Divorce Day, 2019
January 9, 2019The Topic: Divorce Day, 2019The News Story: New Year, Stale Marriage? January Brings Surge in FilingsThe New Research: The Children of Divorce—Anything but Resilient In the U.S., U.K., and many other nations around the world, the first working January after the holidays is dubbed “Divorce Day.” It’s the day when spouses realize they simply cannot take one more year of their marriages, and call their attorneys. “People have this renewed sense of not having a repeat of the last couple of years,” says Kimberly Cook, partner at Chicago firm Schiller DuCanto & Fleck, to the Chicago Tribune. “A lot of times the holidays and the end of the year was somebody’s last straw. The decision to file at this time usually is due to resolving to take the relationship and life in a new direction; it’s similar to the surge in gym memberships.” Cook gives the Tribune’s readers a few points to ponder before making the call. Among them: “don’t rush,” “explore the process,” and “keep the kids in mind.” And although one might assume that last point means you should think carefully before putting your kids through the trauma of a divorce, the story seems to imply the opposite: “Don’t suffer through an unhappy relationship for the sake of the kids — they pick up on things and model certain behaviors, but they’re also resilient.” But years of research reveals that kids’ “resilience” may be more of a parental delusion than a cold hard fact. (Source: Christen A. Johnson, “New Year, Stale Marriage? January Brings Surge in Filings,” Chicago Tribune,January 8, 2019.) The New Research: The Children of Divorce—Anything but Resilient When pressed to admit that the divorce revolution they led has hurt children, progressives invoke the myth of children’s resilience. Yes, they say, parental divorce does hurt children, but—not to worry—children are resilient: they bounce back in a year or two. But so
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