ben_w wrote:
| "It can be" is not the same as "it always is". Devil is
| in the details. Infantilising someone or putting someone
| on a pedestal, rather than communicating and
| understanding their lived experiences, is how I currently
| distinguish sexism from usefully accounting for real
| differences.
|
| (I can't judge my own success in this regard, but it's
| where I'm at right now).
| jacquesm wrote:
| > Sometimes, I wish that he was older and we could try MDMA
| therapy to build a compassionate bond... he's not even in
| elementary school yet; that's a great way to get your child
| taken away. But I wonder if one-sided interpersonal problems
| like this can be addressed by giving the adult MDMA and the
| child a placebo...
|
| And which side do you think those one-sided interpersonal
| problems are on?
|
| FWIW if you were my step parent and you seriously considered
| this to be a potential solution I wouldn't want you to be part
| of my life either. Maybe approach this from the other
| viewpoint: your stepchild does not want you in their life
| because they want someone else in their life instead. It never
| was about you in the first place.
| tmpz22 wrote:
| Pretty sure a cornerstone of gender studies is the idea that
| patriarchy is self-perpetuating - that is women learn and
| suffer from norms which they then push on other women. Is it
| not just as likely a wife was taught "the way women should
| dress and act to be "happy"" and tries to force it on her
| daughter despite opposition from the father?
| underwater wrote:
| You've described this as a one sided issue, which makes it
| sound like you see your worldview as correct and are seeking a
| way to get the child to adjust his viewpoint.
|
| Some empathy, rather than drugging the child, might help. Try
| and understand where he is coming from and be honest with
| yourself about whether there are things that you are doing that
| could be contributing to a rift.
| fn-mote wrote:
| > I have friction with my stepchild. He doesn't want me to be a
| part of his life. [...] he's not even in elementary school yet
|
| Just be an adult, keep working at the relationship. Spend time
| being there, available for the play that children enjoy. Be
| open, let the child lead the stories and tell you things. If
| there is a preschool, visit and volunteer. It can be easier if
| the other parent is not there while you play.
|
| > I wonder if one-sided interpersonal problems like this can be
| addressed by giving the adult MDMA and the child a placebo...
|
| Had to laugh at this, you know what you are doing, it will work
| out.
| antiterra wrote:
| If he's a four-year old or younger, I'd just give it time.
| Trying to do anything even minutely like MDMA therapy would be
| massive overkill. Four-year-olds are narcissists just getting
| used to cooperative play with other kids.
|
| Show that you take your responsibility as a step parent as a
| duty, even if he says he hates you (the best reaction to that
| is to unemotionally and calmly make it clear your parental role
| is unconditional, e.g. 'ok, but i'm still your stepdad and i
| love you.') Or: 'ok, you feel how you feel but it's still my
| job to help you brush your teeth.'
|
| Give him low pressure opportunities to do things with you,
| don't force anything that isn't necessary.
|
| Don't expect too much right now, you are likely connected to
| some trauma in his life, and no four year old likes to be
| forced to do anything.
|
| If he's younger than four, it all applies doubly.
| klyrs wrote:
| Stepmom, actually. Just because I contemplate a thing doesn't
| mean I'm seriously interested in attempting it. I'm a problem
| solver, and out-of-the-box thinking requires contemplation of
| bad ideas. And yeah, your advice is in line with my actual
| approach to the situation. But sometimes I worry that I don't
| have enough compassion for him, which planted the seed of
| _me_ needing the MDMA treatment. Sometimes bad ideas just
| need some rework to get a genuine out-of-the-box solution.
| meowster wrote:
| He _currently_ doesn 't want (you) to be a part of his life
|
| Considering he's not even in elementary school yet, I wouldn't
| worry too much about it right now. I'm not a parent, but it
| seems to me like 4-5 year olds or younger aren't the most
| rational or emotionally-developed people.
|
| Just be a good person/parent and I imagine he'll warm up to you
| as he gets older.
| orange_tee wrote:
| In reality daughters are getting all these ideas about how to
| behave from their friends and from contemporary popular
| culture.
|
| So actually what is happening is a struggle between parental
| advice, and outsider influence.
|
| Now I find it interesting how you immediately make the jump and
| accuse the father (and it's also interesting that you single
| out the father) to be the bad guy. Dare I say outsiders don't
| give a shit about the daughter and their influence over her is
| very likely much more negative?
| klyrs wrote:
| It isn't a jump. It's a deduction made from the second
| paragraph: dads primed to empathize with their daughters seem
| to be immune to this. I'd conjecture that dads without
| sisters, who had close (non-romantic) friendships with girls
| in their teens, are also less inclined to this friction.
| vmception wrote:
| any link to full article or paper?
|
| paywalled and on mobile
| irrational wrote:
| Anecdotal, but I have three sons and four daughters. In my
| experience boys are harder when they are younger (wild, causing
| mayhem and physical destruction in their wake, solving problems
| using fighting, etc.) but in their teenage years prefer to hang
| out quietly in their rooms. Girls on the other hand tend to be
| calmer in their younger years, but then in their teenage years
| become argumentative, moody, causing lots of emotional and
| psychological strife. It takes until they are in their early 20s
| for things to calm down. Though by then the damage has already
| been done. In an ideal world I'd like to raise girls when they
| are young and boys when they are older.
| bitcharmer wrote:
| I have two sons and two daughters. What you described is
| exactly my experience.
| beckman466 wrote:
| > Though by then the damage has already been done.
|
| Wow that sounds severe, what damage was done?
| throwawayboise wrote:
| I presumed he was referring to damage to the parents'
| relationship dealing with the female teenage drama.
| Brian_K_White wrote:
| Damage to all relationships involved.
| serhatozgel wrote:
| Do you think if this a difference between the nature of genders
| or a difference emerging due to how parents and/or society
| treats boys and girls differently?
| mpfundstein wrote:
| its brain structure, hormones, inherited traits, etc.
| menzoic wrote:
| Brain structure is also shaped by environment
| mpfundstein wrote:
| of course. but even if you fix environment, girls will
| usually interact and experience the world different than
| boys which obviously will cause their brains to form
| differently. even though environment is same.
|
| lots of studies about that. especially twin studies with
| m/f twins.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > lots of studies about that. especially twin studies
| with m/f twins.
|
| Twin studies with m/f twins _outside of an environment
| shaped by external imposition of traditional (or
| otherwise differentiated) gender roles and gender-based
| expectations and treatments_?
|
| If so, how was that acheived?
|
| If not, you haven't supported the conclusion of
| differences even if you fix environmental differences.
| bcrosby95 wrote:
| I see this a lot with my older brother. They had 3 boys.
| Used to call the middle one their "girl" because of his
| behaviors (behind his back).
|
| When I visited with our twin 3 year olds, when the boy
| did certain behaviors, he would say "such a boy!". When
| the girl did the same thing, no comments.
|
| One of the interesting things I noticed so far raising
| our oldest (a girl, 6yo now) is that parents tend to self
| select based upon gender. Most parents with boys wouldn't
| make playdates with parents with girls.
|
| Some of the parents of girls are completely ridiculous!
| Something like half of them wouldn't even let them play
| in the dirt. We've always been pretty rough and tumble
| with ours though.
| DoreenMichele wrote:
| Yeah, that minor little detail of all of society
| generally treating boys and girls differently is slightly
| hard to really escape.
| psyc wrote:
| Right. I can't imagine what "fixed environment" could
| even possibly be construed to mean. The conscious
| pressures are unavoidably pervasive, let alone the
| unconscious ones. Doesn't much matter how the parents
| parent. Try counting how many times in fictional media
| women are written to respond to every conflict by
| collapsing in a puddle of tears, vs men.
| [deleted]
| astura wrote:
| Exactly the opposite for my family.
| [deleted]
| benjohnson wrote:
| Any reason why? If you can tell us, it may be illuminating!
| Balgair wrote:
| Seven is a fair amount! Any tips that those of us with two may
| have missed?
| jacquesm wrote:
| I think that in this case tip flow should be a two way
| street.
| nirav72 wrote:
| I have one son and one daughter. This has been my experience as
| well. Both of them are teenagers now. Dealing with my son is a
| lot easier now compared to my daughter. Just a few years ago,
| it was the opposite.
| rubiquity wrote:
| Mom? Dad? Is that you?
|
| Joking aside, I'm the youngest in a family of 3 boys and 4
| girls and your comment lines up with my upbringing. Being the
| youngest I got to see the teenager year insanity of my sisters
| all unfold. Another anecdote is that when one of my brothers
| did get in trouble it was always something significantly worse
| than my sisters.
| stevetodd wrote:
| Funny, I'm also the youngest of 3 boys and 4 girls.
| starkd wrote:
| Not to be snide, but was wondering if the number of bathrooms
| available in a family might matter. Growing up with sisters,
| that was a frequent source of tension.
| sethammons wrote:
| We have more bathrooms than people. It has helped but
| teenaged girls are .... hard.
