Coping Outside Traditional Roles

Abstract

In an attempt to discover how noncustodial mothers cope with the highly stressful situation of living apart from their children, semi-structured interviews were conducted with a culturally diverse group of 26 noncustodial mothers. While a majority of the women reported clinically significant levels of anxiety and depressive symptoms on the Hopkins Symptom Checklist-25, all were functioning adequately in social and occupational or academic domains. In addition, they were engaged in a wide variety of coping strategies as measured by the COPE scale (Carver, Scheier, & Weintraub, 1989). The findings suggest that despite the psychological distress and pain associated with being a noncustodial mother, these women were coping well and had much to offer other women in similar circumstances.