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UNITED STATES, June 27, 2003: For the past 30 years Americans have used the idea that “if divorce is better for you, it will be better for your kids,” to justify their increasing recourse to divorce. However, recent evidence indicates that these justifications are illusions. The widespread practice of divorce in this culture has been based on the wishful thinking of adults while its tragic cost has been borne by children. Barbara Dafoe Whitehead’s “The Divorce Culture” analyzes the history and social significance of divorce.



A troubling picture emerged from studies of larger populations and from tracing the effects on children over time. Even though 80 percent of men and 50 percent of women felt their lives were better after divorce, the effects on children were disastrous. By almost every measure, children in divorced families fared worse: emotional problems, early sexual experimenting, dropping out of school, delinquency, teen pregnancy and drug use. Remarriage was no solution; children in stepfamilies were two to three times more likely than their counterparts to suffer emotional and behavioral problems and twice as likely to have learning problems. Long-term studies by Judith Wallerstein and others argue that the impact of divorce on children is cumulative. Even 15 years after their parents’ divorce many children are emotionally troubled and unable to sustain a relationship with someone of the opposite sex. Their parents’ inability to sustain the relationship that counted most to them and the subsequent loss of connection to their fathers seem to have eroded these young peoples’ sense of identity and ability to trust others and commit themselves.