By Chelsea Pettett | Business Manager

Two birthdays.

Two Christmases.

Two houses.

With a 50 percent divorce rate in America, more than Christmases and birthdays are being divided in two. Senior Alejandra Guitron’s parents are among that 50 percent.

“I never pictured myself going through my parent’s divorce,” Guitron said.

After being married for 22 years, Guitron’s parents divorced when she was 15.

“No one sees themselves dealing with this right in the middle of their high school career,” Guitron said. “They just couldn’t see eye to eye anymore and it’s really affected the amount of support I get from them.”

Guitron is not alone. According to a survey of 238 students conducted by The Marshfield Times, 41 percent of MHS students have divorced parents and nine percent have parents who never married.

Other students have lived their whole life with divorced parents and have had time to adjust to the situation, like senior McKenzi Seggerman-Johnson.

“My parents have been divorced since I was three and my mother got remarried soon after, so my stepfather isn’t really a ‘step’ father,” Seggerman-Johnson said. “When I was younger, I thought everyone had two dads.”

According to Seggerman-Johnson, her mother and stepfather have been married for 14 years and are still going strong. So far, they have beaten the odds of 60 percent of all second marriages failing in America, as stated on divorcerate.org.

Seggerman-Johnson said she has not spoken to her biological father since she was 12 years old, due to his lack of commitment to parenting.

“He was always disappearing and I remember thinking ‘Is daddy okay?’” Seggerman-Johnson said.

According to fatherhood.org, one out of every three children in America lives in a home without their biological father, including eighth grader Katarina Allison.

With her father living elsewhere throughout her childhood, Allison only saw him once or twice a year. She remembers very little from her parents’ divorce, which occurred when she was only two years old.

“I remember my older sister being upset all the time,” Allison said. “She was always crying and I remember my parents arguing a lot.”

Though there are many negative effects of divorce on children, some use it as a growing experience. Sophomore Josiah Cisler has accepted his parents’ separation.

“I never grew up with two parents like regular kids did,” Cisler said. “I’ve learned that sometimes I can’t control things and a lot of my friends have divorced parents, which makes it easier to deal with.”

Along with 19 percent of MHS students whose parents divorced between the ages of zero and five, Cisler’s parents divorced when he was two years old.

“Some kids use it to get attention to fill up the hole of pain that their parents’ divorce has left, but I’ve learned to just go on with life and do the best with what I have,” Cisler said.

According to the National Marriage Project, the overall divorce rate in America peaked at 52 percent in 1980 and dropped to 50 percent in 2012. Though the divorce rates have decreased slightly in America since 1980, some still object to this statistic.

“It seems more and more common for people to get together, have a kid and then leave the relationship,” Seggerman-Johnson said. “Divorce is such a common thing and it’s just not right.”