"Broken Home"

[Innocent Lamb]

I agree that it should be retired! That phrase has bothered me for a while now, and especially now that I'm divorced myself. Whether or not the speaker means it in this way, it usually comes across to me as smug. ("Oh, thank you God that WE aren't like THOSE people with a broken home.") I'm not sure if my "home" qualifies as "broken" since we didn't have any children, and since most people use "broken home" as a label for the children (but it sure felt broken to me when I was in the midst of being abandoned.....)

And as a kindergarten teacher, I bristle a little bit at the idea of labeling children, especially for something over which they have no control at all. Down with the phrase "broken home!" It's outdated, smug, and generally unnecessary.