Are FIRE aspirants more likely to get a divorce than an average person?

[Raenia]

I disagree! The question isn't do they actively improve, it's are they better or worse off than they would have been? And to know that, you would have to have a control group of people whose parents had divorce-level conflict but didn't divorce for whatever reason, and I don't know how you create that control group.

You don't need a control group.  You're measuring against the trend. 

To put it differently, the trendline is effectively the control.

Then you're not testing the impact of divorce. You're testing the impact of parents who like each other vs parents who don't like each other.

[roomtempmayo]

Then you're not testing the impact of divorce. You're testing the impact of parents who like each other vs parents who don't like each other.

Not if you only include kids of parents who got divorced.

Imagine the following question: For all kids or a sample of kids whose parents got divorced at age 10, did the rate of math proficiency increase or decrease at age 11?

I appreciate that people may not like that question or think it's a good question, but it's not a particularly difficult question.

[YttriumNitrate]

I disagree! The question isn't do they actively improve, it's are they better or worse off than they would have been? And to know that, you would have to have a control group of people whose parents had divorce-level conflict but didn't divorce for whatever reason, and I don't know how you create that control group.

I would guess a lot of the effects could be seen by comparing a cohort of individuals whose parents divorced when they were 10-12 to a cohort whose parents divorced when they were 18-20. Among the group whose parents divorce when they were 18-20, I don't believe it is unreasonable to assume that a significant number of the parents would have gotten divorced early had it not been for the children still in the house.

[La Bibliotecaria Feroz]

I disagree! The question isn't do they actively improve, it's are they better or worse off than they would have been? And to know that, you would have to have a control group of people whose parents had divorce-level conflict but didn't divorce for whatever reason, and I don't know how you create that control group.

I would guess a lot of the effects could be seen by comparing a cohort of individuals whose parents divorced when they were 10-12 to a cohort whose parents divorced when they were 18-20. Among the group whose parents divorce when they were 18-20, I don't believe it is unreasonable to assume that a significant number of the parents would have gotten divorced early had it not been for the children still in the house.

I agree that would be an interesting study, if limited!

[Metalcat]

Why you assume anyone here said that divorce is generally good for kids??

Because apparently divorce in general is bad for kids, but for everyone here it's personally been good.  We are all outliers, I guess.

Some people made a generalization that parents should stay together for the kids.

A number of us who have had positive experiences with divorce gave our personal examples of why that generalization doesn't hold up for us.

When someone says all swans are white, personal examples of black swans matter.

You weren't going to get a bunch of folks sharing their horrible divorce stories because no one was arguing against horrible divorces being bad for kids, hence why people only shared good divorce stories.

I'm sure if anyone was insane enough to say that divorce is always good for kids that we would be flooded with divorce horror stories.

As for whether we're outliers, that would depend on how common cooperative divorces are.

[Metalcat]

This is actually a very complex thing to research.

The complexity of the research depends in significant part on what questions you ask, and what questions you're willing to set aside.

If all you want to know is whether for a random sample of kids in a dataset including math scores and parents' marital status over time divorce had a discernible positive, neutral, or negative effect on math scores, it's fairly straightforward.  Literally just crosstabs.

If you want to drill down to the hows and whys and 10,000 intervening variables, I agree that's going to get incredibly complex and launch a thousand research ships.

Underneath and driving the choice of what type of question people want asked and answered I'd suggest is actually ideological commitment.  If you think divorce is a moral failing that's solved by getting spouses to straighten up, the simple questions and simple answers are appealing.  However, if you think divorce is part of a complex array of social forces and relationships, going full sociologist is going to be more appealing.  At bottom it's ideology.

But no one is arguing against the well established fact that divorces are usually terrible for kids.

No one has said anything of the sort. So if we were to just study the impact of divorce, we would expect to see a negative outcome.

That wasn't the question though. The question was, is a healthy, cooperative divorce better for kids than unhappily married parents staying together?

That "is* a complex and difficult to quantify issue.

[Villanelle]

Marriages that are flawed enough to lead to divorce are usually bad for kids.

When those marriages do lead to divorce--which they don't always do-- whether that makes the situation less or more bad for the kids is what we are discussing.  (I think.)

Put another way, mommy hating daddy and daddy hating mommy (or mommy/mommy, daddy/daddy) is not good for kids.  Whether it is then more or less bad for the kids if that mommy and daddy divorce, compared to if they stay together and continue hating each other, is the question, particularly if the parents who hate each other as spouses are able to be semi-cooperative co-parents. 

And yeah, I don't really see how that could be studied because you'd need to find marriages with equal amount of parent hate (which is impossible to quantify) and then look at outcomes for the kids when the parents divorce versus when they stay together.  (And maybe a subset of that is if they hate each other for a few years and then divorce, hate each other for a decade then divorce, hate each other and immediately divorce, etc.)

(And yes, I'm using "hate" as a grossly simplifed way of describing the issue.  There's fighting, contempt, disrespect, abuse in its various types, and many other situations that would apply here.  But the gist of it remains the same.  You'd have to quantify *bad* in the bad marital relationships and then compare outcomes of divorce or non-divorce for a family with the same "badness" score in the parental relationship.

I suspect the reason it seems that hasn't been done is because there's no good way to do it. 

[curious_george]

Marriages that are flawed enough to lead to divorce are usually bad for kids.

When those marriages do lead to divorce--which they don't always do-- whether that makes the situation less or more bad for the kids is what we are discussing.  (I think.)

Put another way, mommy hating daddy and daddy hating mommy (or mommy/mommy, daddy/daddy) is not good for kids.  Whether it is then more or less bad for the kids if that mommy and daddy divorce, compared to if they stay together and continue hating each other, is the question, particularly if the parents who hate each other as spouses are able to be semi-cooperative co-parents. 

And yeah, I don't really see how that could be studied because you'd need to find marriages with equal amount of parent hate (which is impossible to quantify) and then look at outcomes for the kids when the parents divorce versus when they stay together.  (And maybe a subset of that is if they hate each other for a few years and then divorce, hate each other for a decade then divorce, hate each other and immediately divorce, etc.)

