Do Americans Equate Divorce With Failure?

A recent article in the New York Times suggests that there has been a cultural shift away from divorce since the 1970s, especially among groups of well-educated Americans. Andrew Cherlin, a sociology professor at Johns Hopkins University, said: “The shift in attitudes and behavior is very real. Among upper-middle-class Americans, the divorce rate is going down, and they’re becoming more conservative toward divorce.”

Author Pamela Paul speculates “Is this, then, the revenge of the children-of-divorce generation, rebelling against the experiences of their mothers and fathers? When I asked people who divorced in their 20s and 30s while researching my 2002 book, “The Starter Marriage,” about why they divorced with such alacrity, the response was near universal: ‘I wanted to do it before it was too late – before we had kids.'”

Whereas their parents were divorce pioneers in the ’70s, today’s divorcing couples are very aware of how divorce feels to a 7-year-old because divorce defined their own lives.

If you are a child of divorced parent, how do you think it has affected your adult relationships? And if you are divorced yourself, do experience the kind of judgment described in the article? Read the article here and share your experiences in the comments below.