How Divorce Affects Offspring

A Research Approach

Michael R. Stevenson

• Publisher: Taylor & Francis
• Year: 2019
• eBook ISBN: 9780429710995
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: History & Theory in Psychology
• Index: Psychology

In Qur experience, there is bias and inconsistency in much of what is written about the effects of divorce on offspring. When interested students have asked for appropriate resources, we have been hard-pressed to respond without providing a long list of contradictory sources. Much of what is currently available reflects the cultural bias that parental divorce is one of the worst things that can happen to offspring. This book has grown out of our desire to provide a comprehensive, accessible, balanced, and readable resource for upper-level undergraduate and graduate students who are interested in the effects of divorce upon offspring. We also hope that it will be useful to parents and practicing professionals who are not familiar with the empirical literature addressing this situation. Our primary goal is to evaluate and summarize the empirical literature in this field. However, we illustrate important points with examples drawn from autobiographies completed as part of a class assignment or from client histories based on one of the author's (KNB) counseling with families who are experiencing separation and divorce. We have selected life stories that describe problems in order to show possible results and that even difficult situations can have a positive resolution. Although the individuals involved may recognize themselves, there is insufficient information for anyone else to make an identification.

Chapter 1
Introduction

Chapter Outline

1. Preview
2. Perceptions and Stereotypes of the Effects of Divorce
3. The Prevalence of Divorce
4. The Effects of Divorce on Offspring
5. Summary

Preview

Divorce has had a dramatic impact on how we think about families and the lives of children. It seems fair to say that most people in our society believe that divorce has detrimental effects on the lives of offspring. In this introductory chapter, we explore the extent and possible consequences of such beliefs. We also discuss how often divorce occurs and the extent to which the experiences of offspring of divorce differ.

Perceptions and Stereotypes of the Effects of Divorce

Sue Grafton, a successful mystery writer, has said, "One of my theories is that no one with a happy childhood ever amounts to much in this world. They're so well-adjusted, they never are driven to achieve anything" (USA Today, 1992). Grafton's parents were both alcoholics and she had a troubled early life, which she interprets as having been good for her in the long run. She said, "When you grow up in a dysfunctional household you quickly tune into what's going on under the surface. From age 5 or 6, I was scanning figuring out all the stuff not being discussed. . . ."

Like Ms. Grafton, people generally have a need to understand and explain their personal history. They also need to draw conclusions about the effects of real-life situations, including the aspects that appear harmful. Offspring of divorce are no different, and the life stories that we present in subsequent chapters help to illustrate this. All persons, not just scientists, continually process information and make predictions. Psychologists and social scientists do this with explicit theories, but everyone has implicit theories. It is likely that readers of this book already have some opinions regarding possible effects of divorce on children. Most people are convinced that there are effects, and that they are detrimental.

Preconceived beliefs about members of groups are referred to as stereotypes or schemas. Current stereotypes of the offspring of divorce present a rather negative image (Amato, 1991). For example, teachers expect a child of divorce to have more problems (Ball, Newman, & Scheuren, 1984). Because stereotypes can influence our expectations, it is not surprising that teachers' and school children's judgments of a child's academic, emotional, and social functioning were negatively influenced by the belief that the child's parents were divorced (Guttman, Geva, & Gefen, 1988).

These negative stereotypes may also lead to selective memory. After reading a varied description of a child, college students remembered more negative than positive traits if they had been told that the parents were divorced (Amato, 1991). Teachers who knew that children were from homes with divorced parents rated children more negatively than those who were not aware of the family marital structure (Santrock & Tracy, 1978). However, a similar 1986 study that used videotapes and asked observers to rate behaviors of children who were described as either from divorced or non-divorced homes did not find an effect (Goldstein-Henaday, Green, & Evans, 1986). Perhaps these biases about the effects of divorce only operate in situations with some ambiguity.