(And yes, I'm using "hate" as a grossly simplifed way of describing the issue.  There's fighting, contempt, disrespect, abuse in its various types, and many other situations that would apply here.  But the gist of it remains the same.  You'd have to quantify *bad* in the bad marital relationships and then compare outcomes of divorce or non-divorce for a family with the same "badness" score in the parental relationship.

I suspect the reason it seems that hasn't been done is because there's no good way to do it.

I suppose if we rounded up 5,000 families and put cameras in every room of their house, recorded with audio for 5 years or so, then had all of the footage reviewed by a team of 20,000 psychologists and rated for things like psychological safety, and level of emotional bonding and fighting, then compared these scores with a slew of academic test scores and well being metrics for the children...

....

Wait - what was the question?

Yeah I think it would be a challenging and expensive study.

I wonder if there are any other metrics we can use as rough proxies for toxic parents that can be easier to derive, like # of references to alcoholism, drugs, overt sexual references in their Facebook posts, etc, which would be cheaper to determine.

I think we could do some sort of study, but the correctness and accuracy of it would be highly questionable, and would likely involve violating the privacy in some way or thousands of people, even more than Google and Facebook already do...

And even then the study methodology would be highly questionable, I would imagine, especially in how they even define something like "level of hatred between parents".

[nereo]

Then you're not testing the impact of divorce. You're testing the impact of parents who like each other vs parents who don't like each other.

Not if you only include kids of parents who got divorced.

Imagine the following question: For all kids or a sample of kids whose parents got divorced at age 10, did the rate of math proficiency increase or decrease at age 11?

I appreciate that people may not like that question or think it's a good question, but it's not a particularly difficult question.

The problem would be you are addressing a question no one here is asking. Perhaps that is why you find it to be not terribly difficult.
Your methodology excludes those who’s parents were unhappy but did not get a divorce, which is what we are all discussing here. Your study explicitly ignores the group of primary concern.

[GuitarStv]

Not very straightforward I think . . . there's a lot of conflicting data:
https://www.justice.gc.ca/eng/rp-pr/fl-lf/divorce/wd98_2-dt98_2/p3.html

This is basically a literature review of the ways that divorce harms kids.  This seems at the very least to set a very high bar for the argument that high levels of divorce across society are good for kids.

Not entirely.

"The psychological adjustment of the custodial parent after divorce is emerging as a central factor in determining children’s post-divorce adjustment (Cohen, 1995; Kelly, 1993), although the role of maternal adjustment after divorce has been more often examined than the impact of paternal adjustment on children and no studies have looked at the relative contribution of maternal versus paternal adjustment on children."

I suspect a reasonable case can be made that if both parents (in the case of joint custody arrangements) end up happier and better adjusted after the divorce, then divorce would most likely be a net positive for the children in the long run.  That would seem to line up with my own experience at least.

[GilesMM]

"Nearly three decades of research evaluating the impact of family structure on the health and well-being of children demonstrates that children living with their married, biological parents consistently have better physical, emotional, and academic well-being. Pediatricians and society should promote the family structure that has the best chance of producing healthy children. The best scientific literature to date suggests that, with the exception of parents faced with unresolvable marital violence, children fare better when parents work at maintaining the marriage. Consequently, society should make every effort to support healthy marriages and to discourage married couples from divorcing.


https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4240051/

[RetiredAt63]

"Nearly three decades of research evaluating the impact of family structure on the health and well-being of children demonstrates that children living with their married, biological parents consistently have better physical, emotional, and academic well-being. Pediatricians and society should promote the family structure that has the best chance of producing healthy children. The best scientific literature to date suggests that, with the exception of parents faced with unresolvable marital violence, children fare better when parents work at maintaining the marriage. Consequently, society should make every effort to support healthy marriages and to discourage married couples from divorcing.


https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4240051/

Define violence.  Physical abuse is obvious, but the effects of psychological abuse, financial abuse and coercive control are only just starting to be studied.

What effect does it have on the children when one parent is emotionally absent even if they are sort of physically present?  What modeling of adult relationships is there when one parent shows contempt for the other?  What do children learn when one parent or both) is so absorbed in their own wants that the rest of the family's life revolves around them?  What do children learn when one parent is so bad that the other parent stays in the marriage to protect the children so that the bad parent will never have even partial custody of them?

There has been a lot of discussion about boundaries in other threads, but the family is where children learn about boundaries - how to have them, or how to not have them. 

[nereo]

"Nearly three decades of research evaluating the impact of family structure on the health and well-being of children demonstrates that children living with their married, biological parents consistently have better physical, emotional, and academic well-being. Pediatricians and society should promote the family structure that has the best chance of producing healthy children. The best scientific literature to date suggests that, with the exception of parents faced with unresolvable marital violence, children fare better when parents work at maintaining the marriage. Consequently, society should make every effort to support healthy marriages and to discourage married couples from divorcing.


https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4240051/

Define violence.  Physical abuse is obvious, but the effects of psychological abuse, financial abuse and coercive control are only just starting to be studied.

What effect does it have on the children when one parent is emotionally absent even if they are sort of physically present?  What modeling of adult relationships is there when one parent shows contempt for the other?  What do children learn when one parent or both) is so absorbed in their own wants that the rest of the family's life revolves around them?  What do children learn when one parent is so bad that the other parent stays in the marriage to protect the children so that the bad parent will never have even partial custody of them?

There has been a lot of discussion about boundaries in other threads, but the family is where children learn about boundaries - how to have them, or how to not have them.

There was a study released a couple years ago which found that about a quarter of all women in our region had experienced abuse by their partner in the last year, with rates much higher for native women. It noted that rates for men were hard to quantify due to a social stigma against men speaking about being abused.  Abuse included physical (including sexual), physiological and emotional.

[GilesMM]

"Nearly three decades of research evaluating the impact of family structure on the health and well-being of children demonstrates that children living with their married, biological parents consistently have better physical, emotional, and academic well-being. Pediatricians and society should promote the family structure that has the best chance of producing healthy children. The best scientific literature to date suggests that, with the exception of parents faced with unresolvable marital violence, children fare better when parents work at maintaining the marriage. Consequently, society should make every effort to support healthy marriages and to discourage married couples from divorcing.


https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4240051/

Define violence.  Physical abuse is obvious, but the effects of psychological abuse, financial abuse and coercive control are only just starting to be studied.

