Divorce or stay together?
Just how much are kids affected by divorce?
Would they be better off if their parents had stayed together?
Is there any way to help make marriage stick?
Is there any way to help make divorce less destructive?
For several decades, these questions have been at the forefront of many psychologists’ and sociologists’ minds, as divorce morphed from something affecting a small marginalized segment of society to being part of mainstream family experience.
While divorce may be commonplace, with approximately 40 percent of marriages ending in divorce, it has a sharp impact on families. The exact nature of this impact is the subject of much debate and controversy.
Divorce is an enigma about which nearly everyone has an opinion or personal insight. And because the issues at hand in divorce are so personal and emotional, sifting facts from feelings can be a muddy process. If staying together is better for kids, then some people will feel validated, others guilty or defensive, including those researching this topic.
“The culture wars invade the interpretation of divorce research,” says Robert Emery, director of the Center for Children, Families and the Law at the University of Virginia. Emery, author of “The Truth About Children and Divorce,” said via e-mail that studies can be manipulated to help advance various political agendas from family values to the benefits of alternative families to fathers’ rights.
While some researchers show that young adults who grew up as children of divorce suffered serious negative effects from their parents’ divorce, new research points to divorce having very little impact on children’s behavior.
Divorce disadvantages
University of Portland professor of sociology Robert Duff has been teaching a course on family and marriage to college students for 30 years. In that time, he has seen a giant shift in the way students, researchers and society view marriage and divorce.
Divorce used to have a stigma. “It was a mark of immorality and lack of character.”
Now people are much more sympathetic. But divorce still comes with problems.
Duff says it is associated with many disadvantages, including economic hardships and loss of contact with fathers.
“I think children really want to have a mom and a dad in the same house, and once that is fractured, they have a really hard time,” said Dawn Cardi, a Manhattan lawyer who has worked for decades with divorce and children. “It’s like a breach of trust.”
Duff indicates that most research shows that a majority of kids experience a one- to two-year crisis period after divorce. These children can be stressed out and have academic, social and behavioral problems. This is normal, according to Duff.
“The controversy comes in terms of long-term consequences,” said Duff.
Well-known psychologist Judith Wallerstein closely studied a group of 60 divorced families from Marin County in California for decades. Her research showed a “sleeper effect” for children whose parents had divorced. As adults, many of these subjects had a difficult time forming long-lasting personal relationships, and they suffered psychological problems.
Many other studies from sociologists show a much different picture, in which the “vast majority are able to pull their lives together,” according to Duff. On average, the studies show about 75 percent to 80 percent of these adult children do OK.
Emery found that most children from divorced families did not experience long-term psychological problems. But many, “perhaps most, do experience a lot of short-term and often long-term psychological pain.” The difference between pain and problems is huge. Psychological problems include depression, ongoing behavioral disturbances or not being able to have normal relationships. Psychological pain includes sadness, anger or worrying about your parents fighting.
“Pain isn’t pathology, but pain is huge in psychological importance, including the fact that, in the long run, many people grow in emotional richness and depth as a result of experiencing pain,” said Emery.
Elizabeth Marquardt looked at the long-term consequences of divorce in her 2005 book, “Between Two Worlds: The Inner Lives of Children of Divorce,” which argues that there is no such thing as a good divorce.
“When it comes to the suffering of children of divorce, too often our society falls silent out of deference to the feelings of divorced and single parents,” said Marquardt via e-mail.
Marquardt uses the results of a telephone survey of 1,500 adults ages 18-35 to highlight the ongoing pain people experience growing up in a divorced household.
Those growing up in a divorce without a lot of conflict (which Marquardt called a “good” divorce) were more likely to say their childhood was stressful and were more likely to say that they experienced many losses in their lives than children from either happy marriages or unhappy, low conflict marriages. When asked what they did when they needed comfort as children, 69 percent of those from intact families said they went to one or both parents, whereas just 33 percent of children of divorce sought out a parent for comfort.
“In my study the children of even ‘good’ divorces fared worse than those who reported their parents had an unhappy but low conflict marriage,” said Marquardt.
