Listening to Children of Divorce: New Findings That Diverge From Wallerstein, Lewis, and Blakeslee*

• Author: William V. Fabricius
• Published date: 01 October 2003
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1741-3729.2003.00385.x
• Date: 01 October 2003

2003, Vol. 52, No. 4 385

Special Collection

Listening to Children of Divorce: New Findings That Diverge

From Wallerstein, Lewis, and Blakeslee*

William V. Fabricius**

I review new f‌indings on (a) college students’ perspectives on their living arrangements after their parents’ divorces, (b) their relations

with their parents as a function of their living arrangements, (c) their adjustment as a function of their parents’ relocation, and (d)

the amount of college support they received. Students endorsed living arrangements that gave them equal time with their fathers, they

had better outcomes when they had such arrangements and when their parents supported their time with the other parent, they

experienced disagreement between mothers and fathers over living arrangements, and they gave evidence of their fathers’ continuing

commitment to them into their young adult years. These f‌indings consistently contradict the recent, inf‌luential public policy recommen-

dations of Judith Wallerstein.

Despite much research on the consequences of divorce for

children, many aspects of divorce from the child’s point

of view remain relatively unstudied. These include their

preferences for their postdivorce living arrangements, their per-

ceptions of behaviors on the part of either parent that threaten

to alienate them from the other parent, their perspectives on what

makes a good divorce versus a bad divorce, and their resolutions

about how they would handle divorce with children. It is unlikely

that many parents have heard their own children’s perspectives

on these issues. It is also unlikely that policy makers are aware

of children’s perspectives. In the research discussed here, my

colleagues and I studied children’s perspectives by questioning

young adults who had grown up in divorced homes. The advan-

tage of studying young adults is twofold: their perspectives are

informed by all of their childhood experiences of their parents’

divorces, and, because they are poised to begin their own fam-

ilies, their perspectives are likely to predict not only their own

future parenting decisions should they become divorced parents,

but also their stands on the important public debates about di-

vorce policy in this country.

Sample and Theoretical Foundation

Our informants have been college students. College students

are a convenience sample, and the possibility exists that college

students from divorced families represent a select sample of di-

vorced families. Although extending this research to include

noncollege samples is important, three points are worthy to note

in support of using college students. First, we have not encoun-

tered evidence that college students from divorced families rep-

resent a ‘‘select few’’ who escaped the ill effectsof their parents’

divorces. The percentage of students from divorced families in

our samples over the last few years (ranging from 28% to 31%)

matches estimates of the percentage of children in the national

population from divorced families (approximately 30%; e.g.,

Bumpass & Sweet, 1989; Furstenberg & Cherlin, 1991). We also

are encouraged by the f‌indings from two recent studies: (a) a

*Portions of this research were presented at the 2000 and 2002 Association of Family

and Conciliation Courts Conferences. I wish to extend thanks to the dedicated undergraduate

students who have helped with this project: Domenica Nersita, Jeff Hall, Kindra Deneau,

Kristin Turner, and Meena Choi.

**Department of Psychology, Arizona State University, Box 871104, Tempe, AZ

85287-1104 (William.Fabricius@asu.edu).

Key Words: attachment, child support, custody, divorce, fathers, relocation.

(Family Relations, 2003, 52, 385–396)

meta-analysis of the effects of sole versus joint custody on chil-

dren’s adjustment (Bauserman, 2002) found no differences as-

sociated with convenience (including college) samples; and (b)

a study of the distress felt by young adults over their parents’

divorces (Laumann-Billings & Emery, 2000) found few differ-

ences between students from an elite university and low-income–

community adults.

Second, some college students report very negative experi-

ences with their parents’ divorces, and others report much more

positive experiences. This allows us to investigate the processes

that may lead to positive versus negative experiences. These pro-

cesses should not differ even if the sample is somewhat select

and higher functioning than normal.

Third, college students constitute a substantial proportion of

the population of young adults. For example, the university at

which our research was done accepts roughly the top 25% of the

state’s high school graduates (Arizona State University View-

book, 2003–2004). Thus, an immediate practical application of

our f‌indings is that they can be shared with divorcing parents

who are likely to send their children to college, because these

f‌indings show what their children may think and feel years later

about how their parents handled their divorce.

Attachment theory provides the theoretical basis for this re-

search. A central construct in attachment theory as originally

formulated (Bowlby, 1969) and later interpreted (e.g., Sroufe &

Waters, 1977) is that a history of parent availability and respon-

siveness to the child contributes to the security of the child’s

emotional connection to the parent and the child’s development

of healthy independence. A history of unavailability and unre-

sponsiveness contributes to the child’s feelings of insecurity in

the relationship, perceptions of rejection by the parent, and anger

toward the parent. Thus, attachment theory provides an expla-

nation for why both quantity and quality of time spent together

are important for parent-child relationships. After divorce, par-

ents’ availability is constrained by the child’s living arrange-

ments. Attachment theory allows us to make certain predictions

concerning living arrangements, including (a) children should

have attachment-related concerns about their postdivorce living

arrangements, and (b) the amount of time their living arrange-

ments provide for them to be with their parents should affect the

emotional security of their relationships with their parents. Thus,

attachment theory provides a framework for understanding the

interpersonal meanings and feelings that are likely to be part of

children’s perspectives on their postdivorce living arrangements.

As we pursued this work, our f‌indings have run counter to

much of the prevailing wisdom. They are most consistently at

odds with Judith Wallerstein’s recent f‌indings and policy rec-