In addition to influencing our thoughts about others who may have experienced parental divorce, these cultural beliefs may also influence how offspring of divorce think of themselves. Our experiences with students and professionals have produced many examples. One young man who was thinking about becoming engaged asked, "Is it true that I'm more likely to get a divorce because my parents are divorced?" A high school student whose parents divorced 15 years earlier brought a psychology text which stated that girls living with their single mothers following divorce are likely to be inappropriately seductive toward males. She was wondering what this meant for her. An elementary school teacher had a student in her class who was not paying attention; she commented, "But his folks are going through a divorce, so I don't suppose there is anything that can be done about this, is there?" Although people seem convinced that there is some effect of divorce, they are unsure what it might be. Students taking a course on the effects of divorce upon offspring have commented, "My fiance came from a family of divorce and I want to understand him better and see what kinds of problems we are going to have," and "My parents had a messy divorce when I was little. I think it affected me badly and I want to find out how."

When one asks about the effects of parental divorce, responses commonly focus on negative outcomes. It would, of course, be surprising if a major life event did not have some effect. But we should remember that even unpleasant and undesired experiences may have some positive results. Weiss (1979) suggested some time ago that as a result of their changing role in the family, children who have experienced divorce may become more mature.

In fact, the vast majority of children of divorce will be able to offer examples of some positive outcomes (Black, 1982). Common ones include the cessation of parental fighting, learning to be behaviorally independent, and being more psychologically aware than peers. There may also be some outcomes that are not readily classified as either positive or negative. For example, divorce may lead offspring to focus on their parents as individuals rather than as a joint entity.

In addition to the belief that all outcomes of divorce are negative, another common idea that should be challenged is that parental divorce will create stress only for children who are living at home. The small amount of literature concerning college-age offspring of divorce suggests that this event is as distressing for them as for younger children. A recent book (Fintushel & Hillard, 1991) describes the reactions of 100 adult offspring whose parents divorced when they were between 18 and 46 years of age. The authors conclude that these divorces were characterized by bitter disturbances and that much harm is done in the initial phase of such divorces because parents are unprepared for the intensity of their adult children's reactions.

What difference does it make what one believes about the effects of divorce? Certain beliefs may affect one's subsequent actions. For example, couples may decide not to divorce, "for the sake of the children." Furthermore, divorcing adults may find that others make negative judgments about what they have done. Consider this scenario: a couple with little in common marry when still in high school because she is pregnant. After a second child and six years of marriage, the wife eventually continues her education and then chooses to divorce. Relatives tell her that she is harming her children and that if she were a responsible mother, she would not do this. As a result, stress for this single mother is increased by disapproval from those she cares about.

The offsprings' beliefs may also affect their own reactions to their parents' divorce. For example, an 8-year-old boy seeing a school counselor says that from what his parents have told him, divorce doesn't sound so bad, as he will continue to see both of them. However, he is afraid that when his friends find out, they won't want to play with him anymore. Richard Gardner (1970), a well-known psychiatrist and author of books about dealing with divorce, suggested that children from non-divorced families may be hostile or demeaning to those whose parents divorce, and that this negative reaction arises from the prejudice of their parents. Fortunately, the stigma associated with divorce has decreased over the last two decades (Brandwein, Brown, & Fox, 1974; Thornton, 1985), although it has not disappeared. Certainly both children and parents now have less reason to see themselves as different when divorce occurs.

Although a person may hold some beliefs about the effects of divorce, these beliefs are probably based upon experience, or on observations of a particularly dramatic situation. It is perhaps inevitable for individuals to make generalizations based upon available information. But this process may not produce an accurate depiction of what typically happens when parents divorce.

