By: Bri Milander
Coming from growing up with divorced parents from a very young age I thought this would be a fitting topic to do my last infographic story of the semester on. I always knew having divorced parents were common because many of my friends also grew up with divorced parents, but I was very curious to dig a little deeper and look more into how common it is. When searching to gain research and knowledge about this topic I was stunning to see the statistics on this topic. It was insane to me that about 36.6% of all marriages in the United States end in divorce, but at the same time, I thought it would be higher. Although, within the past decade divorce has become a lot more common which is so sad. According to united states divorce facts children are more likely to experience behavior issues when parents divorce when the child is between the age of 7 and 14 and children with divorced parents are twice as likely to end up dropping out of high school. And according to the CDC the current divorce rate in the US is 2.9 per 1,000 people united states divorce facts. When reading about this my mouth hit the floor because I was so stunned by all these facts and statistics about divorce. In the back of my mind though when reading on this topic I know that social media plays a HUGE part in why marriages do not last these days. Social media causes tons of issues because people become disloyal to their partners and don’t stay committed to them. When reading all the facts I was shocked that I didn’t read anything about mental health until towards the end when on united states divorce facts that children with parents are twice as likely to attempt suicide. Especially nowadays, mental illness is no joke, and you need to keep it an eye on your children when/if you are going through a divorce. I know when my parents were going through a divorce when I was ten, I saw a therapist because my parents thought it would be in my best interest too. This was because I was an only child and didn’t have a sibling to lean on/talk to and two because she was concerned, I was hiding and suppressing my emotions.
When looking at the highest divorce states rates vs the lowest divorce states rates, I was stunned to see that the lowest divorce rates states were from the northeastern part of the United States. I think I was shocked by this because I know so many people at college from Pennsylvania and New Jersey have divorced parents, but I forget about all the other states and people in the United States. The one statistic I wasn’t shocked about was Nevada being one of the highest divorce rates, but this makes sense because Las Vegas is a popular place to elope and just get married by the fly of their shoes. But in Nevada divorce can be finalized as quick as ten days which is one of the quickest states in the United States. divorce stats in us
After telling you about my parents putting me in therapy since I was an only child going through my parents getting a divorce, I decided to interview a friend Sophia Deblasi about her experience with her parents getting a divorce. “When I went through my parents getting divorced, I was 15 years old and a freshman in high school, I wasn’t sure how to feel or what to do. Luckily though, I had my sister Amanda and my brother Mark to be there for me through this time in my life. I wasn’t sure what was going to happen or who I would live with full time a ton of things rushed to my head when my parents first told me my parents were getting a divorce, luckily my siblings were there for me along with my best friend Julia who also went through a similar situation when she was only 10. I got a lot of advice from her and as well as I went to therapy just to talk to someone about my feelings instead of suppressing them in me and then eventually exploding and this helped me a lot, said Sophia.”
I then decided to interview my mom Kim Balatgek about her thoughts on the statistics I read up on about divorce. When talking to Kim I showed her the different statistics from united states divorce facts, divorce stats in us, stats and facts about divorce. Kim had a lot to say about this her first remark was about the ‘most people get divorced because of lack of commitment’. When I told her this, she said “this doesn’t shock me at all because the past ten to fifteen years since technology has advanced so much, there are so many findings and you hear so much about a husband cheating on Facebook with a past high school lover or a wife messaging this guy on Instagram, it’s just become so sad what this world has come to. Of course, everyone has their own reasons why they get a divorce, but I feel like social media has a BIG impact on marriages nowadays because if one of the spouses ever feels bored within their own marriage they just find pleasure online.”
Sources:
Bloomsburg Infographics 