"We did not change as we grew older; we just became more clearly ourselves." Lynn Hall, Where Have All the Tigers Gone? 1989. Research seems to suggest that the marriage must be under intense and consistent conflict before it can be considered better for the children if the parents get a divorce. The number of children whose parents divorce grew by 700 percent from 1900 to 1972. "The number of children living with both parents declined from 85 to 68 percent between 1970 and 1996. The proportion of children living with one parent has grown from 12 percent to 28 percent during this same time span." What increased alongside the nation's divorce rate was the number of children involved in divorce. Not long ago, a couple experiencing marriage difficulties would often stay together merely for the sake of their children. Today, children are increasingly seen as secondary to the perceived personal needs of the spouses. The number of children involved in divorces and annulments stood at 6.3 per 1,000 children under 18 years of age in 1950, and 7.2 in 1960. By 1970 it had increased to 12.5; by 1975, 16.7; by 1980, the rate stood at 17.3, a 175 percent increase from 1950. Since in 1972, one million American children every year have seen their parents divorce. "Since the introduction of "no-fault divorce" in Canada 30 years ago, the rate of marital break-up has soared 600%. A third of marriages fail, and over a third of those break-ups involve children. One-fifth of Canadian children have lost a parent to divorce, with an effect that some.
sociologists now say can be "worse than a parent's death." Divorce is.
consistently associated with juvenile emotional disorders, crime, suicide, promiscuity and later marital break-up." In 1997, the number of divorces in Mississippi was more than 2 times the number in 1960. The most rapid increase occurred between 1965 and 1975, followed by a slight decrease over most of the 1980s.