Unfortunately, published generalizations made by people thought to be experts may also be biased due to limited data. For example, Judith Wallerstein disseminated her findings in books (e.g., Wallerstein & Kelly, 1980; Wallerstein & Blakeslee, 1989) and in magazines, including Redbook and the New York Times Magazine. These reports have promulgated her view, also elaborated in professional journals (e.g., Wallerstein, 1991), that divorce will leave a "universal legacy" of anxiety. Similarly, Reader's Digest, which claims to be the "world's most widely read magazine" and which sells over 28 million copies monthly in 16 languages, published an article on parental divorce (Whitehead, 1993). The author argued that the effects of divorce are profound, claiming that parental divorce is associated with decreases in well-being and in school performance, and increases in teen suicide and juvenile crime. She concluded that as a result of the prevalence of divorce, 'This may be the first generation to do worse psychologically and socially than its parents" (p. 123). Although these conclusions alone are disturbing, more significant is that much of the information reaching large audiences supports the biased view that there are major and long-term detrimental effects for most children of divorce.

The Prevalence of Divorce

Approximately 95 percent of the adults in the United States marry at some time in their lives, and about 95 percent of these marriages create a family with children. Since colonial days, some marriages have ended in divorce (Riley, 1991), although in the recent past, marital disruption by divorce was a relatively rare phenomenon. Society apparently considered divorce so undesirable that it was only allowed when a marital partner had exhibited some grievous fault such as alcoholism or infidelity. Divorce has been considered particularly undesirable when children were involved.

Around 1970, the divorce rate began increasing dramatically: nearly 30 percent of the couples who were married in 1952 were divorced by their twenty-fifth wedding anniversary; couples married in 1967 took only ten years to experience similar attrition. Although the overall rate of divorce peaked by 1980 and has leveled off since then, in 1990 there were 2.4 million marriages and 1.2 million divorces in the United States (Ahlburg & DeVita, 1992). The divorce rate in the United States remains among the highest in the world, but it varies with such sociological factors as age at marriage, state of residence, religion, and education, as well as psychological variables such as alcoholism, abuse, the presence of handicapped children, unemployment, and other family stress factors.

Another change associated with the increase in divorce is "no-fault" divorce; that is, divorce no longer requiring one partner to demonstrate that the other has done something socially unacceptable. Legally this is referred to as the "irretrievable breakdown of the marriage." In addition to changing the laws concerning the basis for ending a marriage, some states have also changed the terminology. For example, in Indiana a marriage does not legally end in "divorce" but in "dissolution." However, because of the general use of the term, we will continue to use "divorce" throughout this book.

When divorce involves children under 18, state laws also govern some aspects of what happens to the children. This includes legal custody, where children reside, when they visit a noncustodial parent, and financial support. Census data for 1991 indicated that nearly one in eight families was headed by a single parent. This is double the proportion in 1970 (Ahlburg & DeVita, 1992). In 1991, there were 4.5 million divorced mothers with children living with them following divorce and an additional 1.9 million separated mothers with children. There were also over 1 million divorced fathers with children living with them and an additional 373,000 separated fathers with children (U.S. Bureau of Census, 1992). Ahlburg and DeVita (1992) also report that single-parent families represented one in five Caucasian families with children, one in three Hispanic families with children, and six in ten African-American families with children.

In the 1980s and 1990s, about 35 percent of all minor children will experience parental divorce, occurring for varied reasons. Sometimes the divorces are amicable, and sometimes they involve great conflict, including physical violence. Custody is determined by the courts in about 10 percent of cases, whereas agreements are reached by the divorcing couple or through professional mediation in about 90 percent of divorces. Following divorce, between 85 percent and 90 percent of children will be in the custody of their mothers.

Although still a small proportion, the incidence of single-father families since 1970 has increased at a faster rate than that of single-mother families. Between 1970 and 1980, there was a 40 percent increase in the number of single-father families. From 1980 to 1990, the number increased by an additional 66 percent (U.S. Bureau of Census, 1992). Often children reside with their fathers as the result of an informal arrangement, rather than because of a legal decree. There are a few children, probably less than 1 percent, who live with someone other than a parent after parental divorce; this is most often grandparents.

