Sons of Divorce and Increase in Gun Violence
While the article, Sons of Divorce, caught my attention, it was not new (Dec 16, 2013). Nevertheless, it remains especially pertinent in today’s environment. Hardly a day goes by when there is not a shooting of a police officer or a school. Unfortunately, the trend seems to be increasing and not decreasing. While there are many factors associated with this increase in violence, one factor that is largely overlooked in the debate is the importance of a stable marriage and family.
Family Matters
The evidence is clear that family matters! Young boys look to their fathers for their role model. They will develop a “playbook for life” based on what they see and experience at home. Broken homes make for broken playbooks and broken lives, and we all suffer the consequences. As we look for solutions, to this multi-faceted problem, we must not forget that a healthy marriage is the center of a healthy family. Couples that work on their marriage do better than those who wait for their marriage to become a crisis. I often hear pastors say that by the time a couple comes to them, it is too late to save the marriage. All too often the end becomes obvious with another broken home. This results in more seeds being planted for another distraught boy to act out his anger and frustration on society.
However, it doesn’t have to be this way. The vast majority of couples do not want a divorce; they simply want to be happy again. Marriage coaching helps couples reestablish effective communications and resolve issues that separate them. We have seen 85% of the couples who are talking about divorce decide to stay together after completing coaching.
Back to the Research
Going back to the Dec 16, 2013 article in the National Review Online, W. Bradford Wilcox shares: “My own research suggests that boys living in single mother homes are almost twice as likely to end up delinquent compared to boys who enjoy good relationships with their father. Harvard sociologist Robert Sampson has written that “Family structure is one of the strongest, if not the strongest, predictor of variations in urban violence across cities in the United States.” His views are echoed by the eminent criminologists Michael Gottfredson and Travis Hirschi, who have written that “such family measures as the percentage of the population divorced, the percentage of households headed by women, and the percentage of unattached individuals in the community are among the most powerful predictors of crime rates.” To read the complete article click here.