Journals of Gerontology Series B: Psychological Sciences and Social Sciences, Vol 50, Issue 1 S24-S34, Copyright © 1995 by The Gerontological Society of America
Effects of parental divorce and memories of family problems on relationships between adult children and their parents
PS Webster and AR Herzog
Population Studies and Training Center, Box 1916, Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island.
We examined adult child-parent relations by childhood family structure and
memories of family problems. Relative to those who grew up in two-parent
families, adult children of divorce perceive both relationships with
mothers and fathers to be of lower quality, although the magnitude of
effects is generally two or three times greater for fathers. We find these
effects to be significant for positive features of father-child relations,
whereby adult children of divorce report feeling significantly less loved
and less listened to by their fathers. While in most cases part of the
effect of parental divorce on relationship quality can be explained by
memories of parental marital conflict or other family problems, there is
one exception. Even controlling for memories of family problems, we find
adult children of divorce have significantly less contact with their
parents than adults from two-parent families. We also examine data about
parental surrogates.