The majority of divorced parents eventually remarry. Apparently, most people feel that it is not marriage that is at fault but that a particular marriage did not work. Remarriage occurs most often within two to five years, but there are some who are already engaged by the time they go to court for the dissolution, and there are others who will never remarry. Generally speaking, about three fourths of men and about two thirds of women remarry. These numbers differ because men are more likely to remarry someone younger who has not previously been married. To complicate things further, about one in ten couples who have divorced remarry one another (Furstenberg & Spanier, 1984). Following a remarriage, children are sometimes born to the new marriage. In 1985, over 2 million families were living with both stepchildren and biological children of that couple.

Remarriages are also subject to divorce. The divorce rate for second marriages depends, in part, upon whether there are minor children from previous marriages. The divorce rate is about the same as for first marriages when there are no children, but more remarriages end in divorce when both spouses have minor children from previous marriages (Martin & Bumpass, 1989), and fewer remarriages end in divorce when women give birth in the second marriage (Wineberg, 1992).

Some offspring of divorce face more unusual circumstances. A study by Finkelhor, Hotaling, and Sedlak (1992), of a large sample of randomly selected households suggests that approximately 5 percent to 8 percent of children whose parents have been divorced have been abducted by a family member. In 1988 more than 350,000 children were abducted, mostly by fathers involved in disputes over child custody that occurred at the time of the first separation or even years later. These episodes typically lasted two days to a week, although 10 percent lasted a month or more. Only about half of these abductions were reported to the police, perhaps because the children were not really missing but rather were not where they were supposed to be. Hegar and Greif (1991; Greif & Hegar, 1993) surveyed families who sought help from missing children's organizations. Generally, the abductions involved only one child, who was most often under seven years of age. Both mothers and fathers were abductors. Although children reacted in a variety of ways, those who were abused, were missing for long periods, or who witnessed violence were more likely to have difficulty adapting.

Each year, unknown numbers of children are taken into hiding by one parent who believes that the child is being sexually abused by the other parent. Society's League Against Molestation is a group that helps mothers and children go into hiding rather than carry out a court order for unsupervised visitation with the suspected abuser. According to a study by the American Bar Association (USA Today, 1989), sexual abuse is charged in 2 percent to 10 percent of disputed visitation cases. This constitutes between 1,800 and 9,000 cases yearly. Thoennes and Tjaden (1990) also concluded that only a small proportion of contested custody and visitation cases involved sexual abuse allegations. They reviewed cases from a variety of courts in the United States and found that in at least one third and possibly as much as one half of these instances, abuse had not, in fact, occurred.

In rare instances following estrangement, one marital partner attacks, injures, and/or kills the partner who left. Even more rarely, a parent attempts to injure a child. In May, 1991, a father from Indianapolis set fire to a car containing his children after receiving a summons for being delinquent in child support payments.

The Effects of Divorce on Offspring

The experiences of children whose parents divorce vary widely, and children may react in different ways to the same experience. Considering all of the possible permutations in the divorce process, we might ask how anyone could expect to make generalizations about the effects of divorce upon the offspring. Although it is not now possible to make broad generalizations, and it probably never will be, this doesn't mean that generalization is impossible. For example, we expect reactions to vary with characteristics of family functioning, offspring, and perhaps post-divorce family structure.

In contrast to others, this book is based on our evaluation and presentation of empirical research. It is clear that in a variety of disciplines for a variety of behaviors, the offspring of divorce have been found to be different "on ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• 1 Introduction
• 2 How Experts Reach Their Conclusions
• 3 The Divorce Process and Stress
• 4 Family Relationships
• 5 Cognitive Performance and School Achievement
• 6 Gender Roles
• 7 Romantic Relationships
• 8 Antisocial Behavior
• 9 Mental Health and Intervention
• 10 Implications and Recommendations
• References
• Index