Children of Divorce: Preliminary Report of a Ten-Year Follow-up of Older Children and Adolescents

Young men and women, and especially young women, are apprehensive about repeating their parents' unhappy marriage during their own adulthood, and they appear especially eager to avoid divorce for the sake of their future children.

Abstract

Preliminary findings from a 10-year longitudinal study of 113 children and adolescents from a largely white, middle-class population of divorced families in Northern California suggest that some psychological effects of divorce are long lasting. Forty young adults who range in age from 19 to 29 at the 10-year mark regard their parents' divorce as a continuing major influence in their lives. A significant number appear burdened by vivid memories of the marital rupture, by feelings of sadness, continuing resentment at parents, and a sense of deprivation. They are as a group strongly committed to the ideals of a lasting marriage and to a conservative morality. Young men and women, and especially young women, are apprehensive about repeating their parents' unhappy marriage during their own adulthood, and they appear especially eager to avoid divorce for the sake of their future children. Journal of the American Academy of Child Psychiatry , 24, 5:545–553, 1985.