Well, no. For one thing, staying in my marriage was no longer an option.
当然不是。第一，维持婚姻已经不再是我的选择。
Secondly, the more I began talking to researchers, clinicians, divorced parents and adult children of divorce, the more it became apparent that I could raise a happy, healthy child in a variety of scenarios—including not being married to his dad.
第二，我开始跟研究人员、临床医师、离异父母和离异家庭成长起来的孩子谈论，谈论的越多，事实就越明显，我在各种环境下都能够培养出一个健康、快乐的孩子——包括与他父亲离婚。
Michael Lamb的数据调查——“母亲、父亲、家庭、和环境：影响孩子适应的因素”——总结了一些鼓励性童年的特点
Children do well when they have good relationships with both parents or primary caregivers, adults who basically get along. But those parents don’t need to be married or living in the same house.
如果孩子们与父母、主要照顾者、或者日常相处的其他成年人的关系很好，那么孩子就会表现得很好。但是这些父母们并不一定要结婚或者生活在同一个屋檐下。
Children need adequate resources such as food, safe housing, and social support. But they don’t need a mansion with every toy available, and those resources can be provided by parents who are not married or living in the same house.
孩子们需要充足的资源比如食物、安全的居住环境以及社会支持。他们不需要充满各式玩具的豪宅，而这些孩子们需要的资源是不结婚或者不住在一起的父母们也可以提供的。
What Lamb’s exhaustive overview and the work of dozens of other scholars shows is that marriage isn’t what matters so much to a child’s wellbeing, but rather a loving relationship with parents who aren’t embroiled in conflict, and a decent home life.
Lamb详细的观点以及几十位学者的研究都显示，相对来说，婚姻对孩子的幸福没有那么重要，但是与父母良好的关系、不会卷入父母的争吵、以及得体的家庭生活对孩子来说更为重要。
1. Because we know that high conflict between the parents is one of the most damaging experiences for children, we can foster cooperation with our co-parent, and work to squash conflict.
我们都知道，父母间激烈的争吵对孩子来说是最危险的经历，我们可以与共同父母促进合作，弱化争吵。
2. Because we know that children benefit from stability, we can focus on establishing new routines that work in our newly structured lives.
我们知道孩子们会从稳定性中获益，我们可以集中精力建立新的日常生活，致力于新型结构的生活。
3. Without a spouse around to blame for, well, everything, we can let divorce challenge us to be a better, more focused parent and to bring our personal strengths to our child-rearing. We also can look for ways that the very characteristics of our ex that annoyed us in marriage (“He’s such a neat freak!” or “All she cares about is hiking!”) may benefit our children; how great to have one parent who likes the outdoors.
身旁没有伴侣，我们再也不能把所有的责任推给伴侣，那么，离婚带给我们的挑战就是让我们变成一个更好、更专注的父母，将我们个人的优点带入孩子的成长。也可以寻找上一段婚姻里前任有哪些特点惹恼了我们（“他是一个有洁癖的人!”或者“他最关心的就是旅行!”）,这样可能也会有益于孩子；有一个喜欢户外的父亲或母亲到底有多好。
4. We can create positive moments for our children that have nothing to do with the state of their parents' love life. We can foster engagement in outside activities and with other supportive adults.
我们可以为孩子们创造积极的时刻，这些时刻与父母的爱情生活无关。我们还能培养对户外运动的热爱，也可以和其他监护人一起参与活动。
5.Because we understand that being emotionally present for our children rests on our own recuperation, we can prioritize taking care of the care-givers, ourselves.
我们都明白，在离婚的恢复过程中，感情上能给孩子最好的礼物就是监护人，我们自己。