By Shanti George,
independent researcher, The Hague
We live in an era when divorce is
far more common than it used to be, yet we still cling nostalgically to visions
of the ‘good old days’ when couples stayed together, and relatedly we continue
to stigmatize children who grow up with divorced parents (‘in broken
homes’). Why is it that we hold on to
negative narratives and images despite the changing trends around couples and
families, and portray divorce as unremittingly grim when we discuss children of
divorced parents? The old narratives with
the happy ending ‘They were married and lived happily ever after…’ seem to retain
a powerful grip on the social imagination today.
