Adult Children and Their Fathers: Relationship Changes 20 Years After Parental Divorce*

• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1741-3729.2003.00340.x
• Date: 01 October 2003
• Author: Constance R. Ahrons,Jennifer L. Tanner
• Published date: 01 October 2003

340 Family Relations

Special Collection

Adult Children and Their Fathers: Relationship Changes

20 Years After Parental Divorce*

Constance R. Ahrons** and Jennifer L. Tanner

Adult children’s reports of relationship changes with their fathers were examined 20 years after their parents’ divorce. Data were

drawn from interviews with 173 adult children from the Binuclear Family Study about their perceptions of their parents’ divorce and

its long-term impact. Findings indicated that most adult children felt that their relationships with their fathers had either improved or

remained stable over time. Custody did not directly affect reported changes in the quality of their relationship with their fathers;

however, increased interparental conf‌lict, early father remarriage, and low father involvement in the early postdivorce years were

associated with worsening relationships over time. Those who reported that their relationships with their fathers got worse also reported

poorer quality relationships with their stepmothers, stepsiblings, and paternal grandparents.

The relationship between children and their divorced fa-

thers is of great concern to researchers, policy makers,

and practitioners, as well as to children and their fathers.

Although there has been an increase in shared parenting post-

divorce and paternal custody, it is still the prevailing situation

that most postdivorce fathers consistently spend less time with

their children compared with postdivorce mothers.

Studies dealing with the long-term consequences of divorce

generally f‌ind that parents’ divorce during childhood weakens

the emotional bonds between offspring and parents in later life

(Amato & Booth, 1997; Hetherington & Kelly, 2002). This is

particularly true for adult children’s relations with their nonres-

ident fathers (Amato & Booth; Bengtson, Biblarz, & Roberts,

2002; Silverstein & Bengtson, 1997). Also, studies show that

divorce is associated with feeling less close to fathers, especially

among college-age daughters (Aquilino, 1994; Zill, Morrison, &

Coiro, 1993).

Some disagreement exists in the research literature about

how children’s postdivorce adjustment is affected by relation-

ships with their fathers (see Amato & Gilbreth, 1999, for a meta-

analysis of studies on this topic). However, the general view is

that children benef‌it from continued relationships with their fa-

thers, except when fathers are incompetent or abusive.

Although the importance of maintaining father-child rela-

tionships postdivorce has received considerable attention (Leite

& McKenry, 2002; Braver & Griff‌in, 2000; Pasley & Minton,

1997; Ahrons & Miller, 1993), little is known about how adult

children feel about their relationships with their fathers many

years after parental divorce. Most of the cross-sectional studies

that assess children’s relationships with their divorced fathers use

college-age or adolescent children, do not control for time since

divorce, and do not take into consideration adult children’s mar-

ital or parental status (Arditti & Prouty, 1999; Fabricius & Hall,

2000). Findings like these cannot be used to draw conclusions

about differences between adult children of divorced and non-

divorced parents because this period of the family life cycle, the

*The preparation of these materials was f‌inancially assisted through a grantfrom the

Center for Families and Children, Judicial Council of California. The authors gratefully

acknowledge the generous support of the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard,

the University of Southern California, and the Foundation for the Contemporary Family.

**University of Southern California and Senior Research Associate, Council

on Contemporary Families, 5357 Croton Court, San Diego, CA 92109

(cahrons@usc.edu).

Key Words: adult children, divorce, father, parenting, remarriage.

(Family Relations, 2003, 52, 340–351)

launching phase, is a stage of shifting parent–adult children re-

lations. Due to maturational effects, adult children, who may be

married and parents themselves, are noted to report improved

relationships with their parents, irrespective of family structure

(Silverstein & Bengtson, 1997). Here, by examining the percep-

tions of the adult children 20 years after their parents’ divorce,

we examine several of many factors that impact father-adult

child relationship quality 20 years after their parents’ divorce.

Fathers and Children Postdivorce

Whether and how fathers maintain relationships with their

children is dependent on an interaction of complex factors. Be-

cause of this complexity, the literature is confusing and often

conf‌licting regarding factors and mechanisms that affect the re-

lationship between father involvement and child adjustment, es-

pecially following parental divorce. Empirical f‌indings suggest

a wide array of interrelated, entangled factors that predict father

involvement and link father involvement to child adjustment. For

example, such factors include father involvement in childrearing

during the marriage; the nature of the father’s relationship with

each child during the marriage; the premarital and postmarital

relationship between the parents; the living arrangements for the

child during the separation; the amount of time the father spends

with his child; the child’s age, gender, temperament, and birth

order; and the amount of child support paid. Each may alone

and cumulatively impact the long-term father-child relationship.

Longitudinal Studies

Although the literature on divorced fathers and their children

has grown considerably over the past three decades (Hawkins &

Dollahite, 1997), studies using samples with mothers, fathers,

and children over time are limited. Beyond the study reported

here, two other exceptions are the Marin County Study by Judith

Wallerstein and the Virginia Study by Mavis Hetherington.Both

of these longitudinal projects followed both parents and at least

one target child per family over three decades. They have made

seminal contributions to the study of effects of divorce on fam-

ilies (Hetherington & Kelly, 2002; Wallerstein, Lewis, & Blak-

eslee, 2000).

The Marin County Project of 60 families began in 1971 and

provides an excellent, in-depth clinical study identifying the

emotional distress of children and parents (Wallerstein & Kelly,

1980). This study documents the attenuation of the father-child

relationship, noting 20 years later that ‘‘few divorced fathers

were good friends with their adult children ...’’(Wallerstein et

al., 2000, p. 139).