| imbnwa wrote:
| Most boys learn to mask their emotional state once the teenage
| years roll around owing to various vectors of messaging. I fear
| too many people are relieved by the ease of interface this
| brings about, but it can and usually is very deceptive. The
| consequent lack of communication just makes a void that gets
| filled with all sorts of terrible information about being "CHAD
| OR NOT" amongst other garbage that has to be unlearned.
| brobdingnagians wrote:
| Our culture doesn't have a lot of coming of age rituals or
| expectations. Lack of purpose and responsibility does not do
| good things to people or societies. Ambiguity in self
| identity can lead to emotional and psychological isolation,
| and things like loneliness epidemics. I totally agree with
| the need for communication, expectations/helping set goals,
| and love is spelled T.I.M.E.
| jcims wrote:
| Suicide statistics would seem to correlate:
|
| (edit: changed link, didn't realize how spammy statista.com
| is)
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suicide_in_the_United_States
| throwaway2245 wrote:
| The gender gap in the USA/Western Europe appears to be a
| lot bigger than it is in the rest of the world.
|
| A ratio of 3.4 in the US (77% male) as opposed to 1.7
| globally (63% male).
| [deleted]
| kortilla wrote:
| Yep, it starts really early in grade school with the
| relentless teasing boys receive for crying. You learn to
| bottle that shit up by 4th grade to make it as a "big kid".
| [deleted]
| gweinberg wrote:
| Be careful what you wish for.
| ineedasername wrote:
| With 7 kids, you're close to crossing over from "anecdotal"
| into "dataset" territory.
| DoreenMichele wrote:
| A single data set for a single family which may not
| generalize.
|
| I have two sons. One was a handful when he hit puberty and
| one was not. I sat both of them and a friend of theirs down
| one day to talk to the one who was a handful and talked to
| him about the impact of hormones on his mood. The punchline
| for that conversation was "Your problem is called
| _testosterone_ , not _My Bitch Mother._ "
|
| All three boys laughed and all three boys were easier to cope
| with afterwards.
| moocowtruck wrote:
| i have 6, all girls!
| dnautics wrote:
| Funny, but these data aren't exactly independent data.
| jeromegv wrote:
| This was obviously a joke.
| bkirkby wrote:
| A very funny one at that.
| tobmlt wrote:
| Anecdotal, but I got a chuckle out of it.
| ericol wrote:
| dude I snorted my coffee.
| mrcartmenez wrote:
| > parents of teenage daughters argue more about parenting than do
| the parents of sons
|
| From my own experience. When my daughter hit 12 it was a fucking
| nightmare. The hormones hit girls hard and they can become
| incredibly difficult. That said, now she's 13 things are much
| easier and look to be getting easier by the week. Although my
| wife and I both have to be very understanding and on the same
| team to deal with difficult behaviour -- we have a lot of
| strategy meetings.
|
| Lacking empathy, and wanting independence without responsibility
| are part of being a teenager. But 12-year old girls can sometimes
| be super charged griefers.
|
| On the flip side, teenagers are actually awesome to hang out with
| and total joys full of creativity and fun -- if you work through
| the refusal to clean their room, general lack of hygiene and the
| drama.
| acrump wrote:
| "'Uproar' offers a distressing but effective solution to the
| sexual problems that arise between fathers and teen-age daughters
| in certain households. Often they can only live in the same house
| together if they are angry at each other, and the slamming doors
| emphasize for each of them the fact that they have separate
| bedrooms."
|
| http://www.ericberne.com/games-people-play/uproar/
| dan-robertson wrote:
| Somehow this guy manages to mention his own name 6 times before
| getting to the start of the article so he must be important.
| acrump wrote:
| Well, his estate does
| trianglem wrote:
| This is disgusting and a terrible state for the status quo to
| be in. I much prefer an overbearing patriarchal normal over
| this cancerous middle ground.
| selimthegrim wrote:
| Games People Play was big about 50 years ago
| underwater wrote:
| Sounds like it should have been called _Turning complex
| issues into Strawmen arguments_.
| angry_octet wrote:
| Eww.
| slovette wrote:
| What in the hell are you talking about?
|
| How did you get to a place for this comment from the parent
| article and the conversations here?
|
| This seems like a deranged place to go...
| acrump wrote:
| I guess, when I read the article I was reminded of this
| 'Game' from Eric Berne's book (https://www.goodreads.com/book
| /show/49176.Games_People_Play). Could be a reason why (more
| divorce) if this tension / game was to highlight problems in
| the relationship.
| LatteLazy wrote:
| For all the bad press, I've found teenage boys easy to deal with.
| They get loud or break things but only by accident, they rarely
| mean any harm and are rapidly ready to apologise and mean it when
| they do. Put the breakables away, stick to a few simple rules,
| interact with them and ignore tactically and they'll be happy,
| productive and social.
|
| Some rough housing helps a lot when they're younger too. 10
| minutes of wrestling will buy you an hour of helping clean up or
| playing nicely with others.
| orange_tee wrote:
| The other findings are telling: Fathers who had sisters growing
| up, were less likely to face divorce. Families with immigrant
| background were more likely to face divorce.
| DangitBobby wrote:
| What does it tell you? That it's actually the fathers causing
| strife because they do not treat their daughters correctly? Or
| that fathers who understand their daughters behavior are not as
| negatively emotionally affected by it?
| orange_tee wrote:
| It could also be that fathers who had no sisters were more
| emotionally attached to their daughters, whereas fathers who
| grew up with sisters has less emotional attachment to their
| daughters and consequently were less affected by their
| horrible teenage years.
| itronitron wrote:
| There is considerably less drama with my three teenagers
| (combined) than I witnessed growing up with my one sister.
| asebold wrote:
| This just seems all sorts of misguided. To the point where it's
| blaming the daughters for parents divorce. Anyways, I tried to
| read the article and got hit with a paywall, so I can't go much
| deeper than the headline.
| croissants wrote:
| The full paper is here:
| https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3043527.
| drfuchs wrote:
| At least this is an improvement over the King Henry VIII
| technique for gaining a male heir (flawed though it was).
| FriedrichN wrote:
| > parents of teenage daughters argue more about parenting than do
| the parents of sons
|
| This to me strikes me as the thing that might be the culprit. I
| can't count the amount of times I've heard men how much they
| would worry if they'd be getting a daughter. It seems as if many
| people think a girl has to be parented differently - probably
| more intensely - compared to a boy who can apparently be left to
| his own devices more often.
|
| I'm speculating here of course.
| freedomben wrote:
| I have two sons, three daughters, and I was one of those who
| said I was terrified of having a daughter and how much I would
| worry.
|
| It has nothing to do with thinking girls have to be parented
| differently and everything to do with knowing that most teenage
| boys and men are pieces of shit when it comes to actually
| loving and caring about her (just like I was in some cases with
| flings and tempromances that were more about excitement than
| deep, long-term love and affection).
|
| I worried (and still worry) about having to watch my daughter
| make terrible choices in men, while being utterly powerless to
| do anything to protect her.
| nullsense wrote:
| If you have a boy then you only have to worry about one boy.
| If you have a girl then you have to worry about all the boys.
| playcache wrote:
| They said their standards for a mate based a lot on their
| father and he he treats the mother. So just be a good role
| model.
| tomjakubowski wrote:
| > most teenage boys and men are pieces of shit when it comes
| to actually loving and caring about her (just like I was in
| some cases with flings and tempromances that were more about
| excitement than deep, long-term love and affection).
|
| Do you worry about your teenage sons acting this way?
| [deleted]
| oblio wrote:
| Presumably, but considering the fact that we're programmed
| to care more about our family than the rest of the world,
| it's unlikely he'll be as worried about the situation he's
| described than the opposite.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| There's also probably some underlying worry caused by the
| fact that women can generally be physically overpowered
| by men.
| wongarsu wrote:
| I think a large part of the thinking (at least subconciously)
| is that if a son gets in a stupid relationship and gets someone
| pregnant, it's not nearly as big of an impact on his life as it
| is to the daughter who got in a stupid relationship and got
| pregnant.
| HowTheStoryEnds wrote:
| I believe that's because of (the scare of) pregnancy and the
| certainty that the baby ends up in the mother's hands wether or
| not there's a willing let alone capable father.
| PrefixKitten wrote:
| weird. I'd only be content with a daughter. A son would worry
| me
| ed25519FUUU wrote:
| Do you have children? They most definitely need to be parented
| differently.
|
| With boys there's a lot of effort into mitigating physical
| damage to themselves or physical and/or emotional damage they
| may cause to others. With daughters, there's less effort with
| physical harm and _much_ more effort into helping their
| emotional well-being.
|
| I would argue that social media and media in general has
| disproportionately affected the minds of our daughters compared
| to our sons.
| croissants wrote:
| The Economist (relatively) recently featured a long article
| about the modern lives of adolescent girls:
| https://archive.is/OGxxk.
| User23 wrote:
| I think people without sons may seriously underestimate the
| ingenuity, energy, and frequency with which boy toddlers
| attempt to kill, maim, or otherwise seriously injure
| themselves.
