Some things are different structurally. Eg about 50 years ago most kids grew up with both of their parents, today it’s about half.

Less adult time per child means a generation with far less formation.

It has to collapse before it gets better, but it will take centuries to get back to Rome levels of violence and back stabbing.

Actually its over 70% of kids in USA grow up with two parents still. 50 years ago it was 85%, but that would have been with a lot of unhappy and abusive marriages that now with no-fault divorce are able to be dissolved.

Also child sexual and physical abuse has reduced during this same time frame. "According to David Finkelhor who tracked Child Maltreatment Report (NCANDS) data from 1990 to 2010, sexual abuse had declined 62% from 1992 to 2009 and the long-term trend for physical abuse was also down by 56% since 1992." from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_abuse

We have a lot of problems, but your understand of the issues are poor.

What's the relationship between abusive marriages and no-fault divorce? Won't abusive people be the easiest to divorce with fault?

Abusers are at their most dangerous when you try to leave them. They will be even more dangerous if you have to damage their public reputation with the ugly truth to try to escape.

No fault divorce makes it vastly easier to divorce for a lot of reasons and making it unnecessarily hard to leave can foster situations where it becomes abusive because they don't get along that well and can't just up and leave because they want to.

Understood, but in this context of parenting and looming child support, would that not present an equally difficult situation?

That's theory. In reality abused women may choose not to attempt to divorce (or even leave) their abusive husband since they fear retaliation.

How is that relevant? Why would no-fault divorce help that situation?

Fault divorce is more expensive and requires burden of proof.

Abuse isn't always reported, and abusers often manipulate or lie.

It’s closer to 60% if we limit biological parents: That’s only to note that step parents are significantly more likely to abuse, so the way this plays out is complicated. https://pure.hud.ac.uk/en/publications/violence-against-chil....

Twice as many children are raised by single mothers today compared to 50 years ago. Maybe that’s the more relevant statistic? (Yes there are hero stories where one could argue this doesn’t matter…)

How I can be a good example to my child is what I’m most worried about. I’m not even convinced myself that having the highest levels of integrity is beneficial in current society, let alone when they’re of age.

Meritocracy doesn't exist for the poor. Before getting my job at The Atlantic through a random personal connection, I experienced job discrimination on the basis of not having graduated from a "prestigious" institution. Obviously this is coded language for being poor. To add insult to injury, I had actually aced a couple engineering courses that University of Michigan had provided to my high school class. You don't get to put that on your resume though. Even though I've always been honest to fault, I would never judge a poor person for skirting the rules of society. At the end of the day, if hiring managers can't tell whether candidates have fake credentials, all that does is prove that credentialism is not about merit.