Don't Overlook This Part of the Story

It doesn't pass judgment upon nor level recriminations against Regino Romero — who appears to be doing his best to support his family and do right by his children — to note an easily ignored and often dismissed piece of his story (emphasis added):

If money were not so tight, Regino Romero would use the basement of his Lorton, Va., town home some other way. But with his former wife gone, his paycheck flat and his bills rising, he sees no option but to rent the place out.

In the course of the Washington Post report, we learn Romero's salary, place of employment, the general terms of his benefits package, how much he charges tenants to rent rooms in his house, and the influence of Wall Street on the economy, but nowhere are the circumstances of his divorce or separation explained. Surely that's a significant part of a family's economy.

That disconnect is endemic in our society, and it seems to me that we do ourselves and our fellow citizens no favors by ignoring it and excluding the topic of marriage and divorce from our economic discussions.