What effect does it have on the children when one parent is emotionally absent even if they are sort of physically present?  What modeling of adult relationships is there when one parent shows contempt for the other?  What do children learn when one parent or both) is so absorbed in their own wants that the rest of the family's life revolves around them?  What do children learn when one parent is so bad that the other parent stays in the marriage to protect the children so that the bad parent will never have even partial custody of them?

There has been a lot of discussion about boundaries in other threads, but the family is where children learn about boundaries - how to have them, or how to not have them.

There was a study released a couple years ago which found that about a quarter of all women in our region had experienced abuse by their partner in the last year, with rates much higher for native women. It noted that rates for men were hard to quantify due to a social stigma against men speaking about being abused.  Abuse included physical (including sexual), physiological and emotional.

If I complain that your cooking sucks, is that emotional abuse?

[Metalcat]

"Nearly three decades of research evaluating the impact of family structure on the health and well-being of children demonstrates that children living with their married, biological parents consistently have better physical, emotional, and academic well-being. Pediatricians and society should promote the family structure that has the best chance of producing healthy children. The best scientific literature to date suggests that, with the exception of parents faced with unresolvable marital violence, children fare better when parents work at maintaining the marriage. Consequently, society should make every effort to support healthy marriages and to discourage married couples from divorcing.


https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4240051/

Define violence.  Physical abuse is obvious, but the effects of psychological abuse, financial abuse and coercive control are only just starting to be studied.

What effect does it have on the children when one parent is emotionally absent even if they are sort of physically present?  What modeling of adult relationships is there when one parent shows contempt for the other?  What do children learn when one parent or both) is so absorbed in their own wants that the rest of the family's life revolves around them?  What do children learn when one parent is so bad that the other parent stays in the marriage to protect the children so that the bad parent will never have even partial custody of them?

There has been a lot of discussion about boundaries in other threads, but the family is where children learn about boundaries - how to have them, or how to not have them.

There was a study released a couple years ago which found that about a quarter of all women in our region had experienced abuse by their partner in the last year, with rates much higher for native women. It noted that rates for men were hard to quantify due to a social stigma against men speaking about being abused.  Abuse included physical (including sexual), physiological and emotional.

If I complain that your cooking sucks, is that emotional abuse?

Jesus fucking Christ.

[curious_george]

"Nearly three decades of research evaluating the impact of family structure on the health and well-being of children demonstrates that children living with their married, biological parents consistently have better physical, emotional, and academic well-being. Pediatricians and society should promote the family structure that has the best chance of producing healthy children. The best scientific literature to date suggests that, with the exception of parents faced with unresolvable marital violence, children fare better when parents work at maintaining the marriage. Consequently, society should make every effort to support healthy marriages and to discourage married couples from divorcing.


https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4240051/

Define violence.  Physical abuse is obvious, but the effects of psychological abuse, financial abuse and coercive control are only just starting to be studied.

What effect does it have on the children when one parent is emotionally absent even if they are sort of physically present?  What modeling of adult relationships is there when one parent shows contempt for the other?  What do children learn when one parent or both) is so absorbed in their own wants that the rest of the family's life revolves around them?  What do children learn when one parent is so bad that the other parent stays in the marriage to protect the children so that the bad parent will never have even partial custody of them?

There has been a lot of discussion about boundaries in other threads, but the family is where children learn about boundaries - how to have them, or how to not have them.

There was a study released a couple years ago which found that about a quarter of all women in our region had experienced abuse by their partner in the last year, with rates much higher for native women. It noted that rates for men were hard to quantify due to a social stigma against men speaking about being abused.  Abuse included physical (including sexual), physiological and emotional.

If I complain that your cooking sucks, is that emotional abuse?

Jesus fucking Christ.

Lol. 😂.

Sorry I know this is a serious discussion but this response seemed pretty funny to me.

[lhamo]

"Nearly three decades of research evaluating the impact of family structure on the health and well-being of children demonstrates that children living with their married, biological parents consistently have better physical, emotional, and academic well-being. Pediatricians and society should promote the family structure that has the best chance of producing healthy children. The best scientific literature to date suggests that, with the exception of parents faced with unresolvable marital violence, children fare better when parents work at maintaining the marriage. Consequently, society should make every effort to support healthy marriages and to discourage married couples from divorcing.


https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4240051/

You need to up your googlefu, dude:

https://www.cathmed.org/programs-resources/cma-resources/linacre-quarterly/

"The Linacre Quarterly (LQ) is the official journal of Catholic Medical Association."

Biased much?

Plus, that is essentially an opinion/advocacy piece.  No discussion whatsoever of methodology (which should be required for any peer-reviewed article, even a meta-analysis of other studies).  Also seem to presume ONLY negative outcomes from divorce without considering/mentioning any potential positives.  Classic example of cherry-picking data to prove a thesis.

If I were a professor grading this as a graduate seminar paper, it would get an F.  Not how research is done. 

[Metalcat]

"Nearly three decades of research evaluating the impact of family structure on the health and well-being of children demonstrates that children living with their married, biological parents consistently have better physical, emotional, and academic well-being. Pediatricians and society should promote the family structure that has the best chance of producing healthy children. The best scientific literature to date suggests that, with the exception of parents faced with unresolvable marital violence, children fare better when parents work at maintaining the marriage. Consequently, society should make every effort to support healthy marriages and to discourage married couples from divorcing.


https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4240051/

You need to up your googlefu, dude:

https://www.cathmed.org/programs-resources/cma-resources/linacre-quarterly/

"The Linacre Quarterly (LQ) is the official journal of Catholic Medical Association."

Biased much?

Plus, that is essentially an opinion/advocacy piece.  No discussion whatsoever of methodology (which should be required for any peer-reviewed article, even a meta-analysis of other studies).  Also seem to presume ONLY negative outcomes from divorce without considering/mentioning any potential positives.  Classic example of cherry-picking data to prove a thesis.

If I were a professor grading this as a graduate seminar paper, it would get an F.  Not how research is done.

I also wonder if people realize how many current/former academic researchers are participating in this conversation.

Off of the top of my head I can think of about 5 folks with doctorates or professional research experience in this thread...

