by Lucius Trae

Created on: May 24, 2010   Last Updated: May 25, 2010

Evaluating when divorce is the right choice is difficult, and it's often not a mutually decision. However, staying together for the kids is not the best option. There are many reasons people oppose divorce, but those can be left aside. If we focus on the kids themselves, they do not justify an unhappy couple remaining together.

Let's assume that on average, two-parent families result in happier children. This means that data supporting the conclusion was taken from a large sample of two-parent families.

However, this means there will be plenty of families that are relatively happy. When divorces occur, that means the parents weren't entirely happy.

Since we know parental happiness is beneficial for the children, these couples were probably negatively impacting their kids in that regard. Given the frequency of divorce, the data on two-parent families is made up almost entirely of couples that are fairly satisfied with their marriage.

Accurate data about whether parents should stick together for the kids would have to study "couples where parents admit to staying together for their kids." Otherwise, any studies are useless.

Furthermore, I found studies implying divorce has health implications. Again, conflict in a marriage has implications. The same poor scientific method is being implied here. You need to specifically target the type of couples who are unhappy and compare the parents and children before and after.

It's not an ideal situation for a child to live with parents that don't love one another. If the parents divorce, they can still love the children, parent them, etc.

Also, the criticism of divorce being better for the kids is one that relies on statistics in an improper way. For instance, if we make up some numbers it's easier to make this clear.

If 60% of typical families raise happy children, and 50% of divorced parents raise happy children, should you should not get divorced. That's the claim being made, essentially. It's false because it wrongfully analyzes people in terms of probabilities.

You know that your unhappy marriage is bad for the kids, but you assume divorce is worse. I disagree, but it doesn't matter. If you get divorced, you can commit to being a good parent. It's not a matter of odds.

People misuse odds all the time. If you want to be an author, they'll say "most people don't succeed so don't bother." This doesn't consider important factors like how good of a writer you are, your financial situation, education level, etc.

Furthermore,

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