- Published: January 6, 2022
- Updated: January 6, 2022
- Level: Intermediate School
- Language: English
- Downloads: 5
Source Aquilino, W. S. (1994). Later Life Parental Divorce and Widowhood: Impact on Young Adults’ Assessment of Parent-child Relations. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 56 (4), 908+. Methods The National Survey of Families and Household conducted a face to face interview with 13, 017 respondents. Each personal interview spans up to 102 minutes which was conducted between March 1987 and May 1988. Also, family history of those who were interviewed were collected and were included in the analysis. Several factors were included in the respondents’ psychoanalysis. Summary It is asserted that divorce in the later life would decrease parental attachment to adult children. The study conducted by the National Survey of Families and Household focuses on the quality of relationship each divorced parent has for their adult children and found out that the degrees vary according to sex and custody. Although the study may have been limited, and not stating the exact time of which the parents had divorce, there are still important implications to the psychological behavior of children in the later life and their relationship with both parents. However, the result of the study indicates that relationship gaps between parents and adult children are most likely to occur to father and child rather than mother and child. This is due to the custody of the mothers to their children, especially if financial support was not met by the father. On the other hand, widowhood does not impact much the children since they are concentrated with the grief of the other spouse, and would be busy giving emotional support. Analysis The article is about the impact of divorce in the later life into parents-children relationship. The topic somehow is widely vulnerable to varying cases since there is no exact pattern for parental relationships, with or without divorce; although experts say that the bond is more apparent with mothers to their children. The impact of divorce in the later life might not be as strong, especially if the children are all grown up, considering that they understand the situation better than the young ones. Therefore, it would not be less hard to adjust. Divorce has more lasting effects if it occurred sometime within the younger days of the children, as they perceive it to be abnormal having only a parent (mostly mothers) in the household. This confusion can have fatal effects of the child’s psychological behavior. The reason of widowhood not having the same impact with divorce might be the fact that adult children are ready for this kind of life transition. As adults, they already understand that death is a part of life and instead of grieving, they would resort to supporting the other parent in terms of emotional or possibly, financial support. Conclusion The decision to have divorce is a prerogative of the couple if they think that the relationship is not working anymore. When it comes to relationship bond between the parents and their children, it is largely dependent on the relationship they had before the divorce was passed. It is reasonable that the result of the study shows that there is more bond between mothers and children in the broken home since the custody is mostly given to female parents. However, this is not true at all times. True, that widowhood has less impact compared to divorce, but again, this is dependent on the child’s psychological background.