The other night, I was out with a friend for drinks, and I had a startling revelation. And I'm pretty sure it wasn't just the martinis
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I have been inspired to rant!seserakhJune 23 2007, 21:44:44 UTC
My parents are divorced. They both came form homes in which their parents stayed married (at least until she moved out, in my mom's case). My mom remarried to my step-dad after they'd lived together for more than five years, and they're as happy as they can be. My dad, who came from a home in which his parents were very much in love until the day his mom died, remarried to the most horrible woman on earth and ended up divorcing her
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Re: I have been inspired to rant!tempterJune 23 2007, 23:10:41 UTC
I'm not really surprised you don't like the generalization. I don't like generalizations in general (ha!) because there are usually lots of exceptions. But I never even thought to look for a correlation there, and I was sort of surprised at that -- I like to think I'm pretty good at noticing that kind of relationship in data.
Of course any relationship between is going to depend on the people involved, and there are almost infinite variations there. And I'm not trying to say someone whose parents are divorced is never going to fall in love and want to settle down, or stay settled down. But I wonder if, before they meet the right person, maybe they'd be more open to seeing people casually before they find that person. I don't know, it is pop psych and there's no good way to get hard data because the terms are so ambiguous and there is so much variation.
I just really really hate it when people blame the failings of their own relationships on the choices their parents made. I see/hear this revelation you posted time and time again
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Re: I have been inspired to rant!seserakhJune 23 2007, 23:36:57 UTC
No, I'm not. Haha, if you were, you'd be saying, "Look! My parents are married! I am good at monogamous relationships!" It's a reference to what I've experienced from peeps on the internets and in lyfe.
I just wanted to second what Cherie said. I'm a little drunk right now, but I can still type. I was indeed raised by parents who divorced, but I found that my father's promiscuity affected my life in such a negative way that I never wanted to live my life as he did. That said, I can't apply my own experiences to everyone. Just my two cents :)
I think my friends whose parents have cheated on one another are more likely to want to make a monogamous relationship work (because they saw one or both parents get hurt). My friends whose parents have married several times have a hard time believing in Marriage, even if they believe in monogamous relationships that last several years.
But these are observations on what they want, not what they have. Some of them have a marriage, some monogamous relationships, some sluttiness, and some an alternating pattern of the latter two.
Most of my good friends' parents are still married to each other, and that's interesting. I don't know what it says.
I'm going to have to join the chorus of people DENOUCING YOU LOUDLY.
But I have a very small point: the plural of "anecdote" is not "data". Your sample bias (people you are friends with) is likely to be far greater than the impact of their family histories. In a quick mental overview of my friends dating habits I find no such correlation, although it would stand to reason that people who come from divorced households probably have less "romantic" or "fairy-tale" visions of what marriage is, and therefore might be more culturally liberal.
Indeed, my parents are divorced, and my dating habits couldn't differ more from my brothers and sisters (I'm the oldest of six). If the difference between people raised in nearly identical situatins is so great, I'm tempted to say the effect, if it exists at all, is negligible.
Go ahead and denounce me, it's just one one more body on the pyre when my witch hunt begins. :D
I'll heartily concede that anyone is going to be more than the product of his/her family history. The question is whether there's any noticeable predisposition based on family.
Your last statement doesn't quite follow from what you said -- the effect isn't necessarily negligible, but (assuming such an effect exists) it could easily be overshadowed by, say, effects of birth order.
Ok, well, if that's the case we have only one option:
We must create multiple universes, perhaps 500... IDENTICAL in all ways save the marital status of our subjects' parents. Then we can construct an actual scientific survey rather than these blasted observations.
Insofar as creating universes go, I should like to have a hand in re-creating the crab nebula. It's groovy.
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Of course any relationship between is going to depend on the people involved, and there are almost infinite variations there. And I'm not trying to say someone whose parents are divorced is never going to fall in love and want to settle down, or stay settled down. But I wonder if, before they meet the right person, maybe they'd be more open to seeing people casually before they find that person. I don't know, it is pop psych and there's no good way to get hard data because the terms are so ambiguous and there is so much variation.
I just really really hate it when people blame the failings of their own relationships on the choices their parents made. I see/hear this revelation you posted time and time again ( ... )
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Given the evidence to the contrary, I don't think I could ever manage that with a straight face. :)
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-joshua
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But these are observations on what they want, not what they have. Some of them have a marriage, some monogamous relationships, some sluttiness, and some an alternating pattern of the latter two.
Most of my good friends' parents are still married to each other, and that's interesting. I don't know what it says.
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But I have a very small point: the plural of "anecdote" is not "data". Your sample bias (people you are friends with) is likely to be far greater than the impact of their family histories. In a quick mental overview of my friends dating habits I find no such correlation, although it would stand to reason that people who come from divorced households probably have less "romantic" or "fairy-tale" visions of what marriage is, and therefore might be more culturally liberal.
Indeed, my parents are divorced, and my dating habits couldn't differ more from my brothers and sisters (I'm the oldest of six). If the difference between people raised in nearly identical situatins is so great, I'm tempted to say the effect, if it exists at all, is negligible.
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I'll heartily concede that anyone is going to be more than the product of his/her family history. The question is whether there's any noticeable predisposition based on family.
Your last statement doesn't quite follow from what you said -- the effect isn't necessarily negligible, but (assuming such an effect exists) it could easily be overshadowed by, say, effects of birth order.
Reply
We must create multiple universes, perhaps 500... IDENTICAL in all ways save the marital status of our subjects' parents. Then we can construct an actual scientific survey rather than these blasted observations.
Insofar as creating universes go, I should like to have a hand in re-creating the crab nebula. It's groovy.
Reply
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