Apparently, almost half of kids under 14years now come from ‘separated’ households.  And, possibly, as many as a third of families are headed by a single parent.

It is true too that trends in the way people choose to live their lives are a-changing – and have been for some while now.  More people choose to live on their own, many more – and increasingly, choose to cohabit rather than marry and many more people and for all sorts of reasons (ethical –  ie our struggling planet, or personal (like Abi, for example), because may be they have been personally affected by their own lives) choose to have no children at all.

But – and it’s a BIG but definite but,  yes, there has been an increasing shift from marriage to cohabitation for many years now, but while the separation of people cohabiting (which obviously also includes increasing numbers of their chidren) is increasing, the split/the breakdown between married couples is not – in fact the reverse is true …and marriages are enduring longer.

Although it is true that still overall (probably historical), four times as many people, opt to marry than cohabit, the success of enduring marriages is increasingly bucking all the other relevant trends. And this is really good news as it drives the overall level of family stability. So there is a higher chance that when teenagers start to try and make sense of – and successfully navigate, those scarey (and it’s definitely getting scarier – knife-crime, drugs – and the rest) teenage years that they have the secure and stable environment that they need. And strong families are a foundation stone of a healthy society.

Of course, absolutely, people have the right to choose how they live…whether they marry – or not, whether they have chidren – or not (and the rest), but what towers over everything in importance in all of this, is that facilitation of the thriving success of the next generation.

PS  just in case you’re enjoying the statistics – and for good measure…children from separated parents are more likely to be disadvantaged across a range of outcomes – including  emotional ones. There is also a correlation between broken homes and delinquency.

PPS  What do you reckon?