5 Strands of Hope: So Now I'm Annoyed...Divorce Rate is Only 5%

My kids are playing nicely (for the most part) and I was thinking about the high divorce rate among high-level multiples. Remember my pediatrician told me that his son said the divorce rate for parents of triplets was 90%. Well, I decided to actually use my research skills and find the study.

The Best Side of Triplets

IT'S NOT TRUE

MOST (Mothers of Supertwins) conducted a survey of parents with multiples (twins, triplets, quadruplets, etc.) from June 25, 2009 to July 27, 2009. The survey was designed to develop baseline statistics about the prevalence of divorce among multiple birth parents and contained 10 multi-part questions on family background, socioeconomic status, parent and children's age, as well as questions about marital status and divorce.

The survey found:

That 4.3% of respondents divorced during the pregnancy or following the birth of multiples (indicating that the divorce rate among this group may not be as high as many have speculated.)
Over 95% of the marriages were intact.
About 82% of the respondents reported an overall positive level of marital satisfaction.

According to MOST researcher, Dr. Laurie LaMonde, a clinical psychologist and mother of triplets, “Identifying a more accurate divorce rate is important to ease the concerns of multiple birth families as well as to determine if additional services may be beneficial for families that may be at greater risk of marital discord.”

Specifically, the divorce rate was:

3.6% for parents with twins
5% for parents with triplets
9.2% for parents with quadruplets
4.2% for parents with quintuplets/sextuplets or multiple sets of multiples

Managing the Path with Triplets + One

I think this is most interesting (2 more years to go!) For those who got divorced, the majority of their multiples were between the ages of 1 and 5 at the time.

Here is the link to the article.