In the past decade, many government agencies and nonprofits, likely inspired by this kind of research detailing the downside of divorce, have started marriage promotion efforts throughout the country.
New research
Not all researchers, however, believe that divorce causes behavioral problems in children. Allen Li, the associate director of the Population Research Center at the RAND Corp., published new research last week suggesting divorce does not create problems for children.
Many previous studies Li examined compared children of divorce with children from intact marriages. He believes this approach doesn’t take into account the immeasurable differences among families.
“Each family is kind of unique in its own way,” said Li. “What’s really important is how parents treat their kids.”
And that is a very difficult trait to measure.
Li’s study tries to eliminate this issue by comparing the same set of children before and after divorce. This study uses data collected from divorced mothers of more than 6,000 children ages 4-15.
The moms were asked to report whether their children exhibited 28 behavioral problems, including crying a lot, arguing, cheating and being disobedient. While some kids’ behavioral problems increased after their parents divorced, others decreased. On average, Li found that divorce had zero effect on behavior in children.
“I’m hoping people will think about what are the necessary by-products of divorce,” said Li.
He would like to see the debate move away from whether parents should get divorced to how to best help parents.
“We have to recognize the fact that at least a proportion of divorced parents have been successful in helping children stay on track.”
Further, Li is not sure that promoting marriage is an effective public policy strategy that translates into increased child well-being.
Emery supports Li’s findings to a point, saying that “many problems that get called ‘consequences of divorce’ actually precede a marital separation and therefore cannot be consequences of divorce.”
He notes that studies similar to Li’s have found consequences of divorce and that Li’s research focuses on psychological problems, not on pain, “which seems to be a much more prevalent consequence of divorce for children.”
Better off together?
“What feels unhappy to adults can often feel like stability for children, so long as the parents are not engaged in high conflict with one another,” said Marquardt.
She believes children fare better in these “good enough” marriages than in a peaceful divorce. And she doesn’t think parents can simply wait until their children are older to divorce.
“When you break up, your children, at any age (even grown) are usually devastated. Your relationship with your children could rupture and take years to heal,” said Marquardt. “Of course the parents must make the decision that they think is best for them and their family, but at any age, divorce is never easy on anybody. It might solve some problems, but it also opens many new and unexpected and often unpleasant doors.”
Cardi encounters many families that don’t seem to put much energy into making their marriage work.
“People have already checked out emotionally or psychologically.” They file for divorce before ever seeing a counselor.
“Younger people are less willing to tolerate difference and quicker to move to get divorced,” said Cardi.
Instead of focusing on the well-being of children, parents could consider focusing on each other. That’s what University of California professor of psychology emeritus Philip Cowan and his wife Carolyn Pape Cowan found in their decades-long research on couples. They discovered that couples who joined a group for parents for several weeks around the birth of their baby fared much better in terms of marital satisfaction than those doing it on their own. These couples were able to see that other new parents have similar problems and they were able to learn good ways of communicating. Cowan sees the parents’ relationship as the missing link in the discussion about parenting and divorce. The first step in being a good parent is for the parents to have a strong, loving bond.
“They think it’s selfish to spend time (alone) together; but no, it’s good for the kids,” said Cowan. “Staying together is not going to help if the relationship is not going well.”
Duff says his students don’t like the idea of their parents staying together “for the children.”
“A lot of kids say, ‘I would feel terrible if they stayed together just for me,’” said Duff.
Sacrificing in this way used to be viewed as heroic, now it is seen as hypocritical.
Emery says that “Should we stay together for the children?” is the wrong question to ask. While his research supports the idea that children may fare better in an intact home, he does not believe parents should avoid divorce for the kids.
“Parents need to take responsibility for their own decisions, whether the decision is to stay or leave. Making either decision ‘for the children’s sake’ is a responsibility dodge, and a huge guilt trip for children,” said Emery.
Divorce may have become commonplace, but that doesn’t mean it is easy for the families involved. Parents hoping for a clear answer from the research are sure to be disappointed, but the studies and commentaries can help them learn what issues to consider and how to examine the potential effect on their children.
Alandra Johnson can be reached at 617-7860 or at ajohnson@bendbulletin.com.