| testfoobar wrote:
| Ha! I tried to explain this to parents who have only
| daughters. They would offer advice like "you need to give
| them more projects to do or you need to listen more to
| them." They would look on with a judging attitude as my
| sons would tear around playgrounds looking for sticks and
| rocks to arm their fort. Or they would play on the
| "outside" of playground structures. Imagine a 15 foot tall
| covered slide. They would climb on the outside of the slide
| - risking a serious fall.
|
| I've already seen the tables turn. Parents with teenage
| daughters describe things that make me shudder. At least I
| now have the wisdom to not judge the parents.
|
| It seems to me that the worst bullying behaviour that I
| hear in my social circle is perpetuated by teenage girls
| towards other teenage girls.
| cycomanic wrote:
| I think there is a strong selection bias there as well,
| there's significant research showing how girls and boys
| are treated differently when getting into "dangerous"
| situations. It's been my experience as a father of 2
| girls that they also love to climb on the outside of
| playground structures.
|
| However what I see with a lot of the parents of other
| girls (compared to boys) is that they caution the girls a
| lot more and then they say my girls are so self-confident
| and "brave".
|
| That is not to say that there is no difference between
| girls and boys, but you there are also huge variations
| between individuals as well, the way my two daughters are
| in their "wildness" is so different you would not guess
| they are siblings.
| supergirl wrote:
| ye it is pretty f up how girls are treated. everything
| must be pink, all the toys are dolls, wear dresses and
| have long hair which make it harder to play. plus adults
| are much more friendly to girls. it all starts then.
| de_Selby wrote:
| I have a son who is a toddler right now, very well put -
| "ingenuity" made me laugh.
| toast0 wrote:
| Not just themselves, but those around them as well. The
| only defense is that they usually telegraph their
| headbutts, if you keep your eyes on them when they're
| within striking distance.
| da_big_ghey wrote:
| Even moreso with multiple sons close in age. Thinking about
| the trouble my brothers and I caused on our own versus in
| groups versus all together, there seems to be a superlinear
| growth in the amount of trouble a group of boys can cause.
| wongarsu wrote:
| > With daughters, there's less effort with physical harm and
| much more effort into helping their emotional well-being.
|
| Suicide rates for 10-14 year olds are twice as high for boys
| than for girls, and for 15-24 year olds four times as high.
| I'm sure you are describing how parenting is done in general,
| but not spending as much time on the emotional well-being of
| boys doesn't seem to be a good strategy.
|
| 1: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/hestat/suicide/rates_1999_20
| 17...
| ac29 wrote:
| Suicide attempts, however, are far higher in females:
| https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/statistics/suicide.shtml
|
| This is in part because males choose more effective suicide
| methods - they are approximately twice as likely to use
| firearms.
| [deleted]
| bitshiftfaced wrote:
| But couldn't that be because some do it as a cry for
| help?
| throwaway3699 wrote:
| Yeah I suspect this is the reason. It'd be pretty stupid
| to insinuate a whole gender is ineffective at suicide.
| domnomnom wrote:
| The insinuation was a gender was more effective.
| ed25519FUUU wrote:
| I definitely didn't mean to discount the emotional damage
| done to boys by social media and media. Also the damage
| done to them by caging them up in schools while demanding
| absolute obedience and attention in "lord of the flies"
| situations.
| robin21 wrote:
| I'd love to read something that explores why social media
| affects females more than males, and also a first person
| perspective of the social pressures of young females and how
| much wiggle room they actually have to remain socially
| accepted and active whilst avoiding pressures.
|
| I think a lot comes down to body image of females in society.
| Something as simple as the fact that females are expected to
| wear makeup and men do not I think can explain a lot. The
| vast number of activities that surround makeup create an
| unhealthy obsession with vanity. It's the raw amount of time
| spent looking at one's self and comparing against others.
| This then propagates throughout life and results in an
| unwinnable battle against ageing that only leads to
| unhappiness. A typical female social media stream contains a
| huge amount of beauty-related content of which a male's does
| not.
|
| There are just certain interests you have to have to blend
| into social groups that are dramatically different for men
| and women.
|
| Although recently men are starting to become more vain and I
| hear a lot of marketing crap like "men should take more care
| looking after their skin/appearance" - the metrosexual thing
| - which I think is going down a bad path. We need less social
| pressures for young people...but of course there is a huge
| monetary incentive to get men hooked on skin care etc.
| medium_burrito wrote:
| I'll paraphrase something I read a while back. Men have
| physical competition, women have emotional/social
| competition.
|
| Men play sports, fight, kill each other and video games
| imitate life.
|
| Social media is the women's version of video games, refined
| to weapons-grade purity.
| DoreenMichele wrote:
| _I'd love to read something that explores why social media
| affects females more than males, and also a first person
| perspective of the social pressures of young females and
| how much wiggle room they actually have to remain socially
| accepted and active whilst avoiding pressures._
|
| I'm a woman. I didn't bend to social pressure until I
| actually had children. Once you have a child, the amount of
| crap society hangs on women and all the social pressure
| comes at you as a form of blackmail where the subtext is
| "And you and your _child_ can both go die in a fire if you,
| little girlie, don 't go along to get along."
|
| Society generally treats mothers and their children as a
| package deal. Mothers tend to get custody. A woman can end
| up pregnant from a one-night stand and have her life
| irrevocably changed and the father may never know a child
| existed.
|
| Men bitch about having to pay alimony and child support and
| how unfair that is if they are no longer getting to sleep
| with the woman and have her pick up after him and getting
| to enjoy the company of the children and it gets glossed
| over that both having kids and the threat of potentially
| having kids undermines female income on a regular basis. If
| nothing else, women tend to support their husband's career
| at the expense of their own career development, either
| without thinking about it (because it is just a social norm
| rooted in history) or because if you are woman and not an
| idiot, it is always at the back of your mind that an
| unintended pregnancy with unexpected health impacts (or
| resulting in a special-needs child) can derail your career
| in a way that it typically doesn't do to a male career.
|
| This is an actual biological difference between cis women
| and cis men: cis women can potentially get pregnant and cis
| men cannot. It has profound impacts on many social things
| in ways that most people either don't readily see or don't
| want to admit because it's scary, I guess.
| TeaDrunk wrote:
| > I would argue that social media and media in general has
| disproportionately affected the minds of our daughters
| compared to our sons.
|
| I would speculate it affects it in different ways. Social
| media puts young boys at risk of entering highly misogynistic
| spaces, the damage of which will be borne out on the bodies,
| careers, and wellbeing of women they meet later.
| navait wrote:
| I'm married to an Indian woman and while I don't have a strong
| gender preference, she wants a boy a lot more than a girl.
| nonamechicken wrote:
| deleted
| vmception wrote:
| For anyone passing by, if you say quips like 'go find
| someone else' don't be surprised when your partner does
| nonamechicken wrote:
| deleted
| [deleted]
| raunakdag wrote:
| Are you guys first-gen immigrants? I'm 17 and nearly every
| single one of my Indian friends is part of a 2-child family
| (n>~50).
| [deleted]
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| My wife quips the same (wanted a girl, had a boy, wife is
| Chinese, I'm American), though I think it's more about how
| much work is involved in having one kid let alone two.
| aidenn0 wrote:
| I have an Indian-american friend. His sisters were allowed to
| marry whomever they wanted, but his parents nearly disowned
| him when he married a white non-Hindu, since it was his sole
| responsibility to carry on the family. Years later his mom
| still will not talk to his wife.
| ArkanExplorer wrote:
| Son preference is an unfortunate cultural element of Asian
| migration.
|
| "Indian-born mothers living in Canada with two children had
| 138 boys for every 100 girls"
|
| https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2016/04/11/canadas-
| missing-...
|
| These preferences are lasting into the second-generations,
| with no indication that even at the third and later
| generations these preferences are lost:
|
| https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-study-
| suggest...
|
| Immigration to North America from India should restrict the
| number of males allowed, to balance the trend of sex-
| selective abortion in those communities, and to increase the
| 'value' of females - since they will have an easier chance of
| migrating.
| nomel wrote:
| I've known a few Indian women who suggested I would be
| disappointed if I had girls. I never had the courage to ask
| I if they hated their own existence or something.
| Mountain_Skies wrote:
| >with no indication that even at the third and later
| generations these preferences are lost
|
| That's likely an unintended side effect of the change in
| western attitudes on integration, going from "conform" to
| "melting pot" and now to "cultural stew". The pressure to
| adapt to the new country's values is less than it used to
| be while it is also encouraged for cultural communities to
| form and persist. Beyond that, the revolution in cheap
| global communications likely as plays a role, as cultural
| values can be reinforced in the new country from the source
| country. It may be that the only way to change the
| attitudes towards gender in the Canadian-Indian community
| will be to change those attitudes in India itself. That of
| course gets us into the messy territory of cultural
| imperialism.
| x0f1a wrote:
| My anecdotal experience as a father of 3 daughters: my
| relationship definitely got worse and I believe the root cause is
| the diminished empathy from my wife, on the other hand my sister
| got 2 boys and our relationship became incredibly close, she
| became more empathetic to me and my father!
