Not long ago, I had dinner with a friend whose mother had recently remarried, to a man who had never had any children. Though she was happy for her mother, my friend also found herself bothered by a thought she couldn't shake. If her mother were to die before the new husband, she wondered, would she herself be expected to care for this man she barely knew?
My friend isn't alone in her uncertainty. Because of profound changes in how Americans organize and sustain -- and often break up -- our families, our nation will soon confront a never-before-seen shift in how we die and whom we'll have around us when we do. And the likelihood is that on every level, we will be dying much more alone.
Reduced birth rates, widespread divorce, single-parent childbearing, remarriage and what we might call "re-divorce" are poised to usher in an era of uncertain obligation and complicated grief for the many adults confronting the aging and dying of their divorced parents, stepparents and ex-stepparents. And compared with the generations before them, these dying parents and parent figures will be far less likely to find comfort and help in the nearby presence of grown daughters and sons.
"Children of Divorce Care for Parents Less" read the headline of a UPI article last September that reported the results of a study revealing that divorce predicts a significantly lower level of involvement among adult children in caring for their aging parents. The study's lead author, developmental psychologist Adam Davey of Temple University, contended that it wasn't the divorce itself that led to this estrangement but rather "what happens afterwards, such as geographical separation."
But in a study of grown children of divorce that I conducted with sociology professor Norval Glenn at the University of Texas at Austin, we found that the divorce itself has a lot to do with how parents and children get along. The grown children of divorce in our study were far less likely to report that they had gone to either or both parents for comfort when they were younger. When they grew up, they were more likely to have strained relationships with their fathers and mothers. Most of the 18- to 35-year-olds in our study still had relatively young parents, but some had already confronted the illness and death of one or the other of their divorced parents. They struggled especially with whether and how to care for estranged fathers who were ill and often living alone, men who had done little for them but who now badly needed help from, well, someone.
Read it all at the Washington Post.
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