THE DECLINE OF MARRIAGE AND CHILDREN
Rutgers University Sociology Prof. David Popenoe, and Jean Bethke Elshtain, Professor of Social and Political Ethics at the University of Chicago divinity School. Concluded that the decline of marriage is mainly responsible for the deteriorating well-being of children.
Richards and colleagues followed 17,000 children born one week in 1958 in Britain, United States and new Zealand. They discovered the following:
a. He found that children of divorced parents, on average, left the house earlier and started families sooner than did the children of "intact" families.
b. Middle-class girls were especially affected by divorce, he found. They had a 45% chance of marrying by age 20, while children from intact families had a 15% of marrying young.
c. He also stated that children of divorce suffer a rapid fall in their self-esteem after the divorce.
d. 85% of prisoners, 78% of high school dropouts, 82% of teenage girls who become pregnant, the majority of drug and alcohol abusers all come from single households (Washington Times 12/19/95).
According to the National Center for Health Statistics, a child living with his/her divorced mother, compared to a child living with both parents, is 375% more likely to need professional treatment for emotional or behavioral problems and is almost twice as likely to repeat a grade in school, is more likely to suffer chronic asthma, frequent headaches, and/or bed wetting, develop a stammer or speech defect, suffer from anxiety or depression, and be diagnosed as hyperactive.
Another study discovered:
i. 63% of all youth suicides
ii. 71% of all adolescent chemical/substance abuse
iii. 90% of all homeless and runaway children come from single parent households according to David Garrod.
We can now see why God hates divorce. But remember He does not hate divorced people!