[Tasse]

I also wonder if people realize how many current/former academic researchers are participating in this conversation.

Off of the top of my head I can think of about 5 folks with doctorates or professional research experience in this thread...

Mostly the ones who keep chiming in with "No, that's not how to design a study..."

[Kris]

"Nearly three decades of research evaluating the impact of family structure on the health and well-being of children demonstrates that children living with their married, biological parents consistently have better physical, emotional, and academic well-being. Pediatricians and society should promote the family structure that has the best chance of producing healthy children. The best scientific literature to date suggests that, with the exception of parents faced with unresolvable marital violence, children fare better when parents work at maintaining the marriage. Consequently, society should make every effort to support healthy marriages and to discourage married couples from divorcing.


https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4240051/

Define violence.  Physical abuse is obvious, but the effects of psychological abuse, financial abuse and coercive control are only just starting to be studied.

What effect does it have on the children when one parent is emotionally absent even if they are sort of physically present?  What modeling of adult relationships is there when one parent shows contempt for the other?  What do children learn when one parent or both) is so absorbed in their own wants that the rest of the family's life revolves around them?  What do children learn when one parent is so bad that the other parent stays in the marriage to protect the children so that the bad parent will never have even partial custody of them?

There has been a lot of discussion about boundaries in other threads, but the family is where children learn about boundaries - how to have them, or how to not have them.

There was a study released a couple years ago which found that about a quarter of all women in our region had experienced abuse by their partner in the last year, with rates much higher for native women. It noted that rates for men were hard to quantify due to a social stigma against men speaking about being abused.  Abuse included physical (including sexual), physiological and emotional.

If I complain that your cooking sucks, is that emotional abuse?

When someone makes a belittling “joke” like this about emotional abuse, it’s a pretty clear sign they really don’t get it. Like, at all.

[GilesMM]

"Nearly three decades of research evaluating the impact of family structure on the health and well-being of children demonstrates that children living with their married, biological parents consistently have better physical, emotional, and academic well-being. Pediatricians and society should promote the family structure that has the best chance of producing healthy children. The best scientific literature to date suggests that, with the exception of parents faced with unresolvable marital violence, children fare better when parents work at maintaining the marriage. Consequently, society should make every effort to support healthy marriages and to discourage married couples from divorcing.


https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4240051/

You need to up your googlefu, dude:

https://www.cathmed.org/programs-resources/cma-resources/linacre-quarterly/

"The Linacre Quarterly (LQ) is the official journal of Catholic Medical Association."

Biased much?

Plus, that is essentially an opinion/advocacy piece.  No discussion whatsoever of methodology (which should be required for any peer-reviewed article, even a meta-analysis of other studies).  Also seem to presume ONLY negative outcomes from divorce without considering/mentioning any potential positives.  Classic example of cherry-picking data to prove a thesis.

If I were a professor grading this as a graduate seminar paper, it would get an F.  Not how research is done.

It is a journal of bioethics, which is the topic at hand.

[Tasse]

It is a journal of bioethics, which is the topic at hand.

I mean, I could start a journal of bioethics tomorrow if I wanted to. That doesn't make it reputable.

[roomtempmayo]

I also wonder if people realize how many current/former academic researchers are participating in this conversation.

Off of the top of my head I can think of about 5 folks with doctorates or professional research experience in this thread...

Mostly the ones who keep chiming in with "No, that's not how to design a study..."

I'm pretty well aware that someone in public health or sociology wouldn't design a study as I spitballed above.  And I'm repeating myself here, but underneath that decision is a set of normative commitments to outcomes and explanations that don't moralize.  You can explain divorce and its outcomes all sorts of ways, just not a lack of character, commitment, and daily decision (or not) to honor your vows.  If you start from a position that sticking with marriage is a moral imperative that trumps your personal happiness, fulfillment, joy, or much of anything else, then looking for a bunch of alternative causes and effects isn't particularly interesting or important.  The dominant research decision to design studies that go looking for extensive explanations that don't boil down to morality is itself a normative judgement.

The best analogy I can think of would be two economists discussing poverty.  One economist says that all you need to know about poverty is that people who get a degree or certification and hold down a job are rarely in poverty, so the solution to poverty is training and hard work.  Poverty is a problem of work ethic (a moral category), and that's all there is to it.  The other economist, tearing his hair out, points to the bookshelves ringing his office, and says, "these are all about poverty, and none of them say what you're saying!  You don't even know how to think about poverty, much less create questions about it!"  Now, only the second economist is ever likely to publish anything on poverty, but are either of them wrong?  Is either of them a bad economist?  I don't think so.  They just start from different places, have different values, and are more and less willing to use moral categories in their conclusions.

Similarly, I'm suggesting, those of us participating in this thread start from different places, are more and less willing to think about divorce through a moral lens, and as a result ask very different questions about marriage and divorce. 

[roomtempmayo]

It is a journal of bioethics, which is the topic at hand.

I mean, I could start a journal of bioethics tomorrow if I wanted to. That doesn't make it reputable.

From the journal's site: https://journals.sagepub.com/home/lqr

The Linacre Quarterly is the oldest continuously published bioethics journal in the United States.

Is it automatically not reputable because it's Catholic?

[GilesMM]

It is a journal of bioethics, which is the topic at hand.

I mean, I could start a journal of bioethics tomorrow if I wanted to. That doesn't make it reputable.

I could start a journal of finance. That doesn't make it disreputable.  Not sure what is brings to this discussion, though.

[GilesMM]

It is a journal of bioethics, which is the topic at hand.

I mean, I could start a journal of bioethics tomorrow if I wanted to. That doesn't make it reputable.

From the journal's site: https://journals.sagepub.com/home/lqr

The Linacre Quarterly is the oldest continuously published bioethics journal in the United States.

Is it automatically not reputable because it's Catholic?

It's the journal of CMA.  So, we are apparently bashing all Catholic health professionals.

[Metalcat]

It is a journal of bioethics, which is the topic at hand.

I mean, I could start a journal of bioethics tomorrow if I wanted to. That doesn't make it reputable.

From the journal's site: https://journals.sagepub.com/home/lqr

The Linacre Quarterly is the oldest continuously published bioethics journal in the United States.

