The M.Guy Tweet, Week of March 16, 2014

1. Grieving the Gray Divorce, Chicago Tribune
As divorce rates among adults 50 and older continue to hit an all-time high, adult children of long-time married couples can find themselves shocked when their folks announce they're splitting — and find themselves grieving with few places to turn.

2. After Online Dating, Online Making Up, The New York Times
“It’s definitely helped, and now he’s getting to the point where he sends spontaneous affectionate messages on his own, which means a lot to me, and he seems more affectionate in general,” she said.

3. Time to "Go Ahead and Shack Up"?, Family Studies
Most people absorbing some aspect of recent news stories would conclude that there are no risks to cohabiting. [See the real findings about cohabition mid-article].

4. David Cameron and George Osborne Urged 'to Stop Ignoring £46 Billion Cost of Family Breakdowns', The Telegraph
A new report from the Relationship Foundation, a Cambridge-based think tank, finds that the cost of such breakdowns is £46 billion a year, equivalent to £1,541 per taxpayer.

5. Government-Funded Relationship Education Can Work, The Atlantic
The government has invested heavily in these programs because the single most important predictor of a father's engagement with his children is how well he and the mother get along, regardless of marital status.

6. Can Anything Really Be Done about Family Breakdown and American Poverty? A Q&A with Brad Wilcox, AEIdeas
I think we have to take a page here from the progress we’ve made on teen pregnancy in the United States, where we’ve cut the teen pregnancy rate by 50% in recent decades because of a concerted campaign that’s been supported by the government, by civic institutions, and by major cultural actors to get behind a common message to our younger Americans. . . And if we can change that behavior, who’s to say we can’t also reconnect marriage and parenthood for Americans in their 20s, where now, today, most non-marital births take place.

7. Teen Births Are Falling: What’s Going On?, Brookings
We attribute the decline in the more recent period in the U.S. to a continuation of those broadly experienced ongoing trends plus an acceleration due largely to the effects of the high unemployment rate and to the impact of media influences, particularly MTV’s reality TV show, 16 and Pregnant.

For more, see here.