The Susan G. Komen for the Cure foundation began using pink ribbons in 1991, but the foundation took off in 1992 when Estee Lauder cosmetics teamed up with Self magazine to create an awareness campaign symbolized by pink ribbons.
When you look around now, breast cancer awareness is everywhere! My recycling can has a pink lid. My father-in-law, a high school football coach, wears a pink shirt during games in October. Sometimes even the White House is illuminated pink during October.
To all who have worked so diligently to fight breast cancer and make us aware of early detection, I say, “Great job! We are aware. We are thankful.”
As an advocate for healthy thriving marriages, I see a relational cancer sweeping through families: divorce.
Some people may think comparing breast cancer and divorce is unwarranted, but the statistics speak for themselves.
For example, following divorce. . .
- Children are fifty percent more likely to develop health problems than two-parent families.*
- Teenagers in single-parent families and blended families are 300 percent more likely to need psychological help within any given year than teens from intact, nuclear families.**
- People who come from broken homes are almost twice as likely to attempt suicide than those who do not come from broken homes.***
- Adult children of divorce tend to have lower paying jobs and less college than their parents; unstable father-child relationships; a history of vulnerability to drugs and alcohol in adolescence; fears about commitment and divorce, and negative memories of the legal system that forced custody and visitation.****
These stats put Malachi 2:16 into perspective, “The man who hates and divorces his wife,” says the Lord, the God of Israel, “does violence to the one he should protect,” says the Lord Almighty. “So be on your guard, and do not be unfaithful.”
While divorce may be the answer for people experiencing infidelity or abuse, for most it doesn’t have to be.
Imagine if the relational cance of divorce received the same public attention and resources as breast cancer. What if we there was a movement to help couples save their marriages? What if 70 percent of all married couples were tested annually to evaluate their marriage and given practical steps to strengthen their relationship? Or if we had a universal symbol like the pink ribbon for marriages in crisis? What if relational cancer awareness united the world with the church?
Nancy G. Brinker promised her dying sister, Susan G. Komen, she would do everything in her power to end breast cancer. While some of us have lost someone close to us to breast cancer, all of us have lost a loved one to divorce. Because divorce doesn’t just impact the couple, it also impacts family and friends. What if we allowed the death of these families to motivate us to change relational cancer forever? I know it’s a powerful motivator for me.
Additional Resources
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*(Ronald Angel and Jacqueline L. Worobey, “Single Motherhood and Children’s Health,” Journal of Health and Social Behavior 29 (1985): 38 – 52.)
**(Peter Hill, “Recent Advances in Selected Aspects of Adolescent Development,” Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry 1993)
***(Velez-Cohen, “Suicidal Behavior and Ideation in a Community Sample of Children” Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry 1988)
****(Judith Wallerstein, Julia Lewis, and Sandra Blakeslee, The Unexpected Legacy of Divorce: A 25-Year Landmark Study, New York, Hyperion, 2000)
