Surviving the Breakup? Predictors of Parent-Adult Child Relations after Parental Divorce

Abstract

The high divorce rates of the past thirty years raise serious concern for family life, because divorce not only marks the breakdown of the marital bond, but often jeopardizes other family ties as well--most notably those between divorced parents and children. Concern about the effects of divorce on children's well-being has not gone unfelt by divorcing parents themselves, as it is common to hear about unhappily married couples staying together for the sake of the children. In fact, in one Canadian study of over 200 later-life divorcing couples, 75% reported experiencing long-term dissatisfaction in their marriages. Half of the sample claimed to have postponed their divorces until their children were older (Deckert & Langelier, 1978). Popular reasoning seems to be that parental divorce is easier and less disruptive for offspring who are mature adults. Whether there is any connection between this common assumption and recent divorce trends is unknown, but divorce rates have continued to increase among older couples in long-term marriages in the past ten years, whereas general divorce rates have leveled off and even declined slightly (National Center for Health Statistics, 1992). Today, over one fifth of divorces involve couples married more than 15 years, who are likely to have grown children (National Center for Health Statistics, 1991). Furthermore, one of every eight women who reaches age 40 in an intact first marriage is expected to divorce in the later half of her life (Uhlenberg, Cooney, & Boyd, 1990). The growing number of adult children who will experience parental divorce makes it increasingly important to broaden our understanding of its unique impact on older children and their family relationships. This need is especially critical for the development of age-appropriate interventions for this largely neglected population of divorcing parents and children. The present study explores factors associated with postdivorce relationship outcomes for parents and young adult offspring. The quality of the parent-child relationship is important to consider as this relationship represents a critical form of social integration for both generations. Furthermore, the parent-child relationship contributes to the psychological functioning of each generation; feeling loved by one's parents and viewing them as a source of emotional support positively relates to adult children's psychological adjustment, whereas viewing them as critical and demanding deters from it (Umberson, 1992). This study specifically focuses on the association between parent-child intimacy and various divorce-related situations and family process factors. PARENT-CHILD RELATIONS FOLLOWING PARENTAL DIVORCE DURING CHILDHOOD Postdivorce relations between young children and their parents are largely differentiated by the gender of the parent. A fairly consistent finding is that fathers experience more problems than do mothers in relating to their children after divorce Amato & Keith, 1991; Furstenberg, Peterson, Nord, & Zill, 1983; Peterson & Zill, 1986; Seltzer & Bianchi, 1988; White, Brinkerhoff, & Booth, 1985). One factor that is widely discussed as a possible reason for this difference is maternal custody. The typical postdivorce living arrangement, in which the children mainly reside with the mother, may create physical and emotional barriers for the father-child relationship, while at the same time offering increased opportunities for bonding between custodial mothers and their children (Brandwein, Brown, & Pox, 1974). Thus, because custody is so closely tied to parents' gender, our understanding of how divorce itself affects parent-child relations--independent of custody--is blurred in most research dealing with minor children. RELATIONS BETWEEN PARENTS AND ADULT CHILDREN FOLLOWING RECENT PARENTAL DIVORCE One way to more directly examine the consequences of divorce for parent-child relationships, apart from custody, is to consider these relationships in families where the parents divorced relatively late in the family life cycle. …