50% of marriages?

There is a common stat bandied around is that 50% of marriages end in divorce. 

I got thinking about this recently, because most of the parents I come across at school actually seem to be living together. So I did some research.

It turns out that according to the ABS, the probability that a marriage beginning between 2000 and 2002 will end in divorce is 33%.

Not all of these marriages will have kids which means that my suspicion was right - most of the parents at the school my kids go to will have their parents together. ABS stats say that the percentage of single-parent families with kids under 15 is around 22% of all families with kids under 15.

So it seems that divorce is not as prevalent as I suspected; neither are the number of kids living in a home without both their parents.

I write this because this is my reality - I am a separated Father of two kids, and I think my initial thought was that half the kids at their school would be in a separated family. The truth is that they are in the minority, as am I.

This is neither good or bad in itself. It may be that many of the kids living with their original family would be better off if they were living with both parents separately. 

The take away for me is that because what I thought was common, is not actually as common as I thought, I need to ensure that my kids get what they need despite their different living arrangements.