by Robert Bortins on X
The comfortable myth is dying, and the data is devastating.
For decades, we’ve been sold a story: Children are resilient. They’ll bounce back. Sometimes divorce is better for everyone. The kids will be fine.
We believed it because we wanted to. Because it absolved our adult choices. Because acknowledging the truth would be too painful.
But a groundbreaking study from the National Bureau of Economic Research—tracking over 5 million children through linked tax and Census data—has shattered this comfortable narrative. And what it reveals should shake every parent to their core.
The Lie We Tell Ourselves
“The kids are resilient.”
It’s perhaps the most repeated lie in modern family discourse. Psychologists assured us. Family court judges nodded along. Well-meaning friends whispered it at coffee shops. Even the church, desperate to appear compassionate, softened its stance.
One perspective held that unhappy marriages fundamentally harm children through exposure to conflict, making divorce beneficial for everyone involved. The opposing view warned that divorce harms children by reducing financial resources, stability, and parental investment. A third camp insisted that genetics and peer groups matter far more than family structure anyway.
These academic debates played out in tiny samples, retrospective surveys, and methodologically weak studies while real children grew up in the aftermath of their parents’ broken vows.
Until now, we lacked the data to know the truth.
What 5 Million Children Reveal