| Markoff wrote:
| i find it odd how article doesn't discuss at all possibility of
| sexual abuse (or suspicion) of teenage daughter by father as
| reason for elevated risk during puberty suddenly disappearing
| when daughter moves out around age 20
| notsureaboutpg wrote:
| Because it's extremely uncommon, so it wouldn't affect the
| findings at the level they see here.
| ThePadawan wrote:
| Not to get too autobiographical here, but isn't divorce a pretty
| healthy outcome to a marriage? So not 100% the most helpful thing
| to measure.
|
| My parents and the parents of some of my depressed friends are
| not divorced, simply because divorce requires communication and a
| willingness to reflect upon the state of your marriage openly.
|
| As I said, I might be biased, but I think the hidden outcome of
| "not legally, but emotionally divorced" makes up a significant
| portion of turbulent marriages.
| ed25519FUUU wrote:
| A single parent household leads to worse outcomes for children
| in pretty much every single metric you can think of.
| [deleted]
| ThePadawan wrote:
| From a financial standpoint, probably.
|
| Children not encountering lies, strife, or emotional
| disattachment on a daily basis anymore seems a significant
| improvement, however.
| psyc wrote:
| Having lived many years in both a miserable, acrimonious
| two parent household, and a post-divorce situation - my
| personal opinion is the latter is, unintuitively, far more
| harmful long term for the kids. But the former is so much
| worse for the parents that I don't think it's worth it to,
| say, stay together until they leave the nest. If that were
| possible without total loss of sanity, I think it would be
| better. But the divorce was decidedly not amicable so I
| don't know what that's like.
| throwawayboise wrote:
| Right, so if I interpret you correctly, you were in the
| situation of living with two parents in a bad
| relationship, and the divorce added additional stress of
| having two different houses, visitation/custody
| complexity, and possibly additional fights between the
| parents about those issues.
|
| So the alternative of having one home and more access to
| both parents could be better for the child even if the
| parents don't get along with each other well.
| psyc wrote:
| That is exactly what I mean, yes. If both parents
| sincerely want what's best for the kids, that should take
| priority and thus the bar should be accordingly high for
| divorce until the kids are grown, whatever you feel grown
| means. Higher than the parents just wanting to "live
| their best life".
|
| As I recall, I didn't take my parents' daily fighting,
| even my mom screaming and throwing things, as much to
| heart as some might think. I'm glad you used the word
| _access_ because that's precisely what I valued most, and
| the biggest loss. Second to that was the devastating
| financial strain (2 apartments, 2 cars, etc but same
| income).
| mistersquid wrote:
| > A single parent household leads to worse outcomes for
| children in pretty much every single metric you can think of.
|
| Divorce does not always result in single-parent households.
|
| Divorced parents can and do remarry.
| ben_w wrote:
| While true -- in addition to your point about remarriage,
| I've met a couple who legally split because same sex
| marriage didn't exist at the time and one of them was trans
| -- you should probably show the _frequency_ rather than
| _existence_ of such groups.
| [deleted]
| DC1350 wrote:
| There's a huge difference between single mom with a baby
| daddy that ran away, and a shared custody agreement between
| two people who are both in the picture. "Single mom" stories
| and statistics are usually about the former. I'm not sure how
| much worse the latter is compared to a two parent household
| [deleted]
| throwawayboise wrote:
| It's a better situation, but still not ideal. A lot depends
| on the custody terms and how well the two parents get
| along.
| hogFeast wrote:
| If you could measure what would have happened if parents
| stayed together then yes. But parents break up for a reason,
| and trying to put that back together makes zero sense. In the
| US, a large minority of single parents have fathers who have
| spent time in jail...is it a good idea to put a child into
| that environment? Probably not.
|
| And the main issue with single parents is income/income
| instability (which is why there are focused benefits in many
| countries for single parents). As ever, an income issue gets
| classed as something else.
| throwawayboise wrote:
| > In the US, a large minority of single parents have
| fathers who have spent time in jail...is it a good idea to
| put a child into that environment?
|
| Very well could be a good idea. If the father was in jail
| because of some youthful drug offenses, it could very well
| be that he could still be a devoted and loving parent and
| no danger whatsoever to the child.
| zionic wrote:
| > but isn't divorce a pretty healthy outcome to a marriage?
|
| How is this even a question, never the less the most upvoted
| comment?
|
| No, divorce is not a healthy end to a marriage.
| karaterobot wrote:
| I think the way the commenter worded it, it sounded like they
| thought a couple just entering into marriage might sit down
| and talk about the healthiest outcomes of their marriage and
| say: "Well, we could stay deeply in love for the next 50
| years, or we could get divorced tomorrow. Either way, both
| equally good options." But that's probably not what they
| meant.
| eplanit wrote:
| Not an ideal ending, as it negates the fundamental promises
| of the marital contract. However, it's two peoples' (plus
| kids maybe) lives at stake. Staying together in a
| dysfunctional marriage can damage all those lives (with
| downstream repercussions on even more people). In those
| circumstances, a divorce can lead to much healthier outcomes.
|
| In those cases, is the tragedy that the marriage ended, or
| would the tragedy be if it remained?
| foogazi wrote:
| > Staying together in a dysfunctional marriage
|
| Who wants to have a dysfunctional marriage? That seems like
| a bad ending too
|
| So we can add 'dysfunctional marriage' to divorce as
| undesirable outcomes of marriage
| scsilver wrote:
| People who cant afford to divorce.
| LocalH wrote:
| A divorce is a much more healthy end to an abusive marriage
| than the other options. Your blanket statement "divorce is
| not a healthy end to a marriage" is patently false.
| buzzerbetrayed wrote:
| And your suggestion that "divorce isn't bad because I can
| think of worse things" is logically flawed.
| LocalH wrote:
| I'm not saying divorce _can 't_ be bad. I'm saying that
| it's not inherently an _unhealthy_ end to a marriage,
| because there exist clean divorces and nasty marriages.
| [deleted]
| tartoran wrote:
| > How is this even a question, never the less the most
| upvoted comment? No, divorce is not a healthy end to a
| marriage.
|
| I think the original comment was referring to divorce being a
| better outcome in a failed relationship. There are a lot of
| failed relationships that continue to raise their kids in a
| disfunctional way and that is not good. A couple who divorces
| and are on good terms afterwards when raisig their children
| is way healthier.
| minitoar wrote:
| I disagree. There are two ends to a marriage that I am aware
| of -- death and divorce. Suppose the marriage was one of
| mental and physical abuse, but ends in death. I think it may
| have been healthier for that particular marriage to end in
| divorce.
| DC1350 wrote:
| Why not? Sometimes things just don't work out. It's obviously
| worse than staying together and being happy about it, but
| it's a sunk cost fallacy to think you should always repair
| your marriage instead of finding a new partner.
| rufus_foreman wrote:
| >> Sometimes things just don't work out
|
| If you're married to someone you don't want to be married
| to, sure sometimes things just don't work out.
|
| If you're a kid and your parents failed marriage is
| destroying your life, I don't think "sometimes things just
| don't work out" is the answer.
| throwawayboise wrote:
| > it's a sunk cost fallacy to think you should always
| repair your marriage
|
| I guess if you discount the "for better and for worse" part
| of the _vows_ you take to one another....
| cat199 wrote:
| > Why not?
|
| Because marriage is intended as an act of lifetime
| committent to what is seen as a positive relationship, and
| so failing this original intent can never be a measure of
| success.. Preferable to 'failing' in the sense of staying
| in a 'failed marriage' (where the 'positive relationship'
| is no more positive) perhaps, but both of these are
| 'failures'.
| k4c9x wrote:
| That's the fairy tale definition. For many, it's just a
| legal term.
| Falling3 wrote:
| Referring to a "lifetime committ[m]ent to what is seen as
| a positive relationship" as a fairy tale is pretty
| ridiculous.
| k4c9x wrote:
| The oaths made in a typical marriage are impossible,
| dangerous ideals that, once made, can guilt people into
| sticking to bad situations.
|
| Bad people don't tend to go around being bad unless they
| think they can get away with it. Once someone has pinky
| swore to dedicate their life to them, no matter what they
| might do, the true colors come out. I've seen it too many
| times, the idea does more harm than good.
|
| Life-long good marriages exists, I hope to achieve one
| myself, but the silly oath doesn't help them in any way,
| and it makes the bad ones worse.
| tomnipotent wrote:
| > Because marriage is intended as an act of lifetime
| committent
|
| For most of history marriage was property transfer, let's
| not pretend it's something more romantic than it is.
| mizzao wrote:
| > repair your marriage instead of finding a new partner.
|
| There are two ways to think about this.
|
| The first is that once your car gets too broken to repair,
| you should just ditch it and get a new one.
|
| The other is that once your arm/ankle/hip/liver has
| problems, you should just transplant a new one instead of
| doing physical therapy/exercise/eating healthier/drinking
| less.
|
| In my experience, marriage is much closer to the latter
| situation than the former.
|
| If you're curious what those "fixes" are for the latter,
| see https://www.gottman.com/product/the-seven-principles-
| for-mak....