Is it automatically not reputable because it's Catholic?

It's not reputable because it published non-reputable shit like promoting conversion therapy for gay folks.

Catholicism and science have an awkward relationship historically.

[RetiredAt63]

I have seen religion affect people's otherwise rational thinking in the oddest ways.  So if I was reading a paper in a journal founded/run by a church (any church) I would expect it to be affected by the dogma of that church.

The most important part of a scientific paper is the materials and methods section.  Not the results.  Because if you look at a well written M&M you know exactly how the experiment/study was done, and if there are flaws in the design and analysis.

Actually no, the most important part is the one that gives the authors' affiliations and acknowledgement of support.  Then the M&M.

[nereo]

If I complain that your cooking sucks, is that emotional abuse?

It depends on how your criticism is delivered.
If you say to your spouse, “dear, I appreciate how you made the effort to make a home cooked meal, but I find it to be way too spicy for my tastes” - no, that’s not emotional abuse. But if you throw your plate against the wall, or belittle your spouse’s effort in front of their peers, or threaten to retaliate if the cooking doesn’t improve, then that is emotional abuse.

One can be abusive in countless ways, just as one can be kind even in bad moments.

[Tasse]

It is a journal of bioethics, which is the topic at hand.

I mean, I could start a journal of bioethics tomorrow if I wanted to. That doesn't make it reputable.

From the journal's site: https://journals.sagepub.com/home/lqr

The Linacre Quarterly is the oldest continuously published bioethics journal in the United States.

Is it automatically not reputable because it's Catholic?

It's the journal of CMA.  So, we are apparently bashing all Catholic health professionals.

I have made no statement about the journal's reputability. All I am arguing is that "it's a journal of bioethics" is not sufficient to consider it a trustworthy source.

[curious_george]

It is a journal of bioethics, which is the topic at hand.

I mean, I could start a journal of bioethics tomorrow if I wanted to. That doesn't make it reputable.

From the journal's site: https://journals.sagepub.com/home/lqr

The Linacre Quarterly is the oldest continuously published bioethics journal in the United States.

Is it automatically not reputable because it's Catholic?

It's not reputable because it published non-reputable shit like promoting conversion therapy for gay folks.

Catholicism and science have an awkward relationship historically.

Poor Galileo. He didn't deserve that sort of treatment.

[roomtempmayo]

It is a journal of bioethics, which is the topic at hand.

I mean, I could start a journal of bioethics tomorrow if I wanted to. That doesn't make it reputable.

From the journal's site: https://journals.sagepub.com/home/lqr

The Linacre Quarterly is the oldest continuously published bioethics journal in the United States.

Is it automatically not reputable because it's Catholic?

It's the journal of CMA.  So, we are apparently bashing all Catholic health professionals.

I have made no statement about the journal's reputability. All I am arguing is that "it's a journal of bioethics" is not sufficient to consider it a trustworthy source.

"That doesn't mean it's reputable" (above) would be interpreted by the average person on the street as raising the question of reputability.

Saying "that doesn't mean she's a woman" raises the question of gender.

Saying "that doesn't mean he's not a child molester" raises the question of child molestation.

Denying that any of them are raising a question is gaslighting.  This is out in the land of "people are saying" as a way of introducing doubt with plausible deniability.

[roomtempmayo]

It's not reputable because it published non-reputable shit like promoting conversion therapy for gay folks.

Both PNAS and Science have had some really awkward retractions under pressure recently.  And I highly doubt those retractions would have occurred if they weren't journals of the highest stature and scrutiny.

Bullshit gets published.  Whether it gets formally retracted is largely about the profile of the journal and the consequent pressure.

[Tasse]

"That doesn't mean it's reputable" (above) would be interpreted by the average person on the street as raising the question of reputability.

Someone called its reputability into question. Giles defended it by saying "It is a journal of bioethics." My intention was specifically to criticize that statement as a defense of the journal. It's a flimsy appeal to authority.

I do acknowledge your point; I'm now clarifying my intention. To be extra explicit, the "it" in "that doesn't make it reputable" was intended to be the hypothetical bioethics journal I'm starting tomorrow.

I'm not criticizing the journal because I haven't looked into it one bit. That said, others have made more knowledgeable criticisms. It would be foolish not to consider whether the publishing organization has an incentive to come to a particular conclusion on the topic. Even THAT alone doesn't make the journal irreputable, but we shouldn't consider the findings without that context; we require conflict of interest disclosures for a reason. The most important information to assess would be the methods section of the article, which someone else here has already done.

[Metalcat]

It's not reputable because it published non-reputable shit like promoting conversion therapy for gay folks.

Both PNAS and Science have had some really awkward retractions under pressure recently.  And I highly doubt those retractions would have occurred if they weren't journals of the highest stature and scrutiny.

Bullshit gets published.  Whether it gets formally retracted is largely about the profile of the journal and the consequent pressure.

I *think* you're referring to the police shooting study?

If so, that's a VERY interesting debate about the motivations behind retraction. I'm DEFINITELY not getting into it here, with you, but it is very interesting.

Also, very, very different from publishing a paper promoting conversion therapy, IMO.

They published an embarrassingly poorly done study promoting a therapy that the mental health world has condemned.

That's like when the Sackler-owned journals knowingly published garbage literature claiming that Oxycontin was less addictive even though any scientist who actually looked at it could see that it was bullshit.

When a Catholic journal publishes really, really bad science that happens to align with Catholic religious ideology, it isn't a good look.

But you're right, it's not a garbage journal, it just has an obvious ideological bias, which is why it's not surprising that an opinion piece would be highly biased to that ideology.

Remember, no one is arguing that research shows that divorce leads, on average, to bad outcomes for kids, the research obviously supports that. Very, very clearly. The correlation is solid and always has been.

But it's a very Catholic ideological interpretation of that data that concludes that the divorce is the cause and not the toxicity and conflict between the parents.

There's data and then there's how it's interpreted. And I don't take a Catholic ideological interpretation of a correlation very seriously.

I haven't seen an ounce of evidence that shows that a child is better off with two parents who scream at each other every night, but stay married, is better for them than parents who split and move on.

Whether you consider that marriage breakdown a moral failure or not has no bearing on whether or not a broken down, toxic marriage is good for a child.

