Child of a divorceor a break up? Good news for you, then, as science has basically proven that girls are more likely to be born to tempestuous couples because we're hardier than boys. Confused? Read on.
Divorce rates amongst parents are higher when the family have daughters than with sons. According to US census data from 1960-2000, fathers are 3% less likely to be living with their kids if they have daughters than if they have sons.
Previously, social scientists had blamed daughters for this - either men had a 'son preference' which was so extreme they had to leave the family, or, adversely, a woman wanting to leave her errant husband could feel better-supported to do so with other women around her, like her daughters.
So far so sexist, right? Which is why we like this new research - about why if you're a girl your parents probably had a turbulent relationship.
Dr Amar Hamoudi, an economist who led the analysis at the University in North Carolina, said: 'Many have suggested that girls have a negative effect on the stability of their parents' union. We are saying, 'Not so fast'."
In nature, it just happens to be that for every 100 girls born there are 105 boys. However, this shifts the other way in situations where mothers are put under extreme stress, such as famines and earthquakes. Female embryos can withstand the womb when the expectant mother is stressed. Male embryos, on the other hand, are more likely to miscarry.
According to the researchers writing in journal Demography, this means that daughters don't cause tempestuous relationships between their parents - but they are more likely to be born to parents who are feuding, as female embryos are hardier than male. The researchers spoke to 1,314 women about their marriages, asking how often they argued and levels of satisfaction with the relationship. The women who reported higher levels of conflict were more likely to have girls.
This is just one example of how social science could benefit from knowing more about what happens between fertilisation and birth,' said Dr Hamoudi. 'There are contexts, like the daughter and divorce association, where it might really matter to ask about all the pregnancies that did not end in birth.'
Now, it's not to say that all daughters are products of unhappy relationships, but it's pretty great to be able to re-write science and prove that those daughters with divorced parents aren't the reason behind their parents' split.
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This article originally appeared on The Debrief.