Joel Miller's Family Law Centre

Newspaper items and related websites dealing with Judith Wallerstein's newest study.

Children feel full effects of divorce as adults: study
25-year project:
Those whose parents separated found to have more problems

Divorce affects children most severely decades after their parents separate, when they reach their 20s and 30s and struggle to create their own families, a new study has found.

In a one-of-a-kind study that took 25 years to complete, sociologist and author Judith Wallerstein found children who grew up in divorced families found forming intimate and lasting relationships of their own more difficult than the adult children whose parents remained together.

Adult children of divorced parents were found to be less likely to marry, more likely to divorce, and more likely to have children out of wedlock and to use drugs, according to the study, which was based on in-depth interviews with 100 children in a Northern California community who were followed by researchers for 25 years. The project began in 1971, soon after California liberalized its divorce laws.

The adult children of divorce tend to expect their relationships to fail and they struggle with the fear of loss, conflict, betrayal and loneliness, the study concludes.

"The delayed impact of divorce in adulthood is a revolutionary finding and a stunning surprise," writes Ms. Wallerstein, the 78-year-old senior lecturer emeritus of the University of California at Berkeley whose previous studies on divorce have gained her a large public following around the world.

"We failed to realize that living in a post-divorce family is an entirely different experience for children as opposed to adults. The story of divorce is far more complex and the impact more far-reaching than we had ever imagined," she asserts.

In The Unexpected Legacy of Divorce: A 25 Year Landmark Study, published this week by Hyperion and co-authored with Julia Lewis, a professor of psychology at San Francisco State University, and Sandra Blakeslee, science writer for The New York Times, Ms. Wallerstein attacks the "trickle-down theory of divorce." If divorce is better for an unhappy parent, it is not necessarily better for the children, she argues.

Of the adult children of divorce she followed over 25 years, 60% are married, compared to 80% of those in a comparison group whose parents' marriage lasted.

Thirty-eight per cent of adult children of divorce have their own children, 17% of which were born out of wedlock. In the comparison group, 61% have children, all in the context of marriage. Children of divorce were five times as likely to marry before age 25 and had a much higher divorce rate.

From her in-depth interviews over the years with her subjects, Ms. Wallerstein concludes the key effect of divorce on children is the absence of a "couple template" on which they can model their own intimate relationships later in life. Even the best stepparents rarely replace what children lose through divorce, she concludes.

The children of divorce she followed tended to grow up highly self-reliant and professionally successful, but they were plagued by the expectation that their relationships will fail.

"They are really, really frightened. They're afraid of betrayal, of loss and of abandonment because that has been their experience at least one time," says Ms. Blakeslee.

The researchers found that nature and level of conflict in marriages were similar in families that divorced and in a comparison group of intact families from the same neighbourhoods. But children whose parents stayed together despite serious marital problems had a better sense of how to behave in their own marriages.

"They have a template of how a man and woman can co-operate and work out problems. They can also say, 'I don't want to be like my parents'," she says.

The book does not recommend that parents stay in bad marriages at all costs, but urges parents to put a higher weight on the impact of their children when considering the costs and benefits of divorce.

"All the focus has been on the immediate crisis time of the divorce, but we've had our eyes on the wrong ball. It's the long years afterward that we should be concerned about," she says.

You can review and purchase Judith Wallerstein's new book, The Unexpected Legacy of Divorce, at the Splitup.com website. As well, you can reveiw and

[FLC NOTE: This article is regarding Judith Wallerstein's earlier work and is dated February 2nd, 1999. But is is interesting to note.]

Psychologist Judith Wallerstein's latest report from her pioneering, 25-year study on the impact of divorce on children is provoking the same reaction as her 1989 findings from the project: both respect and consternation.

Wallerstein continues to find divorce is a second chance at happiness for parents: It is not for children. The effects of divorce are often time-limited for parents. They are not for children, who continue to suffer the repercussions into adulthood, she says.

"Divorce is not a minor, transient upheaval for children," Wallerstein says. "When I first started, that was the prevailing view. My research was the first shot across the bow."

Wallerstein has followed 130 children of 60 middle-class families in northern California for more than two decades. Her latest findings were presented in a speech last month. She and co-author Julia Lewis reported on 26 adults now between 27 and 32, who were 21/2 to 6 at the time of the split. "About half the children involved in divorce fall into this young age group," she says.

Lower-paying jobs and less college than their parents.
Unstable father-child relationships.
Bitter memories of a legal system that forced them into custody and visitation plans.
A fear of commitment, a fear of divorce.
A vulnerability in adolescence to drugs and alcohol.

But many colleagues are concerned about the impact, and the limits, of her seminal research.

