Alissa Dunn

Professor Thomas

UWRT 2017

23 February 2017

How Does Divorce Negatively Impact Children: An Inquiry Proposal

Growing up in a private Catholic school most of my life and coming from a strong

Catholic family, Ive always been taught divorce is wrong unless a spouse in the marriage

commits adultery. As a young girl, Ive always looked up and admired my parents marriage. I

know marriage is hard and requires constant commitment and communication from both

significant others. Since living with my parents for nineteen years, Ive witnessed the good and

bad moments in their marriage. I see their constant, never-ending love for each other when they

plan date nights, give each other sentimental gifts, kiss, hug, surprise each other, and laugh

together. I also witness some of their arguments over work, money, and other dumb little things.

Some of these fights are insignificant while some of them result in not talking for a couple days.

No matter what, they always make it through and their marriage becomes stronger. I am inspired

and positively influenced by their ability to communicate through all their issues and their ability

to stay loyal to each other through thick and thin. I hope and aspire to have a marriage like theirs

one day. As I progressed through middle and high school, I started meeting more and more

children with divorced parents and soon came to the realization of how common divorce is in our

world and society today. I am not going to lie, divorce is a huge fear of mine and Ive always

wondered, why do couples get divorced? What factors lead to divorce and how does this

negatively impact kids in a family?

 As our society changes, divorce changes. In today's society, compared to the 1900s,

women have become a strong presence in the workforce. They no longer need to depend on their

husbands for financial support, making it easier for them to leave an unhappy marriage while still

having the ability to provide for themselves. Divorce has also become more acceptable in today's

society. The guilt of the divorce laws are gone and divorce has become a more normal way of

life. Surprisingly, both marriage and divorce rates have decreased slowly but steadily since 1980.

Although rates have decreased, half of marriages still end in divorce. What accounts for this fifty

percent of marriages that do end in divorce? How does this affect children of divorce? These

questions are the main focus of my inquiry paper and the research I found online are both

surprising and intriguing.

For starters, a brief overview of one of the statistics I found is that lack of commitment

accounts for seventy three percent of divorced couples. The second leading factor to divorce is

arguing too much. Lastly, another factor is expecting too much in a marriage, false hopes. The

sociology and psychology behind this statement is really interesting and will be focused in more

detail later in my inquiry thesis. I found many interesting articles that incorporated different

research studies and the perspectives of many professors, counselors, pastors, phycologists, and

sociologist. I will include all off these different voices in my completed paper as well as my most

powerful voice, the voice of a child of divorce.

A question that occurred to me while doing this research is how religion affects divorce

rates. High degrees of participation in religious activities, like going to church, leads to lower

divorce rates. This statistic is believed to be true because religious people are more likely to have

stronger moral beliefs in a marriage. By being raised in the Catholic religion, I was always taught

strong morals when it comes to marriage. This includes not living with the significant other
before marriage, not engaging in sexual activity, and not having a child before marriage which

are all factors that increase divorce rates. In today's society, these rules are not commonly

followed. Even though my inquiry proposal isn't about the factors of divorce, I still took a lot of

time to research these factors. I think it is very important to incorporate this research into my

paper because it gives my readers a detailed background of divorce. This will help them better

understand the impacts on children.

I wanted to research specifically how divorce impacts children. Not only does divorce

have effects on the two spouses involved but also has an affect on their children, if they have any.

Although the statistics I found are scary, they dont in any way doom a child's marriage for

failure. Since divorce can be a negative influence on children, it is important for a married couple

to consider the effects of their children when having thoughts of divorce. My parents have been

separated before, but they made an effort to go through marriage counseling. They told me a big

part of the reason they worked so hard to keep their marriage together was for the sake of myself

and my four other siblings. My siblings and I are grateful of this and we all have positive views

on relationships and long-lasting marriages.

Most of the issues discussed in my paper can be fixed and divorce can be prevented. I

strongly believe parents have a responsibility to do all they reasonably can to keep and fix a

marriage, especially when the reasons for divorce are not the most serious ones. I feel like

divorce is becoming a normal, common process, and I think its an issue thats overpassed by

many. I dont think many are educated on all the factors that can lead to divorce and how it

impacts kids. I was even educated on so many factors I didnt think people would get a divorce

over after writing this inquiry proposal. These statistics are definitely an eye opener for the

public. I believe there are positive effects that come from divorce depending on the situation, but
I chose to educate my readers on the negative statistics and fixable factors that all come with

divorce. These are the reasons why I think my inquiry question is important to my classmates

and the larger UNCC community.