Surely the stresses of raising a set of sextuplets and a set of twins must have contributed to the breakdown of Jon and Kate Gosselin's marriage, but what about other families with multiples? It's been rumored that parents with twins and more have a higher divorce rate, so it's interesting to examine the preliminary findings issued by Mothers of Supertwins (MOST) from an ongoing survey they've been conducting on "Divorce and the Multiple Birth Family."
The survey began on June 25, 2009. As of this writing, they had surveyed more than 2,800 parents or guardians of multiples. Most of the participants were:
Although it's widely reported that 40-50% of first marriages in the United States end in divorce, that doesn't seem to be the case for parents of multiples, even though, as MOST reports, "it certainly makes sense that parents of multiples would face additional emotional, financial, and medical-related stressors." Additional findings revealed that:
Overall, they found a divorce rate among respondents of 3.6% for parents of twins, 5% for parents of triplets, 9.2% for parents of quadruplets, and 4.2% for parents with quintuplets/sextuplets or more than one set of multiples.
MOST cautions that this study is ongoing and has certain limitations, but it is interesting to note that the findings thus far indicate a much lower rate of divorce among families with multiples than expected. Read MOST's report at www.mostonline.org/facts_divorcesurvey.htm. If you're a parent of multiples, you can also access the survey through this page.
Comments
apples vs. oranges?
The difference sounds whopping, but are the numbers in this study even COMPARABLE to the commonly reported 40-50% divorce rate for first marriages?
It sounds like "40-50%" refers to the percentage of marriages that are EVENTUALLY ended by divorce (rather than the death of one of the partners, etc.) ... whereas the 5% number here seems to refer to the percentage that have ALREADY divorced at the time the question was asked.
Also, if I'm not mistaken, parents of multiples tend to be older, and perhaps they married later as well, which would put them at lower risk of divorce. What is the size of the remaining effect when one corrects for parental age?
Divorce Statistics
These are good questions that could be directed to the survey takers at MOST.
Susan M. Heim is the author of Chicken Soup for the Soul: Twins and More and It's Twins! Parent-to-Parent Advice from Infancy Through Adolescence.
Communication
Perhaps it's not about apples or oranges, rather it's about how parents with multiple children (twins in this case) might have a higher or better way of communicating than families who only have one child and fall into some sort of traditional role.