What, I can hear readers asking, does this topic have to do with technology? I don’t know — divorce courts file papers electronically? Sure, that works. At the end of the day, while this newsletter has a focus, it does not have a brand. That means digressions from time to time. Don’t worry — it won’t be too long before someone in tech does something stupid or outrageous.
JD Vance, and the right wing in general, is very down on the concept of divorce. It is bad for the children, they cry. Vance even claimed recently that staying in abusive marriages is good for kids. I don’t know what kind of weirdo thinks that a man who beats his wife is going to be a good father to his kids, but apparently, they exist and want to run our government. But the idea that divorce is universally bad for kids is the hook upon which the right hangs its desire to make divorce much more difficult. I come here, then, to praise divorce, not bury it.
The real story of divorce and children is more complicated than “divorce bad, even when the kids are beaten”, as Vance would learn if he would get up off his couch long enough to do some real research. There are kids harmed by divorce, of course. A massive change can be destabilizing, and if the parents are abusive or neglectful, then real damage can be done. However, when looking at the research as a whole, most (not all. Again, change can be hard on kids and poor parenting can make the change more difficult) of the problems stem from society treating children of divorce poorly, due to racism or sexism or classism, or the simple fact that we, as a society, do almost nothing to support children.
Study after study has shown that kids of divorce generally do as well, and sometimes better than their peers. And kids with high conflict parents do worse when their parents stay together as compared to when they get divorced. More, most of the serious problems happened with poor kids. In other words, the issue wasn’t the divorce, it is that we do almost nothing to support poor kids. If your parents aren’t rich, well, you should have chosen to be born into a better situation, shouldn’t you? All of this makes perfect sense, of course. Conflict is bad for kids so removing them from conflict will be better for them in the long run. Being poor is bad for kids, so divorces that make the family poorer is going to be bad for them. The problem is that we don’t support kids well regardless of their situation.
Again, this is not to downplay the harm that some kids go through. But it is also to acknowledge that the “stay together for the kids!” isn’t really about the kids. It is about imposing a weird, retrograde social structure on the rest of us.
I have no good memories of my parents when they were married. I remember the tension, the unhappiness, and while they never fought in front of us, we knew the fights were happening. The best thing my parents ever did for us was get divorced. Separately, they were a thousand times better parents than they ever were together. They loved us, they did not love each other, not anymore, and they did the one thing that would allow us to grow up happy and healthy. They ended their marriage, and I am eternally grateful for they were wise enough to do so.
If you care about kids of divorce, you would do much, much more to help kids in general. You would provide free, high quality day care. You would spend lavishly on public education. You would give families money to help them ensure that their kids had all the advantages and opportunities the richest society in history can provide. But all that costs money, and none of it centers the weird notion that only a male-led family has value.
Divorce is not generally the problem. Patriarchal notions that lead to neglect and abuse, societal neglect of the welfare of children in general, and a refusal to invest the resources necessary to ensure all kid get all the possible opportunities are more significant problems. And while some kids are harmed by divorce, more are helped. I have a happy family of my own now and I know that my parents’ divorce made that possible.
It was the most loving thing they ever did for us.
