Andrew Root: for children, divorce is worse than death
April 10, 2011 3 Comments
Sara McLanahan and Gary Sandefur in their book, Growing Up with a Single Parent, present a quantitative study of the effects of divorce on children. I wish not to examine thoroughly their study, but rather to use it to make my point about the ontological ramifications ofdivorce. Thus, I will present only enough to enable us to compare the impact of parental death and of divorce.
These two sociologists from two renowned research universities, Princeton and the University of Wisconsin, show statistically that children living with both biological parents fare much better in the areas of educational achievement, avoidance of idleness in the workforce, and avoiding early procreation. They state boldly, “Children who grow up in a household with only one biological parent are worse off, on average, than children who grow up in a household with both their biological parents. “22 For example, they show that in the matter of dropping out of school, a child whose parents were never married and no longer live together has a 37 percent chance of not making it through high school; if a child’s parents are divorced, there is a 31 percent chance. If there is no disturbance, the percentage is only 13 percent. In the area of teenage pregnancy, the children of unmarried parents face a 37 percent chance of early pregnancy. The chance for a child of divorce is 33 percent. It is only 11 percent for those living with both biological parents.
McLanahan and Sandefur believe there is such a gap because children who live with only one biological parent lose a wealth of social capital that keeps them focused on school and provides networks of job options, as well as oversight and modeling to avoid the traps of teenage pregnancy.
Yet there is an interesting anomaly in their statistical argument. Where the risk of high school dropout is 37 percent for nonmarital offspring, 31 percent for children of divorce, and 13 percent for children with no disturbance, it is only 15 percent for children who experience the death of one parent. This is only two percentage points higher than for children in undisturbed, two-parent families, and it represents less than half the number of children from divorced families. Children who experience the death of a parent are much less at risk to become pregnant (by twelve percentage points) than are children of divorce.23 Why such a difference between divorce and death in child well-being? McLanahan and Sandefur believe this can be answered through social capital. Because of life insurance and less negative stigma, children are less likely after a death to lose as much social capital. This is logical and should not be dismissed. However,for most middle-class people life insurance does not always keep families who experience the death of a parent stable (for instance, with all of the remaining members of the family living in the same home. And to assume that children do not feel stigmatized by friends who fear saying the wrong thing after the death of their parent may keep us from wondering whether social capital alone explains the statistical variation.
Rather, it seems that the difference between death and divorce has something to do with ontology. Death may shake a young person’s being, as he witnesses the monster of negation take his mother, for example. But such a situation, though frightening, never throws his own being into question, as if making it only a shadow. It can suggest or reveal vulnerability: the death of a parent may witness to the reality that one day the child will also be overcome by death. But, again, it does not retroactively threaten his being as divorce does. Death looks to a future reality, an event that will happen as time unfolds for the young person. Divorce does not so much point forward as throw the foundational event of the child’s very origins into regret and question. Death promises the eventual end of his being; divorce questions if he ever should have been at all. This no doubt is a much more haunting reality. Rather than wondering if you will be remembered at all after your death, divorce asks if you ever should have come into being, now that those who are responsible for your being have negated the relationship that created you.24
– Children of Divorce, The: The Loss of Family as the Loss of Being (Andrew Root)
I can definitely agree with this – that death is easier to handle than divorce. From my own experience, and witnessing my own parents going through something that might end up in divorce.
You, my friend, quote statistics on particular dependent variables of your own chosing that seem designed to add credence to your religious/political/social viewpoint more than support fact. The abundance of complex and confounding independant variables that you chose to ignore, make your conclusions simplistic and devoid of meaninful value. As Samuel Clements once said, “There are lies, damn lies, and statistics”.
After reading and wrestling with Andrew Root’s book, I have to say that I don’t think his point was to compare death and divorce at all. He wasn’t trying to pit the two against each other and create a war of “my trauma is worse than your trauma.” I think he was actually doing the opposite. He was speaking for/to an oppressed people that have unfortunately been taught that their experience of divorce isn’t that big a deal. Society is the one that compares these tragedies against each other. Suggesting to children of divorce that “everything will be okay because at least your parent(s) isn’t dead,” goes a long way to imbed into the child(ren) that their loss doesn’t have merit. I believe the point of Root’s book was to show the merits of such a loss. I also believe his section where he contrasts these two very different losses is to highlight their differences and give merit to the feelings of the grieving children that have to suffer either. To create studies that show that one is worse than the other is sickening and creates a mockery out of both.