Final Summary/ Reaction

Ultimately my survey gave me great results. My questions were detailed and I received good feedback on them. I'm definitely happy with my final results after all of the research and blogging I've been doing throughout the first half of this school year. My project is coming along nicely and I look forward to presenting my information and getting responses from my classmates. As far as my reaction goes my questions weren't too scandalous so nothing really surprised me. It's apparent that every individual's upbringing changed their outlook on marriage, however, which is not a shocker. Thanks for following my blog!

Revised Summary/ Plan/ Update

My survey is ready to go and will be linked here very shortly via google document. With my survey I hope to discover the stereotypes of children of divorced parents from both sides of the situation: a married or divorced upbringing. My questions are tailored to each person of either category. It'll be interesting to receive a majority public opinion of the topic.

Research Update

I'm still going through with my survey strategy for this project. I've made a list of questions to ask on my survey with questions that are tailored to persons with parents who are together OR divorced. It'll be interesting to see the replies and final results. I'm not targeting a specific age group but these questions will lead me to a better understanding of children of divorced parents stereotyping. Because of the anonymity I hope the answers on the survey will be honest, but there's always a chance of false replies. I plan to put the survey on a website and get enough hits on it to be able to gather enough information and write a report about my findings.

Strategy/Plan for Research

My research method is going to be in the form of a survey in which I am going to ask a series of questions for children with divorced parents and children whose parents are still married. I am going to administer an online survey and hopefully gather at least 20 responses. I expect to target a 16-22 year old age group and hope to receive enough feedback to determine if child-stereotyping of children of divorced parents is as prominent as it was in the past.

Research Method

The first quarter of school is over and I've completed my semester 1 project; now, for the second part of my project, I'm going to utilize my information in the form of a research method. I'm thinking about doing a survey or a questionnaire where I ask people about their preconceived stereotype of children of divorced parents. Out of all the methods this one will give me the majority's view of children of divorce because of the large amount of responders and most accurately represent how these children are viewed in this year.

Divorce's Silver Lining for Daughters?

New research suggests that "bad divorces" are more beneficial for daughters than "quiet divorces." Professor of sociology at the University of Texas at Austin, Norval Glenn, and director at the Institute for American Marriage and Families, Elizabeth Marquardt, said that "successful" young adults who have undergone "quiet divorces" still carry internal scars with them. Bad divorces are considered to be preferable to good ones in some areas.
Of their research, the most interesting discovery was that daughters of "bad divorces" were more likely to have a lasting, fulfilling marriage when compared to daughters of "good divorces."
This could be because of the opposite effect which is when a child can see their parents' mistakes and avoid them in their lifetime.
"Good divorces" says psychologist Michael Bradley, "confuses kids." It's more common for children to grasp the idea of a conflicted marriage that leads to divorce.
I think this is a really interesting article and I agree that "good divorces" can possibly confuse children because it's uncommon, but it's only seen in this way because that's the way it's projected into society. "Good divorces" should be embraced because both parties can accept their differences and move on from them in a mature way.

Divorce and Children: "Facts"

"The divorce of parents, even if it is amicable, tears apart the fundamental unit of American society," is the opening statement of the video embedded above. This video contains many controversial "facts" that once again portray children of divorced parents negatively. All of these "facts" are debatable and many children who have experienced their parents' divorce disagree with the video. One person commented, "This is horrible I am a child of divorce and I have none of these problems."

This first statement really caught my attention, though. All of these statistics of children of divorce are based of what American society has decided its core values to be. Family is a longstanding tradition in the United States so divorce is still somewhat seen as a taboo. Public opinion of society fundamentally forms our own opinions and outlooks. Maybe if divorce is seen as less of a taboo, these negative stereotypes of children of divorce can be changed.