Splitting Heirs

There are emotional costs of divorce even to custodial parents.

By Suzanne Leonard, published on November 01, 1995 - last reviewed on August 30, 2004

When a married couple calls it quits, the parent who moves out isn't the only one who misses out.

You might expect the bond between parent and child to suffer if the parent in question leaves after a divorce. But custodial parents also have trouble connecting with their kids--and the ties may remain weak long after the kids have grown up.

"Children whose parents are divorced see their parents less often, contact them less often, and report a lower relationship quality," reports Diane Lye, Ph.D., a sociologist at the University of Washington.

Lye and her colleagues scrutinized the relationships between 6,459 adults and their parents, nearly a thousand of whom had divorced before the kids were grown. Comparing intact households with those that split, researchers found that familial fragmentation frequently puts a long-term chill on parent-child ties.

Adult offspring were half as likely to maintain good relations with their custodial parent, and 40 percent less likely to see them in a regular basis, than were their counterparts raised in traditional, intact households. For non-custodial parents, the figures dipped to 70 percent. Since it's fathers who most often leave, their relationships with offspring were particularly weak.

Remarriage may be a way to restore harmony between parent and child. Children who became part of a stepfamily described vastly improved relationships with their custodial parent, enjoying ties similar to those in intact families. The only losers were noncustodial parents: If a divorced mom marries again, her kids will probably see even less of their biological dad.

Why do divorced parents tend to have such a hard time cultivating connections with their kids? The biggest deterrent to familial closeness may be financial. Because single parents must frequently work around the clock, they have little time to spend with their offspring.

"It's very hard for a woman on her own these days to earn enough income to raise her children," Lye remarks. "And there's nothing for damaging family relationships quite like poverty."

Beyond the emotional costs, however, the erosion of a family can come back to haunt parents years later, when they may well need their kids most. Adult children who are distanced from their folks might be less willing to provide social and financial support to their parents after they retire. By then, sadly, those broken ties may be all the more difficult to repair.