Long
Term Effects of Divorce
From a news story by
CNN San Francisco Reporter Greg Lefevre
September 10, 2000
When Sharon Keating's marriage went on the rocks the people she most
worried about wrecking were her kids. Jessie Keating, her daughter,
says, "I was feeling... like down and sad and even though I didn't
really show it.
"Those problems could last decades," says author Judith Wallerstein,
"... and emerge in adulthood."
Judith Wallerstein says of her research, "And when man-woman relationships
move to center stage. At that time all the ghosts of the parents' divorce
sort of come out of the basement."
Wallerstein studied 93 children over a generation. Her findings haven't
been published in a medical journal, only in her book.
She says children of divorce are more likely to abuse drugs, are far
more likely to seek therapy and that 40-percent of them avoid marriage
themselves. When they do marry, fail at nearly twice the usual rate.
Judith Wallerstein says, "They define themselves as having a great
deal of difficulty trusting and are very frightened that their relationships
will fail.
Sharon Keating knew of Wallerstein's work and vowed that would not happen
to her children.
Sharon Keating is a divorced Mother who says, "One of the things
that I did was that I immediately got the kids and I into some counseling."
But critics say Wallerstein generalizes too much from a small study.
At Berkeley's Council on Contemporary Families Professor Phil Cowan
says factors other than JUST divorce should be studied, too. And that
the study lacks comparison with so called healthy families.
Phil Cowan of the Council on Contemporary Families says, "Can you
say that divorce is harmful on the basis of that kind of study, the
answer is no. You can't say anything on causality because people have
all kinds of explanations for their lives and what it is that they do."
Wallerstein's families divorced a generation ago. Times have changed
and with them the attitudes toward divorce and attention to the innocent
victims.
Claire Barnes of Kid's Turn says, "In our parents generation people
who got divorced didn't talk about it, were embarrassed by it."
Programs like Kid's Turn try to mitigate some of the effects of divorce
with family counseling. Jessie Keating says, "We just express our
feelings out together and helps us get through it".
So the next generation more aware of the trauma may be better equipped
to handle it.
Additional Notes:
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