Mothers and Their Children after Divorce: Report from a 25-Year Longitudinal Study

This is a qualitative 25-year, longitudinal study of mother—child relationships in a middle-class, nonlitigating, divorced California population. At the time of divorce, all children were clinically evaluated to be on target academically and developmentally. The mothers had functioned competently as protective affectionate parents within the marriage. We found that over half of the mothers, especially those with two or more minor children, were significantly less available and less responsive to their children in the postdivorce years than during the failing marriage. One third of the mothers turned their priority from parenting during four or more immediate, postdivorce years to rebuilding intimate relationships along with intensive training to achieve economic independence. During these years, many of the adolescents engaged in delinquent activities and truancy, which subsided when the mother resumed supervision and stabilized family life. A striking collapse in maternal parenting occurred for one quarter of the mothers who struggled during the failed marriage with psychiatric problems and, following divorce, lost access to ongoing psychological treatment and stable family structure. Most failed to recover and were cared for by their adolescent children who themselves were in desperate need of parenting and support. These findings challenge the view of divorce as a time-limited crisis from which children with continued access to both parents will recover in under a year after the litigation is completed. The mother—child

attachment suffers with the diminished parenting that often follows as a result of variables that require further investigation.