CHICAGO—In a new study published this week in The American Journal Of Sociology, researchers reported that parents throughout the United States are increasingly opting to delay divorce until their children are old enough to remember each and every traumatizing detail. “What we found is that more and more couples are deliberately holding off on dissolving their unhappy marriages until their children are 9 or 10, the approximate age at which they’re cognitively capable of retaining every unbearably painful moment,” said study co-author Anna Dasgupta, adding that children at that stage of maturation will generally have the ability to recall for the rest of their lives the moment their dad told them he was moving out. “And by not rushing the announcement, parents ensure that their children have accumulated at least some memories of happier times, such as Christmases and birthday parties when the whole family was together, which they will use as sources of self-torment in the broken homes of their adolescence.” The study also noted that by postponing their divorce, parents helped ensure their children had sufficiently developed their sense of agency enough to blame themselves for everything.

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