| k4c9x wrote:
| Doesn't matter which situation is closer, they're both
| nothing like a marriage. There are more than 2 ways to
| think about it. If marriages are like a car, then there's
| also the option to ditch it and not get a new one. If
| it's like a critical body part, someone is way too
| dependent. Also, those relationship advice books focus on
| minor issues, not one where someone isn't willing to
| change, and certainly not willing to read a book like
| that, and instead demands the other just "love them for
| who they are".
| geofft wrote:
| This analogy would work better if organ transplants,
| prosthetics, etc. weren't a real thing and the medically
| right answer in many cases. If your hip needs
| replacement, no amount of eating healthier will cause it
| to no longer need replacement.
|
| There are, of course, many situations where divorce is
| not the right answer _for that situation_ , just like
| there are many situations for which a hip replacement is
| not the right answer. But it is within the set of
| potential right answers _across all situations_. There 's
| no sense in trying to replace what is easily repairable,
| and there's also no sense in spending your life trying to
| repair what needs to be replaced.
|
| And it's totally possible to go through life where
| neither you nor anyone you know ought to get a divorce -
| just like it's totally possible to go through life
| knowing nobody who needs a hip replacement, but that is
| hardly evidence that the procedure is the wrong answer
| for everyone!
| Carlton2082 wrote:
| The analogy works even better because organ transplants
| are sometimes necessary and sometimes not. Although GP
| started off defining a binary, I don't think they are
| thinking in black and white. A charitable reading of the
| GP implies the nuances you express.
| room500 wrote:
| What about a situation where one party wants to make it
| work and the other doesn't?
|
| In your example, your ankle is under your control - if
| you want to exercise it, you can. Your ankle doesn't
| actively sabotage your body (or if it does spread
| infection/etc, amputation is often used).
|
| A marriage depends on two people working together to
| build a life together. If one person is not willing to
| put in that effort, the marriage fails.
| throwawayboise wrote:
| Yes, it's a two-way street. That is why both partners say
| the vows.
| ThePadawan wrote:
| I like this metaphor because it fits with the generation
| of my parents!
|
| That's also the generation of people who don't go to the
| hospital because anything hurts. They go to the hospital
| 5 years later for something unrelated, when it's
| discovered it's 4 years too late to do anything about it.
| guerrilla wrote:
| Why not? If you don't get along the its better to end it than
| force it. That was the parents meaning. Do you have a
| counterargument?
| cgriswald wrote:
| That's not how divorce works. It's not an end if you have
| kids. It's the beginning of something different. But you're
| still tied together. So now you have twice the expenses,
| half the time with the kids who now need you more than
| ever, more reason to fight with each other, and possibly
| even more resentment, all compounded by your own personal
| feelings of loss and failure. Yay, what a win for everyone
| involved.
|
| Also, realize that people don't generally get to a divorce
| by talking things out and figuring divorce is the only
| option. Even if they do talk things out it's usually only
| after divorce is inevitable.
| paulryanrogers wrote:
| > ...more reason to fight with each other
|
| Is this often the outcome of divorce? I imagine that
| spending more time apart should reduce the total volume
| of conflict
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| Divorce is the healthy end to a failed marriage. The
| unhealthy thing in a marriage is it being failed, and we use
| divorce as a proxy for that (although not all failed
| marriages have ended or ended in divorce).
| adkadskhj wrote:
| It is a healthy end, if the couple wasn't right from the
| beginning or if they became different people.
|
| It's unfair to expect two humans to remain compatible their
| entire lives. We evolve massively. A person i would have
| married at 18 is not the same i'd marry now.
|
| Which isn't to say that difficulty should be met with break
| ups. Rather, it's to say that some marriages _should_ end.
| Both parties would be better off. Other marriages would be
| better served to have problems met, worked through, and the
| couple made stronger as a result.
|
| It is a healthy end. If it's a bad marriage.
| Amezarak wrote:
| Marriage is about growing and adapting with the other
| person. "We changed" as a reason for the end of a marriage
| is an admission of failure to work at the relationship over
| its course. Of course you changed. The whole point is to
| grow and change together, until you die.
|
| People don't just become incompatible. Something went badly
| wrong for that to happen. It's increasingly common nowadays
| - nuclear families tend to be more atomized, rather than
| integrated into an extended family, which increases the
| stress on the relationship, and many people simply don't
| prioritize their marriage, but instead their career, kids,
| or lifestyle. And of course, the modern social environment
| is more full of distractions and temptations than ever.
| catlifeonmars wrote:
| If the assumption is that the only source of change is
| internal to the relationship, sure. There are many
| sources of change that are external to two partners in a
| marriage, it's not unreasonable to think one person may
| diverge from another to the point where a having a
| healthy, close, intimate relationship is unhealthy.
| [deleted]
| citizenkeen wrote:
| Exactly. Divorce can be a healthy end to an unhealthy
| relationship. Can be. But if you're divorcing, you're
| already at an unhealthy state.
| mattcwilson wrote:
| It strikes me that GP is observing that legal divorce is
| happier than abuse, detachment, resentment, cold war, etc.
|
| I think they have a point.
| da_big_ghey wrote:
| Better than abuse and resentment, yes; healthy, no.
| andys627 wrote:
| What are some characteristics of a healthy end to a
| marriage?
| da_big_ghey wrote:
| Marriages aren't supposed to end except in death. It's
| right there in the vows. They are a serious commitment,
| and I think many take them lightly without realizing that
| they are intended to be lifelong.
| xref wrote:
| As nwienert said better elsewhere in the thread: "You're
| emotionally tying yourself to Christian theology and
| claiming it as universal."
| da_big_ghey wrote:
| No, marriage in America is based on Christian theology
| and by extension so is the legal framework around it,
| which is why divorce is so difficult. That's factual, not
| emotional.
| staticman2 wrote:
| Marriage is based on whatever the humans in the marriage
| want it to be based on. The legal system is constantly
| evolving in 50 stages. Your understanding of the legal
| system lacks nuance, probably because you are repeating
| something you heard a partisan say.
| da_big_ghey wrote:
| I'm referring to marriage as a legal contract, and legal
| stuff changes slowly. It was certainly founded on
| religious principles, which is why homosexuals couldn't
| marry until recently. I'm not advocating for that state
| of affairs, nor repeating what some partisan said. Were
| we to green-field re-do marriage today, divorce would be
| a whole lot easier and possibly more of an expectation.
| throwawayboise wrote:
| Or perhaps, marriage would be harder? If divorce is easy,
| what's the point of marriage?
| superhuzza wrote:
| >Marriages aren't supposed to end except in death.
|
| Says who? Every country I've lived in has provisions for
| ending marriages, so clearly it's not the only path.
|
| >It's right there in the vows.
|
| What vows? Nobody in my family is religious, none of us
| made any claims about being together until death. And
| even then, lots of religions allow for divorce, even some
| sects of Christianity...
| chrisseaton wrote:
| > What vows?
|
| In many cultures people make wedding vows about staying
| married until one of you dies.
| samsa wrote:
| Marriage is one of a very few things in life humans
| undertake where they are asked to commit to do something
| "for life" that they have never done before. And their
| closest vantage point is likely their parents' marriage.
|
| I think it's not so much people take it lightly, as that
| they have no idea of what they are getting into and what
| kind of work a modern marriage involves.
| throwawayboise wrote:
| Yes, the value of pre-marital counseling is vastly
| underappreciated IMO.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| It is amazing to me that people can consider entering
| into a lifelong contract with a partner and not have
| discussed 5, 10, 20 year goals. Seems like a common sense
| due diligence thing to do.
| LexGray wrote:
| Fixed term marriages are becoming popular in Australia
| and other places and have historical precedents. It is
| likely a lifelong term of marriage may be unrealistic
| with our comparative ease of survival.
| odshoifsdhfs wrote:
| Are you religious per chance? Not denigrating, but civil
| marriages (not sure if right name) don't have any of
| these vows, for health and sick whatnot.
|
| I am divorced, and got married in my country outside the
| church. Wether we like it or not, it was literally a
| contract. An officer of the court was there, read the
| 'contract' which states our data, the legal parts of it
| (prenup, how assets were after marriage, etc), and the
| legal responsibilities. There was nothing there about
| 'until the end' or the likes.
|
| I'm not sure how it is in other countries, and I am from
| a very catholic country, but most people don't realize
| that marriage is the contract that is governed by the
| government's law and not any vows or whatever the priest
| says in church. It is a contract and parties to that
| contract are allowed to change their mind and divorce
| (break contract).
| tomnipotent wrote:
| Of course it's healthy for both individuals in a marriage
| to get out of that marriage they're unhappy in. Is this
| really up for debate, considering the wealth of examples?
| [deleted]
| tshaddox wrote:
| So divorce is the healthy way to end a chronically
| unhappy marriage, yes. But surely we would agree that a
| happy marriage is healthier. This is a bit like saying
| that a pneumonectomy is a healthy end to one's
| relationship with one's lung.
| adkadskhj wrote:
| And yes, it is. This argument is silly, because there's
| _clear_ subtext that it's a healthy end _to an unhealthy
| relationship_.
