Divorce rates

Human risk assessment is not a dispassionate numbers-crunching game. Those who fear flying have to know we’re four times more likely to die in a car crash than in a fiery plunge from the skies, even if we’re boarding a Boeing. The fear of flying may be common, but only a select few will rule out the jet engine entirely. When it comes to emotional risk evaluation, there is one area where phobia prevails over reason: our increasingly sterile view of what constitutes a good bet when it comes to marriage and family life. Since the second half of the twentieth century, American society has been on a mission to eliminate risk. Seatbelt and helmet laws reduced deaths in automobile and bike accidents at the expense of comfort and self-respect.

When my parents split up I was twelve years old. They were officially divorced and in new relationships a year later. My husband was ten when his parents split up. We both talk about how those moments were pivotal in our lives, the moment that we went from shy, straight-A students to troublemaking partiers. My mom moved us to Minnesota with our shiny new (insane) stepfather, apparently with my father’s blessing. He’d taken a huge financial hit and couldn’t afford to fly all us kids home, so we spent that first lovely Christmas eating McDonald’s on the beds of the Mall of America hotel. Logistically it would be a nightmare forever.