Recent family related news included a look at the recent rates of marriage and divorce, and the meaning behind them, and another clarion call regarding the importance of keeping children away from a divorcing couple’s acrimony. Also in the news was a spotlight on the challenge of being a South Asian Single Parent and the story behind two women in Texas, who founded a brokerage firm which specifically coaches single women on home ownership.
Patricia Fersch, Forbes, February 9, 2024
Negative communication between co-parents can have devastating effects on children. The author shares that parents’ communication (in all forms) needs to be civil, succinct and contain the essential information necessary, with nothing more. Parents should clean their friends and follower’s lists, make their profiles private, change their passwords and not post anything about the other side or the case.
Jane Coaston, The New York Times, February 26, 2024
As of 2021, around 25 percent of 40-year-old Americans are not married — the highest percentage ever recorded. While divorce rates have plummeted from their early 1980s high, fewer people are choosing to marry in the first place. To find out more about what might be behind this phenomenon, Jane Coaston interviewed the University of Virginia professor Brad Wilcox, author of “Get Married: Why Americans Must Defy the Elites, Forge Strong Families, and Save Civilization.”
Annabelle Ariyanayagam, BBC News, February 28, 2024
Aruna Bansal started the Asian Single Parent Network (ASPN) in the United Kingdom, in 2011, after two divorces from arranged marriages left her a single parent. According to the Office of National Statistics, a UK database, South Asians are less likely than any other ethnic group to be a single parent household. Salma Khan, a divorce coach who specializes in South Asian couples, said traditional values in Asian communities emphasized the importance of a strong family base and that deviating from this was often met with judgement and criticism.
Deborah Kamin, The New York Times, March 1, 2024
Single men traditionally get a head start in homeownership and reap the benefits faster, but single women are thinking creatively to close the gap. Women who buy their first home without a partner do so later in life than their male counterparts, missing out on years of potential equity growth. In 2019 two women founded a brokerage firm, Open House Austin with the message: The path to homeownership isn’t a straight line, and women don’t need to wait to have a partner before becoming a homeowner.
Madeline Holcombe, CNN, Tuesday March 19, 2024
After Covid-19 lockdowns, 2022 was a year of marriages. According to Marissa Nelson, a licensed marriage and family therapist in Washington, DC. being in lockdown together gave many couples a unique hurdle to overcome, one that made them get intentional about how they approached important things like finances, compromise and autonomy. Intentionality may also be behind declining divorce rates, she added. Being stuck in a home together during lockdown forced a lot of couples to face problems in their relationship head-on. In addition, therapy has become more normalized, roles in marriages have become more flexible, and people are more used to talking openly about how they want their marriages to work, Nelson said.