|
| It's of course not healthy to end a healthy relationship.
| But hey, water is wet.
| TheSpiceIsLife wrote:
| If the lung is cancerous and treatment resistant, then
| that might be a reasonable option.
| dionidium wrote:
| If two people are unhappy with each other, then they
| should do whatever they want -- stay, go, who cares?
|
| But parents aren't just two people. Life outcomes for the
| children of divorced parents are significantly worse than
| for children whose parents remain together.
| tomnipotent wrote:
| > But parents aren't just two people.
|
| Yes, they still are. And parents that stay together in an
| unhealthy relationship can do more harm to their children
| than separating.
| dionidium wrote:
| The first question here is philosophical. I disagree with
| you as strongly as I could possibly disagree with you
| about anything. But it's ultimately philosophy and
| there's nothing much else I can say about it. (Well,
| beyond the obvious arithmetic, I guess. They are quite
| literally _not_ just _two_ people any longer.)
|
| But as for the life outcomes of divorced children? That's
| quantifiable and the data simply disagree with you.
| tomnipotent wrote:
| There is no shortage of screwed up kids from continuously
| married parents (or stable kids from divorced families).
| Divorce is like measuring the effect of radiation, rather
| than the cause. The issues that lead to divorce are the
| problems that mostly screw up kids, not just the divorce
| itself.
|
| "The Consequences of Divorce for Adults and Children"
| (Amato & Irving, 2005), even has in it's introduction:
|
| "Available research suggests that these associations are
| partly spurious (due to selection effects) and partly due
| to the stress associated with marital disruption."
|
| https://hrcak.srce.hr/file/180281
| dionidium wrote:
| Of course everything you've said is true. Nobody critical
| of divorce is saying, "it's the literal divorce that's
| bad for kids and as long as you just stay together and
| change none of the behaviors that lead to divorce, then
| that's better than getting a divorce."
|
| But on the other hand, upper-middle-class Hacker Newsers
| who got divorced because they were "unfulfilled" probably
| shouldn't point to extreme cases of abuse and neglect to
| justify their decision, either.
|
| All things being equal, people in this latter category
| should try to work it out. (Nobody disputes that there
| are extreme environments for which divorce is the only
| option.)
|
| Finally, as always, we are talking about _averages_.
| Sociology doesn 't have a proof-by-counterexample. If I
| say, "poverty leads to worse outcomes for kids" it's not
| a legitimate response to say, "there are some wealthy
| kids who do bad and some poor kids who do well, so you're
| wrong."
|
| We're always talking about _averages_.
| tubularhells wrote:
| Reminder: a lot of us in this community are autistic and have
| problems when it comes to expressing ourselves.
| noblethrasher wrote:
| Probably not as many as you might imagine:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1884326
| randomdata wrote:
| Divorce is merely the end of the business relationship of a
| marriage, not necessarily a social end to the relationship.
| It should be as healthy as ending any other business
| relationship.
| belorn wrote:
| Here is a more fun question: What is the optimal reproductive
| strategy that also maximizes the chance that the children
| also reproduce? I will add as an established fact that
| daughters has a higher base chance of reproductive success
| than sons, but sons have higher base variance.
|
| Game theory should always be asked when biology is involved.
| I am not sure myself on the answer, but it seems more
| plausible than the article's "teenage girls are annoying"
| theory or the speculated "son preference" theory. If there is
| an optimal strategy, such a strategy may result in a small
| biological effect which makes parents look for a new chance
| of reproduction once the majority of child investment is
| done, resulting in the statistical data that shows 20.12%
| becoming 20.48%.
| mattkrause wrote:
| A good starting point for this idea is "r/K selection
| theory": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R/K_selection_theory
|
| "R-selectors" have many offspring, investing fairly litle
| in each one. K-selectors have a few offspring, but invest a
| lot of time/resources in caring for each. There's a bit
| more to it than that--and the theory has needed some
| adjustment, but...
| blabitty wrote:
| Not being snarky at all but isn't the answer to this always
| going to reduce to "have as many offspring with as many
| partners as possible"?
| throwawayboise wrote:
| Maybe not? It doesn't much matter if you have a lot of
| offspring, if the offspring don't survive and reproduce.
| It's an optimization problem of having enough offspring
| and being able to ensure that they survive to adulthood.
| andrewflnr wrote:
| The only people who can historically get away with that
| are high status men (less so women, since child bearing
| is intrinsically metabolically and temporally expensive).
| Globally/long run, it's not a great strategy, certainly
| not compatible with modern ideas of liberty.
| belorn wrote:
| If that would be true then there would not exist any pair
| bonding species, and there is some excellent benefits
| from it. Two parents mean one backup while raising the
| children, and two parents is double the parenting. Two
| parents also give some potential benefits with twins,
| something which pair bonding species tend to have a lot
| of while non-pair bonding species don't. The primary
| argument in favor of pair-bonding is that having a lot of
| offspring that don't reproduce is worse than having a few
| that do.
|
| Humans with our great variations of behaviors has both
| pair bonding behavior and non-pair bonding behavior, with
| genes that code for both. If one strategy was always
| superior to the other then we would have settled for it a
| long time ago.
|
| (Its a law or something when talking about genes that the
| behavior is always a gene-enivorment interaction, and
| there are likely many more factors that influence pair
| bonding behavior).
| dimgl wrote:
| Agreed. I can't believe what a massive cultural shift I'm
| witnessing. Divorce is in no way shape or form a "healthy
| end" to a marriage. The point of marriage is that it doesn't
| end. It is a lifelong commitment.
|
| People evolve and so too should marriages.
| al_chemist wrote:
| > isn't divorce a pretty healthy outcome to a marriage
|
| Isn't bankrupcy a pretty healthy outcome to a business?
|
| Isn't death a pretty healthy outcome to life?
|
| Isn't coup a pretty healthy outcome to a country?
|
| Isn't segfault a pretty healthy outcome to program?
| xref wrote:
| > Isn't bankrupcy a pretty healthy outcome to a business?
|
| Absolutely, especially when the alternative is financial ruin
| because you didn't take legal remedies available to you.
|
| People get caught up in absolutes because they fit in a nice
| box, but most of the time life is messier.
| LocalH wrote:
| > Isn't death a pretty healthy outcome to life?
|
| I mean, since it's the inevitable end result no matter what
| actions one takes in their life, yes?
| yread wrote:
| > Isn't segfault a pretty healthy outcome to program?
|
| I don't know much about the other ones but segfault is
| definitely healthier than a buggy program being allowed to
| write at address 0 or continuing arithmetics after division
| by 0.
| ThePadawan wrote:
| > continuing arithmetics after division by 0
|
| IIRC it took PHP quite many versions to get there (if it
| even has).
| ThePadawan wrote:
| > Isn't segfault a pretty healthy outcome to program?
|
| Pardon the snark: http://openjdk.java.net/jeps/318
| da_big_ghey wrote:
| Hah, I remember reading a comment a while back about a HFT
| firm. The guys there wanted to use Java but couldn't deal
| with GC latency spikes, so they just bought a ton of ram,
| turned off the GC, and re-booted the servers every day.
|
| >> Isn't segfault a pretty healthy outcome to program?
|
| Found the Erlang user.
| softwaredoug wrote:
| I agree. Also not to get too autobiographical, but life was
| much easier for me and my siblings after divorce than having to
| deal with constant fights. Divorce can be a positive outcome,
| especially if it can be done amicably.
| foogazi wrote:
| > Divorce can be a positive outcome
|
| This doesn't pass the universality test - would it be
| positive if all marriages ended in divorce?
|
| Lots of "bad" outcomes become good given circumstances, but
| they are still not universally good:
|
| "Amputation can be a positive outcome, especially if gangrene
| has started"
| nostrademons wrote:
| The universality test itself doesn't pass the universality
| test. Would it be positive if everything good needed to be
| good _all the time_?
|
| Sunlight makes you feel good, gives you vitamin D, and
| warms you up. Too much sunlight gives you skin cancer.
|
| Sugar is necessary for life. Too much sugar gives you
| diabetes and obesity.
|
| Water is the basic building block of life. Too much water
| causes electrolyte imbalances that can lead to dangerous
| cardiac arrythmias.
|
| Very few good things actually do pass the universality
| test, which suggests that the test itself may be flawed.
| nwienert wrote:
| You're emotionally tying yourself to Christian theology and
| claiming it as universal.
|
| If most people married just to have children and raise
| them, then divorced, that doesn't seem bad in the
| slightest, especially given that's the likely the original
| motivating force behind marriage anyway.
