Book Review:

We’re Still Family-What Grown Children Have to say About their Parent’s Divorce
by Constance Ahrons, Ph.D.
New York: Harper Paperbacks. 2005  (list price: $14.95, DivorceStep price: $10.17).

At last, fair and accurate descriptions of the effects of divorce on children!  Constance Ahrons, Ph.D., author of The Good Divorce (1994), follows up with the parents and children she first interviewed 20 years ago and gives divorced parents the good news that divorce itself does not necessarily result in children suffering long term emotional problems.  Ahrons notes that her study is, “the only twenty-year longitudinal investigation drawn from a random, non-clinical sample” (p. 246).

Ahron’s reminds us that divorce does not “break” a home and does not have to break a family; if it breaks anything it’s the marriage between 2 adults.  It is not the divorce in and of itself that is responsible for the possible problems a child may encounter. Ahrons’s research emphasizes that both the parent’s marital relationship before the divorce and their relationship after the divorce are the key factors that influence a child’s adjustment.  She states that the parents relationship before the divorce is just as important and with older children, perhaps more important than the relationship they have after the divorce. (older children have had more time to live in and be influenced by a troubled marriage). She summarizes three types of pre-divorce marriages: the “good enough marriage” (good enough to meet the child’s needs, child focused and parents treat each other for the most part with respect) the “devitalized marriage” (distant relationship between parents, parents leading separate life’s within the marriage, children begin to think this is the way marriages are supposed to be), and the “high conflict marriage” (causes serious distress to the children as they are exposed to frequent fighting between the parents, children are often relieved when this marriage ends).

Children both young and old want to feel like they still have a family after a divorce occurs.  Based on what the grown children Ahrons re-interviewed for the book said, “the great majority of adult children accept, and even respect, their parents decision to divorce, but that doesn’t negate their desire to continue to share important occasions, their joys, and even their sorrows, with their parents--together” (p. 161-162).  While it’s certainly true that there are many losses that come with divorce, the loss of family doesn’t have to be one of them.