I submit this article for your comment:
http://shine.yahoo.com/love-sex/more-siblings-may-mean-less-chance-of-divorce--study-says-225725866.html
You might also enjoy...
-
Hmm, food for thought. The first thing I thought about was the longer your parents are married, the longer they have to have multiple children. I don't have the numbers, but I think if your parents were never divorced, you have a lower likelihood of divorce. That might play into the study results. Also, many religions encourage having many children and also discourage divorce. I wonder if this is related at all.
Thanks for sharing.
-
@TemperanceBrennan: I was thinking of the religious aspect, though I don't know that the divorce rate is significantly lower for any of the mainstream religions. Guess I should look into that before I say definitively.
-
From what I recall (I can't remember the exact organization that tracks the number for the church, Christianity) but the divorce rate in the church is very similar to secular marriages so idk if *that* would play a very large part (most of those in our church are single parent or blended family homes).
I do see how having siblings could attribute to relational skills though, especially when there is a good relationship between them. I mean your siblings ARE the first people that you have to figure things out & get along with b/c they aren't exactly going anywhere! lol
-
I could see how that could correlate. I'd think having more siblings could provide more opportunity for conflict resolution, compromise, and developing effective communication skills.
On the other hand (and this is completely anecdotal) I've heard people with a lot of siblings say they never had to 'kiss and makeup' so to speak because they had other options for playmates and they'd just go find someone else to play with!
-
@septemberlove: Lol that's funny! I can imagine "fine.. I'll just go play with sis #3.. " haha
Our favorite family pastor talked about how 1 of their 3 rules was "don't fight with your siblings" (not like disagreements but yelling, physical fighting, etc)... His reasoning was b/c if you can't get along with your siblings you'll struggle with other relationships later (classmates, co-workers, etc). They had 6... 5 girls, 1 boy.
That's also one of our rules.
-
I liked this comment that was on the bottom from "Mary": "I wonder if people with more siblings are less likely to have divorced parents themselves (as in, if the parents stayed together longer they had more time together to have more children). If that was true it could have been seeing a healthy relationship between their parents that caused them to seek a healthy, lasting relationship. Just a thought." I thought it was interesting that they didn't mention that in the list of things they controlled for...
-
@googly-eyes: good points. Interestingly, my parents are still together and I never dated seriously anyone who came from a divorced family. I don't know why, but I assume I was self-selecting for the types of relationships I was familiar with.
-
@Mrs. Jacks: hmm..interesting. My family doesn't fit this statistic, sadly. I'm one of 6 kids (parents were married--very happily--for 32 years before my dad passed). 5 of us are/have been married...and 3 have been through divorces!
Pff. The thing that all the 3 divorced ones have in common is super young marriage---at ages 21, 20 and 19. We had a super religious upbringing, which I think influenced the early marriages. And all three of those ended in divorce.
So I still kind of think age of first marriage is the biggest indicator of success, generally speaking.
-
I'm not honestly sure there is any real generalized reasoning for why some couples divorce.
-
I am the oldest of two and my Mom never married my bio Dad and divorced and separated two other men. Oye.
I read the article thinking the same as the first part of what @septemberlove: said. Communication was SO bad growing up (and still is) in my family and it's something I try to be very conscious about with DH.
Whenever I dated somehow I always dated guys with "perfect" families, 3+ kids usually, longtime married parents, no divorce anywhere in the family, wanted that perfect family so badly because I never had anything close to it. Now I am scared shitless of screwing up my own relationship and I want to badly make sure mine stays awesome to give my kids the opposite of what I had.
-
@septemberlove: "On the other hand (and this is completely anecdotal) I've heard people with a lot of siblings say they never had to 'kiss and makeup' so to speak because they had other options for playmates and they'd just go find someone else to play with!" <<< in regards to this:
I actually had some social issues int hat, I had a hard time making up with friends and or my husband after fights, because, when I used to fight with my siblings, we would just move on and hang out with the next sibling and the next day, we all forgot about the fight and made up. I literally never had anyone be mad at me and I had no idea how to really apologize to someone because I always fought with my siblings who, always forgave me no matter what and vice versa.
We were 3 biological siblings and 3 step siblings who grew up together so total of 6. -
@locavore_mama: I completely agree.
Reply
Subscribe to our newsletter
- Google Plus
- Stumbleupon
- Twitter
- Facebook
- Pinterest
- Favorite0
12 comments