Have you ever lived in a house run by parents in a toxic marriage? Do you have any grasp of what that's actually like??

Have you ever seen a little boy throw himself in front of his mother because he's terrified that his screaming father is going to hurt her?

There are marriages that hurt children. That is the only thing that some of us are saying. That there ARE marriages that hurt children.

[GilesMM]

It's not reputable because it published non-reputable shit like promoting conversion therapy for gay folks.

Both PNAS and Science have had some really awkward retractions under pressure recently.  And I highly doubt those retractions would have occurred if they weren't journals of the highest stature and scrutiny.

Bullshit gets published.  Whether it gets formally retracted is largely about the profile of the journal and the consequent pressure.

About four highly scientific articles per year are retracted in Nature.  I guess we will throw that source out as well.

[Metalcat]

It's not reputable because it published non-reputable shit like promoting conversion therapy for gay folks.

Both PNAS and Science have had some really awkward retractions under pressure recently.  And I highly doubt those retractions would have occurred if they weren't journals of the highest stature and scrutiny.

Bullshit gets published.  Whether it gets formally retracted is largely about the profile of the journal and the consequent pressure.

About four highly scientific articles per year are retracted in Nature.  I guess we will throw that source out as well.

Way to ignore the point I made. But whatever.

After your comment about spousal abuse, nothing should surprise me.

[GilesMM]

It's not reputable because it published non-reputable shit like promoting conversion therapy for gay folks.

Both PNAS and Science have had some really awkward retractions under pressure recently.  And I highly doubt those retractions would have occurred if they weren't journals of the highest stature and scrutiny.

Bullshit gets published.  Whether it gets formally retracted is largely about the profile of the journal and the consequent pressure.

About four highly scientific articles per year are retracted in Nature.  I guess we will throw that source out as well.

Way to ignore the point I made. But whatever.

Your point being if you can cherry-pick an unrelated paper that was retracted it means the journal doesn't fit your standards?

[Metalcat]

It's not reputable because it published non-reputable shit like promoting conversion therapy for gay folks.

Both PNAS and Science have had some really awkward retractions under pressure recently.  And I highly doubt those retractions would have occurred if they weren't journals of the highest stature and scrutiny.

Bullshit gets published.  Whether it gets formally retracted is largely about the profile of the journal and the consequent pressure.

About four highly scientific articles per year are retracted in Nature.  I guess we will throw that source out as well.

Way to ignore the point I made. But whatever.

Your point being if you can cherry-pick an unrelated paper that was retracted it means the journal doesn't fit your standards?

I literally already explained this.

What I take issue with is their ideological values. The paper cited stated interpretation and opinion about what the existing research means. I don't respect the ideological basis of that opinion.

The same ideological values very likely promoted them to publish a very, very poor quality paper that supported a therapy that is soundly condemned by the psychological world. I don't think you grasp how big a deal that is. That would be like publishing an article that promotes the health benefits of smoking.

Again, it points to an ideology that I don't agree with.

So when someone posts what is basically an opinion paper, I can say that I don't find opinions published by them to be very credible because I perceive a clear ideological bias.

Now, I was sloppy in how I made my statement earlier, I did not mean to imply that the journal generally published bad science. Not at all.

I was saying more that I don't find the position taken in the posted article as credible and gave an example to demonstrate the ideological bias that I believe underpins the opinions in that paper.

Journals that publish good science can absolutely have a heavily biased ideology behind them, and there are countless biases known to exist in research publication patterns. This is a known issue.

So me saying that this journal likely has a Catholic ideological publication bias is not at all an extreme statement.

And yes, ALL reputable journals have various publication biases, it's a major issue actually. ESPECIALLY in psychology. In fact, it's considered a crisis. You should care about it.

But yes, I was definitely sloppy in implying that the journal itself isn't reputable, when what I really meant was that I don't take the opinion a in the article very seriously.

[Metalcat]

Let's also talk about how the data supports the obvious correlation that divorce doesn't end well for kids.

But let's also look at other science that can help clarify why.

Poor parent mental health has substantial negative impacts on children's wellness outcomes.

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s42844-021-00037-7

This paper cites marital conflict as a source of toxic stress

https://www.mdpi.com/2227-9067/1/3/390

This paper talks about the impact on children of witnessing violence.

https://tspace.library.utoronto.ca/handle/1807/17383

This paper specifically talks about strategies for avoiding damage to children from divorce by preventing toxicity in the process of divorce.

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.174-1617.2001.tb00620.x

This is a very small selection of research and not definitive of anything, but it is what research is which is evidence that people can interpret.

My interpretation, which is biased, is that the research shows decent evidence that it's the stress of parental conflict that is most harmful to children. And it would seem that that stress can exist within a marriage or within the process of divorce.

Either way, toxic dynamica between parents could reasonably explain the damage to children.

The question remains, are some children better off if their parents try to stay together or if they split?

Wouldn't that come down to which approach they can manage with less conflict and toxicity?


ETA: what I will say is that a lot of folks make the divorce process worse for kids than it needs to be, and I absolutely believe that there should be publicly funded mental health resources available to all families experiencing toxic conflict.

That would help save the marriages that can be saved and help more peacefully dissolve the ones that can't.

Seems like a no-brainer to me. But what do I know.

[former player]

I also wonder if people realize how many current/former academic researchers are participating in this conversation.

Off of the top of my head I can think of about 5 folks with doctorates or professional research experience in this thread...

Mostly the ones who keep chiming in with "No, that's not how to design a study..."

I'm pretty well aware that someone in public health or sociology wouldn't design a study as I spitballed above.  And I'm repeating myself here, but underneath that decision is a set of normative commitments to outcomes and explanations that don't moralize.  You can explain divorce and its outcomes all sorts of ways, just not a lack of character, commitment, and daily decision (or not) to honor your vows.  If you start from a position that sticking with marriage is a moral imperative that trumps your personal happiness, fulfillment, joy, or much of anything else, then looking for a bunch of alternative causes and effects isn't particularly interesting or important.  The dominant research decision to design studies that go looking for extensive explanations that don't boil down to morality is itself a normative judgement.

