One More Thing To Blame Your Parents For
If your folks busted up, Science has some bad news for you: "Children whose parents divorce are more than twice as likely to suffer a stroke at some point during their lives than other children, according to a new study. The link between the two held even when the researchers accounted for other known stroke risk factors, such as obesity, smoking and diabetes. It is the first time such a link has been shown, the researchers said."
But wait! Science also sees a silver lining!
Because most strokes occur in people over age 65, [study researcher Esme] Fuller-Thomson said, most of the respondents who had suffered a stroke would have been born in 1940 or earlier. Divorce was rarer at that time, and "the context and consequences of parental divorce in the 1940s or 1950s was probably very different from a child’s experience of divorce now, she said.
There's also a "to be sure" moment about how your parents' divorce does not automatically mean you will have a stroke, but what with Thanksgiving coming up and all you can probably still pull this out as a guilt card when things get unpleasant. Which they will.
Thanks, but my deck of guilt cards is pretty much unbeatable already. You can keep this one.
Yes, but this will be useful when they complain about the deck. "I'm still paying the price for your mistakes, why shouldn't you?" I'm totally breaking that one out over pumpkin pie with cranberry sauce and maple ice cream. Because if there's one thing my parents taught me, it's "give with one hand, take with the other."
Right with you, Lil. If (when) my mother gets all passive-aggressive on my ass, I'll be throwing out this nugget to add to her guilt pile.
It's always nice to have the option, you know? Only question is how mom's new boyfriend will respond.
@do: Some folks calls it a Kaiser blade…
Well that's just perfect. Given all the pre-natal liquor I consumed, and my second-hand smoking until taking on the practice directly at 16, the ignored seat belts and the lead paint I'm sure I licked right off of toys, I'm wondering how I made it this far.
Yankee persistence.
And while we're on the topic, my parents smoked so much in our house growing up you could actually *see* the haze hanging in the air. One of my daily chores as a kid was cleaning out the always-full ashtrays.
It's like we grew up in the same house.
My parents are still together, but that doesn't mean they didn't do damage. They just cooperated in doing the damage. It was a team effort.
Two words: cognitive bias.