Divorce: Harmful to Kids and the Environment?
Mark Earley
Prison Fellowship President
Is divorce bad for children? The data strongly suggests that it is. There is no shortage of studies that show a correlation between divorce and what social scientists call "adverse outcomes," such as drug use, teen pregnancy, depression, and other bad things.
Yet, even with the data, many scientists and academics decline to tell people that they should stay married for the sake of children.
If Americans will not stay together for their children's sake, would they do it to save the planet?
That is the question being asked in the wake of a recent Michigan State study. Researchers there found that divorce "exacts a serious toll on the environment." How? It boosts "the energy and water consumption of those who used to live together."
Why this should be the case is not hard to understand: Divorce turns what used to be one household into two. The efficient use of resources, including money, that comes naturally to families living under the same roof no longer applies. In its place are two of just about everything. The researchers calculated that, as the result of divorce, an additional 38 million rooms had to be heated and lighted.
The impact of this divorce-induced consumption is not trivial, they say. The researchers calculated that if divorced couples had stayed married, the "United States would have saved 73 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity and 627 BILLION gallons of water"—and that's in 2005 alone.
That is approximately as much electricity as American households use in three weeks and nearly as much water as all of American industry uses in an entire year.
Clearly, the study's authors were right when they said that after blaming "industries for environmental problems," it is time to look at the impact of households. But if you are expecting environmental groups to emphasize or even mention getting and staying married as a way to "save the planet," well, you are mistaken.
The head of the Earth Policy Institute told the Washington Post that "shifting to more energy-efficient appliances is the answer, not trying to prevent divorce or trying to make divorce more difficult." In other words, get divorced if you like—just make sure your new home has an energy-efficient dishwasher and compact fluorescent light bulbs.
No surprise here. Environmentalism, as Los Angeles Times columnist Gregory Rodriguez puts it, increasingly resembles a "religious awakening." But, like most modern religions, its aim is to make the adherent feel righteous, not to be righteous.
Thus, given the choice between personal fulfillment and "saving the planet," the choice is easy: The environment joins the kids on the list of those things whose well-being is sacrificed on the altar of our autonomy. Just as our children have to settle for "quality time," "Mother Earth" will have to be content with energy-efficient appliances and a check to an environmental group. Any real sacrifice is for other people to make.
Of course, that does not change the impact that our choices have on both people and now, it seems, the planet. We can violate the moral order for only so long before the stones themselves begin to cry out.
Ulner is now serving 36 years in the Attica Correctional Facility. Lisa, the lawyer who helped put him there, says the video of him beating Susan would have gotten him just one year behind bars. Lynne's diligent notes and Susan's testimony led to his felony convictions, she says.
"A victim, her friends, her family, need to document what happens to them so that when they choose to come forward, we're ready to proceed and go forward and hold people accountable," Lisa says.
Susan urges women in her situation to keep track of any abuse they suffer at the hands of their partners. When it was time for Susan to testify, she says it was hard to remember all the times Ulner had hit her. "You have to remember how many times were you kicked. What was on their foot? How many times were you punched? Where were you punched? On a scale of 1 to 10, what was the pain?" she says. "You have to remember a lot."
After Susan's appearance on the show, Oprah received a four-page, handwritten letter from Ulner Lee Still responding to Susan's accusations. In the letter, Ulner takes full responsibility for his wrongdoing in the actual videotape—but claims there were evil demonic forces at work in the family's home, including "spirits."
Susan says she's not surprised by Ulner's statement. "I find it very interesting that he will accept responsibility for what happened on the video alone when [he did] so much more," she says. "[That] says a lot to me."
If you don't have a safe place to stay with family or friends, seek out a shelter for battered women or a safe home. And if you have children, remember that they, too, have been torn from their home and their normal life. They might need help from counselors to deal with the trauma. "There is a whole community of support services with people like me ready to hold out a hand and say, 'Grab on. We're here for you,'"
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