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| Is anger and strife a healthy outcome to a public vow?
| ThePadawan wrote:
| No, that's why the spouses should get a divorce :).
| csomar wrote:
| It's not a healthy outcome to marriage. You don't get married
| to be divorced later. The problem is that our society has out-
| advanced marriage but people still did not realize it (although
| marriage rate are trending lower).
|
| Marriage made sense when the population was sparse, the parents
| needed workforce, and the woman needed protection. Most of that
| doesn't apply today. Marriage is mostly a "reliquat" from
| former society's traditions.
| analyst74 wrote:
| This is an interesting perspective.
|
| People tend to associate single-parenthood as source of many
| problems based on statistics. But I wonder if those are simply
| correlation and not causation. i.e. people with certain traits
| are more prone to get divorced, and it could be those traits,
| and not divorce itself causes most other issues in their
| children. But it's easier to measure divorce rates than
| personality traits.
| nullsense wrote:
| It's both.
| drjasonharrison wrote:
| More likely the traits of both people. There are people who
| study the factors that predict divorce.
| https://www.gottman.com
| rayiner wrote:
| > Not to get too autobiographical here, but isn't divorce a
| pretty healthy outcome to a marriage? So not 100% the most
| helpful thing to measure.
|
| Do you have any evidence of this? As an Asian, my family
| universally has stayed in bad marriages. My wife, an American,
| has a family rife with divorce. It's not clear to me which one
| is better for the parents. But unhappy parents seems superior
| to divorced ones for the kids. The financial and structural
| disruption on kids from divorce is massive.
|
| This is obviously anecdotal. I'd be curious to see data--to my
| knowledge this hasn't been studied rigorously.
| devlopr wrote:
| Not the healthiest of outcomes but could be healthier than
| others.
|
| Kind of like saying the most healthy outcome is getting fired
| or rage quitting. It could be but once you found the job you
| signed a contract for life for, retiring is the healthiest
| outcome.
| williamdclt wrote:
| The parent didn't say "most healthy", they said "pretty
| healthy". I think we all agree that the "most healthy"
| outcome is to be happy and fulfilled as a couple forever.
|
| > Kind of like saying the most healthy outcome is getting
| fired or rage quitting
|
| I don't agree, a closer analogy (keeping in mind that all
| analogies have limits) would be to say that a _pretty_ good
| outcome to taking a job is to quit. Which doesn't seem
| particularly controversial, there's plenty of situations
| where quitting is a perfectly reasonable and healthy choice,
| even if you don't have an abusive relationship with your
| workplace.
| jwlake wrote:
| Nuke it from orbit, its the only way to be sure.
| purple_42 wrote:
| I think it depends. Financially, if you're a man, no. Most
| family law courts favor women.
|
| Relationship-wise, if you're a woman, no. Odds are if you're
| getting divorced as a woman past her 30s, it'll be harder for
| you to find a partner as opposed to when you were in your 20s
| (when the woman should be finding a potential husband).
| Especially if you're a single mother. High-quality men have no
| desire to raise someone else's kids.
|
| So, imo, divorce can be so lose-lose unless the man and woman
| are both past 50s. At that point, the kids are grown up and
| both partners are hopefully financially secure without the need
| of one another.
| throwawayboise wrote:
| > High-quality men have no desire to raise someone else's
| kids
|
| Generally I agree. There are exceptions, especially if the
| biological father is totally out of the equation. A friend
| married a woman who already had a kid. Father had vanished,
| had no interest. He legally adopted the kid, and they had
| several more together, he considers them all as his own.
| room500 wrote:
| > it'll be harder for you to find a partner as opposed to
| when you were in your 20s (when the woman should be finding a
| potential husband)
|
| I feel like we just went back in time 80 years. No, women
| don't need to spend their 20's finding a husband. They can
| have also go to school, volunteer, have friends, start a
| career. You know - the things men can do.
|
| > High-quality men have no desire to raise someone else's
| kids
|
| What does this even mean? Let me guess - you are a high-
| quality man?
|
| This comment is so backwards.
| throwaway3699 wrote:
| This isn't a gender thing. Just because you don't agree,
| the GP's comment isn't any less valid. Part of that is
| culture and malleable, part is just biological facts (being
| an old parent just sucks). Most Men spend their 20s
| thinking about finding a wife, too.
| room500 wrote:
| No. It was a 100% gender thing.
|
| Notice that the comment never mentioned that men
| shouldn't divorce because they are past their 20s when
| they should be finding a wife.
|
| Notice that the comment never mentions that high-quality
| women would never want to raise someone else's kid.
|
| GP's comment is less valid because it is from an era
| where women were less-than.
| throwaway3699 wrote:
| I think you're reading _way_ too much into that comment.
|
| It's generally considered a fact that women have a
| slightly (statistically) more difficult time than men to
| find a partner after their 20s (and the reverse is true -
| men have it tougher in their 20s compared to women), and
| GP's comment is discussing why that complicates things
| wrt divorce.
|
| > Notice that the comment never mentions that high-
| quality women would never want to raise someone else's
| kid.
|
| I think that "high quality" means that they don't want to
| be second best to another man/woman. Totally
| understandable.
| oblio wrote:
| > No. It was a 100% gender thing. > Notice that the
| comment never mentioned that men shouldn't divorce
| because they are past their 20s when they should be
| finding a wife. > Notice that the comment never mentions
| that high-quality women would never want to raise someone
| else's kid. > GP's comment is less valid because it is
| from an era where women were less-than.
|
| In what world do you live in where on average older women
| are considered more desirable partners than older men? By
| and large men are attracted to looks (or they prioritize
| looks a lot more than other qualities) while women are
| attracted to a set of qualities besides looks (or they
| prioritize other qualities a lot more than looks).
|
| You can argue that's sexist and old-fashioned, but that's
| just how attraction works. Good luck changing the world!
| julianmarq wrote:
| > No, women don't need to spend their 20's finding a
| husband. They can have also go to school, volunteer, have
| friends, start a career. You know - the things men can do.
|
| Nothing in GP's comment suggests ~that women _should_ spend
| their twenties finding a husband~ (EDIT: I missed that
| sentence in the original comment), nor that they shouldn 't
| do the things you just mentioned.
|
| I don't understand how this is in any way apropos.
| pcnix wrote:
| > Nothing in GP's comment suggests that women should
| spend their twenties finding a husband, nor that they
| shouldn't do the things you just mentioned.
|
| That is in fact exactly what the comment seems to
| suggest, in these lines.
|
| > as opposed to when you were in your 20s (when the woman
| should be finding a potential husband
|
| room500's response was exactly what I had in mind too,
| when I was reading the parent comment.
|
| It very much feels like the GP had something specific in
| mind for "high-quality" that insinuates that caring for
| someone else's children is not a high quality thing to
| do.
|
| I believe that quality is not what they are showing when
| they focus the comment on what women "should be doing",
| or if they're still seeing it as "someone else's kids".
| julianmarq wrote:
| I must have missed the statement in parentheses the first
| time I read it (I honestly don't remember it being there
| before, apologies), so I retract the part on what GP said
| about "should". However, I maintain that the comment
| doesn't say anything about whether women shouldn't do the
| things the other person said; there's no implication one
| way or the other in the original comment and most people
| do both.
|
| On the matter of kids and "high quality", I made no
| comment on that earlier, and I make no comment now.
| dhbradshaw wrote:
| Hard disagree on the statement "High-quality men have no
| desire to raise someone else's kids" based on my experience
| with an amazing step father and a father who himself has been
| an excellent step father.
|
| I might even venture to say that having the heart to care
| well for children who are not genetically your own is part of
| being a high quality man.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| I assume it was meant to be a probabilistic statement,
| where the probability of finding a man who is economically
| resourceful and has the desired capacity and abilities to
| raise children, and is also willing to raise step children
| is so low as to be a material risk for women looking for
| said man.
|
| Based on the actions of my male friends and accounts I've
| read about dating as a single mom in their 30s, I assume
| the above is true.
| Thorentis wrote:
| That's like saying isn't death a healthy outcome for a cancer
| patient? Sure, it's what happens to many people that get
| cancer. But getting cancer in the first place is not "healthy",
| and so death caused by cancer is not "healthy".
|
| If marriage is nothing more than a legal contract - which sadly
| for many people it is, then why even bother making vows such as
| "until death do us part"? All for show? Why not just put a
| time-clause for when the contract expires so that you can
| decide whether to sign a new one? A highly utilitarian, and in
| my opinion, tragically sad view of marriage, but that is
| essentially what it has become for many people.
| Brian_K_White wrote:
| Why even have any pre-determined time clause?
|
| I would say the most sensible thing is simply the mutual
| declaration for the sake of administrivia, that until any of
| the members of a marriage say otherwise, we all are married.
| The only reason to even have the document is just for things
| like power of attorney. Who shall be considered a legal
| guardian responsible for a child, who is allowed to make
| decisions for another while they are incapacitated, etc. And
| the expiration date is "until further notice".
|
| I don't think you have a right to call that sort of family
| sad or "tragic".
|
| That's actually incredibly insulting, even abusive when it's
| embedded in policy that everyone has to live under.
|
| Just imagine if I called your family sad and tragic. Even if
| I used hard unavoidable data to back up the judgement.
| askl56 wrote:
| You don't think they have the right to have an opinion? How
| tolerant.
|
| Everyone doesn't have to "live under" it, you don't have to
| get married.
|
| I suspect having Mummy and Daddy being together "until
| further notice" would have disastrous impacts on children's
| sense of permanence and development.
