Divorce

1. According to the research presented by Stephanie Coontz, how does divorce affect children, and what factors account for the variation in these effects?

The worst problems dealing with children are the initial affects. When they are younger, they tend to think that their parents got divorced because of them. As they get older, especially with teenagers, they do not feel like it was their fault, but they develop resentment towards their parents. This usually harms their relationships and lead to fighting. There has been speculation that divorce leads to anger and aggression in children, especially young boys. But there is no proof that those children wouldn’t have had the same issues if their parents had not gotten divorced. The children usually encounter a lot of anxiety because of the state of their custodial parent, usually the mother, and lash out. Usually the side affects of divorce on the children go away after the grieving period which lasts between 2-3 years.
Research has found though that the severity of these affects is varied by how the parent’s relationship was before they got married. It is unhealthier for a child to live in a high conflict household than it is to have divorced parents. Also, the involvement of the non custodial parent after the divorce varies what their relationship will be after. With my own speculations with teenagers, I have found that most of the resentment falls on the parent who left.


2. According to Furstenberg and Cherlin, what factors affect short-term and long-term adjustment of children to divorce?

The initial factors that affect short-term adjustment are how the child responds to the break-up, the condition of the marriage before the divorce, and the state of the custodial parent during the “crisis period”. Emotional short-term affects can be shock, anxiety, and anger. Throughout this period the children need additional emotional support. They also need structure in a daily schedule. If the marriage situation is hostile even before the couple breaks up, there will be more harmful affects because they have witnessed a great deal or arguing and hostility. Therefore, aggression develops. Male children are usually more affected than females. Usually, after a divorce, 9 out of 10 times, the woman becomes the custodial parent. When this happens, the woman has to deal with a drastic cut financially, especially if the husband was the breadwinner. A lot of times, the woman has to go back to work in order to support her children. This is just another adjustment that the children have to deal with.
After two or three years, the crisis period ends. Every affect after that point, lasting affects are long-term affects. Families that suffer in the long term sense seek psychiatric help. A lot of times the children have discipline issues, especially at school, and other authoritative figures. 22% of children in broken homes do not graduate from high school. But, children who were from homes in which there was large amounts of hostility, were worse off. In general, most children do not experience long-term affects as much as some think.


3. According to Carr, what three factors are the most important influences on spousal bereavement? How does gender shape the experience of spousal loss?

The three types of influences that affect the spousal bereavement all have to deal with how the person died or the condition of their marriage before they died. The most harmful affects on a person’s mental state is if the person died unexpectedly in an accident or sudden illness. The second form is if a person had a long term illness, such as cancer or a heart condition, and passed away expectedly. This type of bereavement comes along with military deaths as well. Spouses tend to deal with the death of their husband or wife before it even happens. Therefore, when the death occurs they were already prepared for it. Usually the depression state is not as long because the spouse has time to deal with their loss. The living spouse sometimes feels a sense of relief considering how tiring and draining the disease was on the couple. They also no longer have to see their spouse suffer. They too get to live again, in peace. No matter how awful that sounds. Another type of bereavement comes from an already broken home. The trauma can be one of two types- there could be guilt, or just plain depression. Usually, in both situations, the spouse left behind survives through it. They look back on their marriage and appreciate what they were given in their lives and the marriage while they were in it.
Gender plays a major role in how the spouse deals with the loss of their counterparts. Ironically, the men usually have a harder time dealing with the loss than the wife does. This is true because the wife, like gender roles usually state, are the house keepers. They are the social line to their husband. The women regulate the husband’s life- anywhere from his diet, social activities, to daily routines. A woman can usually go on with the support of friends she has built up. Financially though, women take a major cut because the social security for a woman is usually lower because of the lower salary she received compared to her husband. Also, the man has a much higher rate of remarriage- almost 10 to 1. This is because they need that support in their life, whereas the woman already has a stronger social group to rely on making it less necessary.