The best analogy I can think of would be two economists discussing poverty.  One economist says that all you need to know about poverty is that people who get a degree or certification and hold down a job are rarely in poverty, so the solution to poverty is training and hard work.  Poverty is a problem of work ethic (a moral category), and that's all there is to it.  The other economist, tearing his hair out, points to the bookshelves ringing his office, and says, "these are all about poverty, and none of them say what you're saying!  You don't even know how to think about poverty, much less create questions about it!"  Now, only the second economist is ever likely to publish anything on poverty, but are either of them wrong?  Is either of them a bad economist?  I don't think so.  They just start from different places, have different values, and are more and less willing to use moral categories in their conclusions.

I think I can definitively say that someone who says "all you need to know about poverty is that people who get a degree or certification and hold down a job are rarely in poverty, so the solution to poverty is training and hard work.  Poverty is a problem of work ethic (a moral category), and that's all there is to it." is wrong.

Education to degree/certificate level is not available to all.  Education plus profound disability plus lack of family/social support is highly likely to lead to poverty.  Higher education cannot usually be accessed by people with less than average intelligence or geographical, social or financial disadvantage.  People outside the developed economies  or in unstable or discriminatory societies don't get education (see women in Afghanistan). 35 million refugees in the world are unlikely to get "degrees or certificates".

"All you need to know" shows a very narrow, privileged, understanding of the world. It is only partially true for some very lucky people.   And there is nothing "moral" about it.

[roomtempmayo]

"That doesn't mean it's reputable" (above) would be interpreted by the average person on the street as raising the question of reputability.

Someone called its reputability into question. Giles defended it by saying "It is a journal of bioethics." My intention was specifically to criticize that statement as a defense of the journal. It's a flimsy appeal to authority.

I do acknowledge your point; I'm now clarifying my intention. To be extra explicit, the "it" in "that doesn't make it reputable" was intended to be the hypothetical bioethics journal I'm starting tomorrow.

I'm not criticizing the journal because I haven't looked into it one bit. That said, others have made more knowledgeable criticisms. It would be foolish not to consider whether the publishing organization has an incentive to come to a particular conclusion on the topic. Even THAT alone doesn't make the journal irreputable, but we shouldn't consider the findings without that context; we require conflict of interest disclosures for a reason. The most important information to assess would be the methods section of the article, which someone else here has already done.

Thanks, this is a fair explanation.  I appreciate you taking the time to write it.

[roomtempmayo]

"All you need to know" shows a very narrow, privileged, understanding of the world. It is only partially true for some very lucky people.   And there is nothing "moral" about it.

I think you missed the point.  The point is that the history of much social science over the past 70 years is replacing moral explanations with material ones.  Degeneracy, lunacy, impiety, imbecility, etcetera did a whole lot of explanatory work before 1950.  In popular culture, they still do - what percentage of Americans will tell you that the poor are lazy?  Lots?  Most?  That's a modern application of degeneracy, a moral explanation.  You and I may both disagree that its explanatory power is satisfying, but it is an explanation, and lots of people find it satisfying.

Some of the people who find those old moral categories more compelling than the newer material categories understand perfectly well how the translation works, and simply do other sorts of work.  They dissent, but mostly with their feet rather than in writing.

[Metalcat]

"All you need to know" shows a very narrow, privileged, understanding of the world. It is only partially true for some very lucky people.   And there is nothing "moral" about it.

I think you missed the point.  The point is that the history of much social science over the past 70 years is replacing moral explanations with material ones.  Degeneracy, lunacy, impiety, imbecility, etcetera did a whole lot of explanatory work before 1950.  In popular culture, they still do - what percentage of Americans will tell you that the poor are lazy?  Lots?  Most?  That's a modern application of degeneracy, a moral explanation.  You and I may both disagree that its explanatory power is satisfying, but it is an explanation, and lots of people find it satisfying.

Some of the people who find those old moral categories more compelling than the newer material categories understand perfectly well how the translation works, and simply do other sorts of work.  They dissent, but mostly with their feet rather than in writing.

Edit: I asked a bunch of questions, but I changed my mind.

[Kris]

"All you need to know" shows a very narrow, privileged, understanding of the world. It is only partially true for some very lucky people.   And there is nothing "moral" about it.

I think you missed the point.  The point is that the history of much social science over the past 70 years is replacing moral explanations with material ones.  Degeneracy, lunacy, impiety, imbecility, etcetera did a whole lot of explanatory work before 1950.  In popular culture, they still do - what percentage of Americans will tell you that the poor are lazy?  Lots?  Most?  That's a modern application of degeneracy, a moral explanation.  You and I may both disagree that its explanatory power is satisfying, but it is an explanation, and lots of people find it satisfying.

Some of the people who find those old moral categories more compelling than the newer material categories understand perfectly well how the translation works, and simply do other sorts of work.  They dissent, but mostly with their feet rather than in writing.

You know, you are making a point… but I’m not sure it’s the point you think you are making.

[Laura33]

Then you're not testing the impact of divorce. You're testing the impact of parents who like each other vs parents who don't like each other.

Not if you only include kids of parents who got divorced.

Imagine the following question: For all kids or a sample of kids whose parents got divorced at age 10, did the rate of math proficiency increase or decrease at age 11?

I appreciate that people may not like that question or think it's a good question, but it's not a particularly difficult question.

The problem is that this is the only question that has been tested.  That's where all these "divorce is bad for kids" studies come from:  they compare things like standardized test scores from kids from divorced or single-parent families against kids from two-parent households, see the scores are lower, and then conclude "therefore, divorce is bad for kids."

The problem with the conclusion is that it ignored all of the confounding factors.  For example, do they group kids by SES?  We all know that SES is highly correlated with academic performance, so if you're ignoring SES variations, you're not testing the harm of the divorce itself.  And of course what we've all be talking about here:  the parental relationship.  It's safe to assume that the parents who divorced don't like each other very much and couldn't find a way to get along.  But what about the baseline group of non-divorced parents?  Some of them may not like each other very much, but have found some way to get along.  Some don't like each other but are staying together for some external reason (can't afford to live separately, don't believe in divorce, etc.).  Some of them do like each other and get along fine.  So you are comparing apples and oranges. 

