Nine in 10 children born to cohabiting couples this year will 'see parents split by the time they are 16'

Good Morning Goslings!

Todays grumble is this story from the Daily Mail. I read the daily mail a lot, mainly because it encourages my grumpy self to come out, because a lot of the things they seem to print are a complete load of rubbish. But also, some things are so ridiculous that they make me laugh. And i can't quite decide which feeling this story induces.

Apparently, evidence has been found that 9 out of 10 children born to unmarried couples will see their parents split before they're 16 years old. This may well be a fact, although the report fails to mention any other variables, such as out of the married couples in the sample, how many had been previously married? what was the  religious belief of those who had stayed together? Out of those who were not still together, how many had escaped domestic violence? How many had split through infidelity and not just stayed in a resentful, unhappy, negative relationship? It doesn't seem like this study has taken any of these factors into consideration....

Also how many people divorce before they even have a chance to produce any children? How many were married after they reproduced and how many people can't have children at all?

You see, it's all very well championing parents who get married and stay together, but how many are actually happy marriages? How many of those children are happy? Wouldn't that be a more interesting study?

Surely it's more healthy for the children to have happy but seperated parents, than married, bitter parents who are just together 'for the kids' or can't afford to get divorced. Nobody want's to go through a break up, with or without children. But good parents know how to decide what's best for the kids, and if that means no longer being together, then so be it. As long as children have fair access to both parents (I'm all too aware that this isn't always the case, which is a whole other story, for a whole other grumbling entry), then fair enough.

I don't want to uspet anyone who is married, each to their own, but with an easy option of divorce, It means absolutely nothing to most people these days. It's just a very expensive piece of paper stating 'Til divorce do us part' with an optional name change.

All i'm saying is that if studies like this are going to be carried out, surely it's only fair to do studies into all the counter factors at the same time too....