| frongpik wrote:
| For middle class folks, marriage isn't much different than a
| typical employment contract with a large firm. Marriage
| usually revolves around house and assets, so your 200k down
| payment is the 100k sign on bonus for your spouse. Paying out
| mortgage is the stock vesting plan. Kids are additional stock
| grants for good performance. Divorce is selling shares.
| actuator wrote:
| I would say middle class folks will probably consider
| marriage to be more important. Like Viktor Frankl would
| say, the meaning of your life is either from your work,
| love or courage in difficulty for survival.
|
| Most middle class folks I am sure don't fall in third
| bucket; and a lot of them are just doing 9-5 jobs, probably
| not doing something which can drive them like say most of
| the big entrepreneurs or researchers seem to be.
|
| So that leaves love, which would become kind of very
| important to give their life a meaning. Marriage being a
| vow to have that love lasting throughout seems special. I
| am in late 20s, and even though I would want to do
| something great, the strive to find someone compatible with
| me seems to weigh on my mind more these days.
| frongpik wrote:
| Those middle class folks are wasting their lives, then:
| just like an office job is an illusion of meaningful
| work, their marriage is an illusion of love.
| dan-robertson wrote:
| I think anyone I know who considers marriage as "just a legal
| contract" isn't saying that one should treat marriage as a
| contractual relationship like any other but rather that the
| ceremony itself is unimportant relative to the relationship
| as a whole. I think these are two very different things
| people may mean by the phrase and I feel like your comment
| suggests that one of those things is common while I would
| suggest that the other interpretation is more common.
|
| If people thought of marriage as nothing but a legal
| contract, likely to be broken, and acted rationally then I
| expect they wouldn't bother at all: the benefits aren't
| particularly great while the risks are large.
|
| I think we probably mostly agree with our own opinions but
| perhaps disagree on the opinions of others.
| actuator wrote:
| > I feel like your comment suggests that one of those
| things is common while I would suggest that the other
| interpretation is more common.
|
| I read it as people taking that step in a relationship
| without much thought because that's what society has
| conditioned us to believe is normal and then divorcing like
| breaking-up.
| dan-robertson wrote:
| Surely such people would consider it to be a social
| requirement they must satisfy rather than just another
| legal contract?
| actuator wrote:
| Kind of, more like just another legal contract to sign up
| to satisfy a social requirement.
| throwaway2245 wrote:
| > the benefits aren't particularly great while the risks
| are large.
|
| Marriage brings specific legal and financial benefits,
| depending on the country (married couples tax allowances,
| spousal rights to pensions and inheritance etc, spousal
| privilege in court, visa/residency rights, child custody
| rights).
|
| As these benefits have reduced over a few decades, the
| number of marriages has gone down. I don't think that's a
| coincidence.
|
| You don't need a legal marriage to share a loving and
| fulfilling life together with a partner. But, if you do
| share a loving and fulfilling life together, marriage might
| benefit you for one or more of the above reasons.
| novaRom wrote:
| Marriage and family as we know it is a relatively recent
| habit, only about few thousand years, even hundreds of years
| in many regions. It was justified and necessary to adapt in
| new environment like agricultural civilization, but it may be
| not advantageous in new current era of digital world.
| notsureaboutpg wrote:
| This kind of thought is so far from my own. Marriage and
| family are the most important things in the vast majority
| of people's lives. Computers and Internet don't make them
| obsolete...
| forty wrote:
| I think it's important to make the distinction between
| religious and civil mariage.
|
| Clearly civil mariage is just a contact, whose main purpose
| is the divorce (at least in my country - France - divorce is
| the main benefit of marriage). And as far as I know there is
| no commitment for it to last for life, but just until the end
| of the contract.
| umvi wrote:
| > divorce is the main benefit of marriage
|
| ...what? Are you saying French people intentionally get
| married in order to reap benefits of divorce?
| sneak wrote:
| > _That 's like saying isn't death a healthy outcome for a
| cancer patient?_
|
| The end of a marriage (where both participants continue
| living) and a cancer death, are not comparable.
|
| Your "if you're not going to stay in a bad marriage until you
| physically die, what's the point of marriage?" viewpoint
| where marriage is permanent xor utilitarian is a false
| dichotomy.
|
| Divorce doesn't mean that the participants failed, or that
| they entered into the marriage simply out of utility.
| CountSessine wrote:
| _Divorce doesn 't mean that the participants failed, or
| that they entered into the marriage simply out of utility._
|
| On the contrary, by their own measure, it _is_ a failure.
| No one gets married anticipating or wanting a divorce.
| Everyone wants it to last forever.
|
| That's why the comment you responded to suggested a time-
| bounded contract. Which no one wants.
|
| Have you ever gone through a divorce? Mine was amicable,
| but even then it was the worst thing I've ever experienced.
| sneak wrote:
| > _No one gets married anticipating or wanting a
| divorce._
|
| I think the existence of reasonable precautions such as
| prenuptial agreements indicates that this statement is
| false: many people enter into a marriage with the full
| knowledge that it may end before the death of one of the
| partners (presumably contrary to their desire at the
| time). I think that counts as "anticipating".
|
| Heinlein put it well: "We always marry strangers."
| CountSessine wrote:
| _I think the existence of reasonable precautions such as
| prenuptial agreements indicates that this statement is
| false: many people enter into a marriage with the full
| knowledge that it may end before the death of one of the
| partners (presumably contrary to their desire at the
| time). I think that counts as "anticipating"._
|
| Only 5% of all married couples in the United States got
| married with a prenup. The fact that signing a prenup is
| so completely in everyone's interest and the fact that
| only 5% of marriages have them proves my point - no one
| is anticipating or looking forward to their own divorce.
|
| _Heinlein put it well: "We always marry strangers."_
|
| He was married 3 times. I'd be willing to bet he had 2 of
| those divorces behind him when he wrote that.
| toast0 wrote:
| > The fact that signing a prenup is so completely in
| everyone's interest and the fact that only 5% of
| marriages have them proves my point - no one is
| anticipating or looking forward to their own divorce.
|
| When my spouse and I got married, we had basically no
| assets of note. (Drafting and) Signing a prenup would
| have been in the interest of our lawyers, but not our
| interest.
| klipt wrote:
| A better analogy might be "amputating a leg is a healthy
| end to gangrene". Better not to have gangrene in the first
| place, but if someone does, better to amputate the leg than
| die.
|
| But you wouldn't say "amputating a leg is a healthy end to
| having legs" because for most leg havers, there are better
| outcomes.
|
| In the same vein, I'd say "divorce is a healthy end to a
| bad marriage" but not "divorce is a healthy end to
| marriages in general".
| xyzelement wrote:
| Sorry about your situation, but no. It's healthier than some of
| the worst outcomes but it's far from the top.
|
| A marriage is an enterprise two people join in together, and
| then go through life doing the really important work of raising
| children and supporting each other.
|
| Ideally this is accompanied by deep love and passion etc. Short
| of that, it's done with deep mutual commitment and appreciation
| of the other person and the work you're doing together.
|
| Way shittier down the line are relationships plagued with
| resentment and mistrust, than in my experience have more to do
| with what the people bring into the relationship than their
| partner (basically: if both people are sane and enter
| thoughtfully into the marriage, you should not really end up
| here.)
|
| Once you're in that mode, where you don't have it together to
| work it out and grow together, sure divorce is happier than
| eternal rancor and abuse, but it's super-down the line.
|
| I think this is important to understand because once you do,
| you're much more thoughtful about what you're getting into in
| the first place. I guess it's easier said for me because I
| married in my later 30s and had the life experience and
| introspection to know what I want and need and to appreciate my
| wife (who is different than me in ways that a less mature
| version of me might resent rather than appreciate)
| supergirl wrote:
| even though article rejects this, it's because fathers don't want
| daughters. that hits the hardest when daughters hit puberty and
| dads realize things are different
| dimgl wrote:
| Wait what? This is a massive generalization. I'm hoping to have
| a daughter soon.
| softwaredoug wrote:
| "Daughters provoke parental strife" implies causality not present
| in TFA.
|
| Also, as a survival of an abusive home, "daughters provoke..."
| sounds like blaming children for their parents dysfunction. Maybe
| that wasn't the intent of the OP. However kids blaming themselves
| for their parents problems is a pathology many kids that went
| through these situations have to work to overcome. Any
| culpability belongs to the grown ups who couldn't resolve their
| issues and put the kids first.
| karmakaze wrote:
| I did know a family that fit this profile. The daughter
| challenged the parents and the parents, specifically the mother
| couldn't deal with it well.
|
| Rather than divorce, the daughter went to a private school,
| then to live with relatives in another country.
| fogof wrote:
| This seems to me like a rare "natural experiment" where
| correlation implies causality. Because whether a child is a son
| or daughter is essentially random, it's hard to imagine a
| confounding factor causing both daughters and divorce.
| drjasonharrison wrote:
| I think that the remaining factors will be the "difficulty"
| of parenting the behaviour of sons vs daughters in contrast
| to the difficulty a daughter or son experiences being
| parented. That is while you can use the sex of the child as
| an independent variable, you still need to explain why it has
| this effect.
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