"Wallerstein's wonderful study has taught us much about the children of divorce," says Judith Primavera, a psychologist at Fairfield University, Fairfield, Conn. "But I worry about the person in the middle of a divorce who is concerned about what will happen to his 3-year-old in 25 years, without some information to counter Wallerstein."

Primavera's own research shows "there are a lot of 3-year-olds whose parents divorce who thrive."

Says Ashton Applewhite, who interviewed 50 women for the new Cutting Loose: Why Women Who End Their Marriages Do So Well (HarperCollins, $24): "Wallerstein's study is valuable, but it is wrong to extrapolate that divorce invariably dooms children to a lifetime of unhappiness."

From Wallerstein's reports, one would certainly think it does. She continues to find the impact of divorce on children to be cumulative and negative.

Wallerstein's first, much-quoted report in 1989 also generated applause, alarm and controversy. Critics said that her sample was too small, that it lacked a control group and that it focused only on distress.

In The Good Divorce, researcher and family therapist Constance Ahrons wrote: "Although Wallerstein accurately reports that two-fifths (41%) of the children were doing poorly, she nevertheless focuses almost exclusively on this minority. . . . Why don't we hear about the majority, the almost half of her sample who came through without scars?"

Wallerstein says it is impossible to maintain a control group for 25 years and her study is small to keep it manageable. "There is no way you can ignore our results by saying this is a small sample."

She also says in her book Second Chances: "I do not argue that children have no chance of health or happiness after divorce, and I give instances where children have done well. But the challenges children must meet after their parents divorce are severe. Parents are too often unaware and unhelpful."

Ahrons says how one interprets study results depends on whether one sees the cup as half empty or half full. Her own research on 98 couples reveals "similar findings to the Wallerstein study. About half the families had bad divorces that caused harm to both the children and the adults. The other half of the families had good divorces that preserved family ties and (still) provided children with two parents and healthy families."

Primavera's research is still more positive. While at Yale, she co-authored a study on 80 adolescents and young adults who were from 12 to 20 when their parents divorced. She calls her results "refreshing."

Although there were some financial problems, her group did "not show signs of any major difficulties; they were doing well in high school and college. They did not show any major signs of depression." After the divorce, "the fighting stopped, and that allowed them to focus on their own lives," she says.

Discussions that dwell only on the negative, Ahrons says, contribute to a prejudice she calls divorcism. Applewhite agrees there is an "enormous stigma" attached to divorce. "Those who divorce are seen as these selfish people who get up one day and say, 'He snores; I'm out of here.' I don't know anyone - especially those with children - who doesn't go through months or even years of agonizing, who goes into divorce lightly, or who is ignorant of its consequences."

A divorce, she says, "does damage children - but so does a bad marriage." While growing up in an intact family is no guarantee of mental health, she says, "growing up with divorced parents is no guarantee of maladjustment."

Nailah Shami, Redmond, Wash., is not an "expert" except through experience. She was married for eight years and went through a tough divorce five years ago. Her daughter, now 12, is "thriving, doing well in school. She was accepted in an international exchange program this summer. She is a normal kid who talks on the phone about clothes and hair, not about whether Mommy likes Daddy," Shami says.

The key, she and experts say, is that mom and dad both continue to parent following divorce. She has started a campaign called "National Get Along With Your Ex" this month. Her goal is to get 10,000 divorced, separated or never-married parents to sign a pledge to "take the high road" and improve their relationship for the sake of their kids.

Applewhite's own kids, who are now 10 and 12, were 5 and 7 when she divorced. "Their dad lives two blocks away; they spend three nights a week with him. They are doing great in school; other people tell me they are doing beautifully."

As for the lasting effects of divorce, she says, "The jury is still out until they grow up." But she is confident. And she knows "they will look back as adults on two loving parents who were still actively joined in parenting them."

When Parents Part: Helping Children Adjust, an article by Rhonda Freedman in TRANSITION MAGAZINE Spring 1999 VOL. 29 NO. 1 LONE PARENTS AND THEIR CHILDREN he TRANSITION MAGAZINE, Spring 1999, VOL. 29 NO. 1, LONE PARENTS AND THEIR CHILDREN

Stepfamily In Formation, a huge site with all sorts of related information. Start with the Site Map and then look around.

Divorce, by Kerby Anderson on the Probe website. Probe Ministries is a non-profit corporation whose mission is to reclaim the primacy of Christian thought and values in Western culture through media, education, and literature. In seeking to accomplish this mission, Probe provides perspective on the integration of the academic disciplines and historic Christianity.

Judith Wallerstein's new book: The Unexpected Legacy of Divorce: A 25 Year Landmark Study

Judith Wallerstein's
new book:
The Unexpected Legacy of Divorce:
A 25 Year Landmark Study