Your data shows that kids from divorced families do worse at math than the broad group of kids who do not come from divorced families.  But it cannot show that that those kids do worse at math than kids from unhappy marriages where the parents are staying together from some other reason.  And unless you do that apples-to-apples comparison, you cannot conclude that it is the divorce itself that leads to the worse math performance vs. the poor relationship between the parents.

The best analogy I can think of is the college admissions/success data.  For years, many many people (including me) have seen admission to a great college as the path to subsequent career success.  And if you look at the overall population data, you'd reach the same conclusion, because certainly, overall, Harvard graduates are going to be much more successful in their careers than kids who don't go to college at all, or go to East Directional State U.  The problem is that you are comparing a very specific, limited universe of kids -- kids who are smart/hardworking/privileged enough to go to Harvard -- with a much broader universe of kids.  Sure, some of those kids will be just as smart/hardworking/privileged as the kids who go to Harvard, but many, many of them will be missing one or more of those traits.  So how do you know it's the Harvard education that makes the difference, instead of the IQ, or work ethic, or SES, or lack of connections, or any of a thousand other things?

Well, a few years ago, some scientists had a pretty brilliant idea:  they'd compare the career success of kids who attended schools like Harvard with kids who applied and met the standards for admission but were rejected and went to another school instead.  Because with those top schools having admissions rates on the order of 5%, there will always be many, many more kids who are just as smart/hardworking/privileged than the schools can admit.  And you know what that study showed?  No significant difference between the kids who went to a school like Harvard than similar kids who went elsewhere.  Which suggests that long-term success is driven more by the characteristics that make you eligible for admission to a top-notch school than the actual school you attend. 

The problem with these divorce studies, including the proposed math one, is that you're still comparing a very specialized cohort (kids from divorced/single-parent families) against a much broader universe of kids.  And many of the kids within that broader universe will have other traits that will lead them to perform better in math, including happy families, psychologically healthy parents, higher SES, etc. etc. etc.  Which is why people keep saying you need a comparable control group.  You cannot conclude that A causes B unless your study involves similar universes of study participants, so you take those confounding variables out of play.  Or to put it another way:  the proposed math study will show, overall, that kids from divorced families will do worse in math than kids from families that are not divorced.  But the study cannot show that the kids from divorced families will do worse in math than the same kids would do if their parents had stayed together. 

You can mock the anecdotes here about how we're all statistical outliers who benefited from their parents' divorce.  Or you can look at it another way:  we have the advantage of having witnessed our parents' behavior, and having felt the impacts of that behavior, both before the divorce and after it.  So if we are saying that we are better off because we divorced, it's because we actually have something to compare it to -- we've seen, with our own eyes, what the relationship was like pre-divorce, and how that tension made us feel as kids. 

Now, I'm not going to blow smoke up your ass and say everything was hunky-dory and we were surrounded by unicorns farting rainbows for the rest of our lives.  As I mentioned above, it was fucking hard at times, particularly being made fun of because I was both poor and the daughter of an apparent Jezabel (because in 1970 in SE TX, that was how the word "divorcee" was interpreted).  OTOH, I can tell you from personal experience that if my mom and dad stayed together "for the kids," that better SES would have been more than offset by the insecure, angry household I'd have lived in.  My very first memory, c. 2 1/2 yrs old, is being in my crib and hearing my parents yelling at each other in the living room and being terrified to utter a single sound. And even though the marriage ended only a few years after that, I still have trouble voicing fears/negative emotions to other people -- when I'm really upset, I just shut down and curl up in that same little psychological ball.  I cannot imagine how fucked I'd be if I'd lived with that terrible fear and insecurity for another decade or more. 

IOW, all these anecdotes here are individual data points that can directly attest to the effect of divorce as compared to the effect of an unhappy marriage.  Obviously, the plural of anecdote is not data.  At the same time, the various studies that we do have have not been able to figure out how to find a comparably-situated control group for comparison.  So in the abscence of any actual study, our individual data points at least provide some insight. 

[neo von retorch]

For those of us with limited education...

SES is being used here in place of socioeconomic status :)

[Laura33]

For those of us with limited education...

SES is being used here in place of socioeconomic status :)

Thank you, Neo.  ;-)  I'm lazy -- never met an abbreviation/acronym I didn't like.

[neo von retorch]

In retrospect it made sense, but the first time through I kind of thought it some like CHIP or that program that got me free lunches as a kid. But then I realized I was reading too fast, and that made no sense. Especially since my web search for SES turned up other things.

Also scientific evidence supporting... :-)

(Seriously I was reading too fast and none of my thoughts made any sense.)


My parents' divorce had good and bad results. The quite frequent screaming between two adults was reduced drastically. But my dad largely stopped being a father figure in my life for the next ~5 years. My mom was a narcissist. As the youngest of 4 children, as a ~12-13 year old, I suddenly started being extra independent, because I had to be. But I did start to see my older siblings more as responsible people I could turn to.

It took about 20 more years for me to re-learn healthy male/female relationships though. My parents staying together would not have helped. The damage mostly happened before they split, but then I didn't really have them to look to any more. I did have a kind of trigger response that if I was in a relationship, and we fought, we would probably break up. So I made most fights worse than they should have been!

My parents had very different relationships with money, and that was often a source of contention.

My sister was out of the house and away at college by the time my parents divorced. I was just becoming a teenager, and spent my teenage years being raised by a very impoverished narcissist.

30 years later, and I'm 9 years into my (first) marriage and  my net worth is roughly $1.2m. My sister is hanging in there financially... by a thread. She has been divorced twice. Does that tell us anything, or is the sample size WAY TOO DAMN SMALL?!


I just think... the question doesn't make sense. "Couples that figure out how to spend money according to their values... do they divorce (meaningfully) more than average couples?"

They are probably in a better financial position than average.
They probably value their time, and have other values in better order than average.

So given that, sure, perhaps if they realize their marriage isn't working best for both parties, they might divorce, where the average person might be stuck.

Of course, that was why we transitioned to this question "are divorces bad? good? in what situations?"

[curious_george]

For those of us with limited education...

SES is being used here in place of socioeconomic status :)

Thanks for this explanation neo.

Reading through these posts - Sometimes I feel like I'm the only person on the forum who went to a community college, lol. :P