I was watching the news this morning and a story aired about the likelihood of divorce in certain families.  Another one of those “studies” where I wonder who “they” are, who “they” questioned and how “they” come up with the results.  These things drive me NUTS!

The newscaster reported that families where a girl is the oldest child have a 5% more likelihood of divorce.   In addition, families with no sons, only daughters – three in particular – are 10% more likely to divorce.

Well, lucky for me, my husband and I have three daughters.  Guess I’d better start packing his bags!

Please!  What is the purpose of a “study” like this?  Are we, as a society, trying to come up with even more excuses why people divorce?

“Ohhh, he had daughters.  No wonder they divorced!”

Yea… um…  I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that the fact that someone has certain sex children has nothing to do with divorce.  Divorce is a decision made by people.  Not the gender of children.  And what pressure to put on children watching this report?  As if there is not enough insecurity and confusion in children’s lives, let’s introduce to them that because they are female, or autistic, or gay, or multiples, that they are the reason for their parent’s divorce.  How very responsible of us as adults!

And why even introduce the idea that men feel that their sons are more important than their daughters?  That if they do not have a male heir, they consider their families more expendable?  Why give people an excuse to leave instead of a conviction to stay?  Where are the interviews with the Dads who have raised daughters, loved their daughters, and made family a priority over everything else?  Where is their “study” and pat on the back?

Interestingly, in my life, the people that I know who have divorced, and honestly, it is not as many as “studies” would have us believe, the children are mixed.  Boys, girls, any order, always involved, always hurt, always confused.

The parents do not come by the decision lightly, flippantly excusing the divorce with a statistic.  They are devastated, questioning, and depressed.  And always, always, deeply worried about their children!

I realize that this “study” is simply a tool to try to understand this country’s seemingly growing epidemic of nuclear families and single parenthood.  But I think the money could have been used more wisely.

Like on funding a study to explain why these studies so enrage me every time I see one!