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An Annotated Bibliography of Books on Children of Divorce
Prepared by Elizabeth Marquardt
Research:
Elizabeth Marquardt, Between Two Worlds: The Inner Lives of Children
of Divorce (New York: Crown Publishers, September 2005)
Based on a pioneering new national study, this book takes on the
popular idea of the “good divorce,” arguing that while
an amicable divorce is certainly better than a bitter one, even
amicable divorces sow lasting inner conflict in the lives of children.
It is the first nationally representative study of the inner lives
of children of divorce, the first to examine the moral and spiritual
impact of divorce in children, and the only major study authored
by a young scholar who was herself a child of divorce.
Judith Wallerstein, Julia Lewis, and Sandra Blakeslee, The Unexpected
Legacy of Divorce: A 25 Year Landmark Study (New York: Hyperion,
2000).
This is the third book that Judith Wallerstein has written on a
group of children of divorce she has been following for twenty-five
years. She finds, among other things, that divorce has a “sleeper
effect,” that its most troubling consequences arise when these
children reach their young adult years and experience difficulty
in establishing trusting and stable intimate relationships.
E. Mavis Hetherington and John Kelly, For Better or For Worse:
Divorce Reconsidered (New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 2002).
The “spin” on this book when it was released was that
divorce, on the whole, is not so bad for kids. E. Mavis Hetherington
noted in many interviews that “only” twenty to twenty-five
percent of children of divorce in her sample continued to suffer
lasting social and psychological problems in adulthood (compared
to ten percent of children from intact families suffered similarly
severe problems in adulthood). Many other substantial insights about
children of divorce in her book are also presented as good news,
while in fact they are quite troubling. The book is well worth reading
for the data, despite the odd rationalizations.
Constance Ahrons, We’re Still Family: What Grown Children
Have to Say About Their Parents’ Divorce (HarperCollins,
2004).
In this book Ahrons returns to interview the now-grown children
from her earlier study, published as The Good Divorce in
1992. For this follow up she used assistants to conduct telephone
interviews with most of the original sample of now-grown children.
The anecdotes these young people share are often quite moving, even
disturbing, but what is more disturbing is that Ahrons wraps their
experience in a thesis that denies what they say. For instance,
she asks them many leading questions about what was “positive”
about their parents’ divorce. Some replied their parents’
divorce taught them that they want to work hard on their marriages
and never divorce because they don’t want to “do that”
to their kids. Ahrons uses responses like these to support her thesis
that children of divorce have many positive things to say about
divorce but the culture doesn’t hear about them because no
one thinks to ask them if anything good came out of the divorce.
Another major problem with her study is that it has no control group,
so although she speculates that the young people in her sample don’t
differ developmentally from their peers from intact families, she
offers no data to back up that claim. See Marquardt’s review
of this book, published in First Things, here http://www.americanvalues.org/html/the_bad_divorce.htm
Sara McLanahan and Gary Sandefur, Growing Up with a Single Parent:
What Hurts, What Helps (Cambridge: Harvard University Press,
1994).
An excellent, readable account of the social and economic impact
of divorce on children, based on the authors’ analysis of
national survey data.
Paul R. Amato and Alan Booth, A Generation at Risk: Growing Up
in an Era of Family Upheaval (Cambridge: Harvard University Press,
1997).
A widely respected, rigorous study of widespread family changes
and their effects on children. This book was based on a nationally
representative, longitudinal study conducted by the authors. One
of their key findings was that one-third of divorces ended high
conflict marriages, and children did better after those divorces.
However, two-thirds of divorces ended low conflict marriages, and
children did worse after those divorces.
Frank F. Furstenberg, Jr. and Andrew Cherlin, Divided Families: What
Happens to Children When Parents Part (Cambridge: Harvard University
Press, 1991).
Another useful contribution to the literature, examining the social
and economic effects of divorce on children.
Social history/criticism:
Barbara Dafoe Whitehead, The Divorce Culture (New York:
Alfred A. Knopf, 1997).
Whitehead argues that we have become a “divorce culture,”
one in which those who question the impact of divorce on children
are seen as attacking adults’ freedom to divorce. Chapter
Five, “The Children’s Story of Divorce,” is a
remarkable examination of the children’s book and greeting
card industries, which provide insight into children’s experiences
of divorce as well as revealing how our culture seeks to manage
their experience and bring it into line with adult perspectives
on divorce.
Personal stories from a secular perspective:
Stephanie Staal, The Love They Lost: Living with the Legacy of
Our Parents’ Divorce (New York: Delacorte Press, 2000).
An absorbing and often sad journalistic account of the child’s
experience of divorce, based on Staal’s own experience of
childhood divorce and her online interviews with over one hundred
adult children of divorce.
Ava Chin, Ed. Split: Stories from a Generation Raised on Divorce
(New York: Contemporary Books, 2002).
A collection of edgy essays by young adult children of divorce.
The quality varies, some are quite good. Most books by children
of divorce seem to be by women. This collection offers essays by
men too.
Rebecca Walker, Black, White, and Jewish: Autobiography of a Shifting
Self (New York: Riverhead Books, 2001).
Walker is the Gen X daughter of the well-known author Alice Walker,
and in this book she tells the story of growing up with a Black
parent and a Jewish parent. Interestingly, the title of the book
and most of the reviews when it came out emphasize Walker’s
story of growing up biracial, but it is clear when reading the book
that the overriding division in her young life – and what
contributes to her sense of being a “shifting self”—
results not so much from her parents’ being of different races
but rather their divorce when the author was in third grade. Walker
grew up after that living alternately, two years at a time, with
her mother on the west coast and her father on the east coast. She
writes evocatively of what those passages and separations were like.
Brooke Foster, forthcoming book on people who experience their parents’
divorce when they themselves are older than 18 (i.e. they are adults
when their parents divorce), to be published by Random House. Foster
is a journalist and is doing a web survey.
Personal stories/self-help from a faith perspective:
Jen Abbas, Generation Ex: Adult Children of Divorce and the Healing
of Our Pain (Waterbrook Press, 2004)
An exploration by a thoughtful young adult child of divorce about
the lifelong effects of divorce, informed by a Christian faith perspective.
(Protestant)
Beverly and Tom Rodgers, Adult Children of Divorced Parents: Making
Your Marriage Work (Resources Publications, 2002).
An exploration of the effects of childhood divorce on the grown
child’s ability to form an intimate, lasting relationship
and marriage. Written by two Christian family therapists who are
married to each other and who are children of divorce. The book
explores what they’ve learned both as therapists and in their
own marriage. (Protestant)
Lynn Cassella, Making Your Way After Your Parents’ Divorce:
A supportive guide for personal growth (Ligouri, Missouri: Ligouri
Lifespan, 2002).
Written by a child of divorce who is founder of an organization
devoted to supporting children of divorce in spiritual growth. The
book is aimed at teenagers and young adults. (Catholic)
Fiction:
Jhumpa Lahiri, Interpreter of Maladies (New York: Houghton
Mifflin Company, 1999).
One short story in this collection, titled “Mrs. Sen’s”,
is a remarkable exploration of a young child of divorce and his
experience with his babysitter, an Indian immigrant named Mrs. Sen.
As the story progresses it becomes clear that the young American
boy and Mrs. Sen share something in common: both lack a secure sense
of home. The Gen X author, Jhumpa Lahiri, was born in London of
Indian parents and later moved to Rhode Island, where she grew up.
It is interesting that this young writer, who herself is both an
insider and an outsider in American culture, understands the experience
of children of divorce, who often feel like outsiders in their own
homes, better than many American observers do.
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