The well-being of youngsters coming from six different family types
Introduction
Families are not so stable as they used to be half a century ago. They are on the move. To be more precise: parents are on the move and many do not stay with their first married partner “till death does them part”. If the rates of divorce in The Netherlands and several other western countries remain as high as over the last 5 years, then, in the long run, more than a third of all marriages will end in a divorce [1]. Partners who do stay together do not always do so in a state of harmony. There are well functioning and badly functioning marriages. Besides, those who divorce do not always stay alone. Many find a new partner with or without a formal wedding ceremony. In a word, parents are on the move. What effects does this have on the children? Does it make any difference to a child’s well-being what type of family he or she grows up in?
Again and again the following questions arise. Is the classical, well-functioning family nowadays still the best environment for children? Are not rows between the parents much worse for the children than a divorce? Do children of one-parent families really have a harder time than children of two-parent families? Do not stepfamilies have great problems? Is not a parent’s death far more drastic than a divorce? With all these questions it also matters whether the age and sex of the children are important and whether the possible effects decrease in time. The question on which our attention in this article is focussed is: what are the long-term effects on children of growing up in different family types?
Research usually bears out that it is best for children to grow up with their two biological parents [2], [3], [4], [5], [6], [7]. It is less clear in what respect children are worse off if their parents do not love each other so much any longer, get divorced or decide to stay together nonetheless. In 1996, Dronkers concluded that secondary school pupils were happier and more content to be raised by one biological parent than those whose parents remain together and quarrel. This conclusion only applies “if it is a matter of (very) regular serious rowing” [8]. Simons and Johnson, though, came to the conclusion that there is a greater chance of inadequate parentage through divorce than through marital problems [7]. On the basis of longitudinal data, McLanahan and Sandefur [9] reported that divorce is often followed by a decrease in parental quality. Cherlin and others, on the other hand, reported that a great deal of the divorce effect on children could be explained by unfavourable circumstances (conflicts) before the divorce took place; this particularly goes for girls [10]. In a word, we need a better insight into the question of what is worse for children: rowing parents or divorced parents (sub-question 1).
Many divorced parents meet a new partner. In that context, the question will often come up which is worse for children, living in a one-parent family or in a stepfamily. The social image of both one-parent families and stepfamilies is still negative. One-parent families are often associated with families on social security and the term: “to be treated in a stepmotherly way” is by no means a positive remark. Research shows that stepchildren generally score similar or slightly higher on scales that measure well-being as compared to one-parent children [5], [6], [11], [12]. Research into adjustment and health problems of youngsters of stepfamilies compared to youngsters of intact families, has shown that the educational prospects and also the general well-being of youngsters of stepfamilies are not as good [4], [13], [14]. Ganong and Coleman [12] concluded that there are differences in the performance of children who grow up in stepfamilies and those growing up in other family types, but most of these differences are slight. Dutch research [15] has shown that adolescents and young adults, particularly those of the so-called divided stepfamily type (these are families in which the biological parent and the stepmother or stepfather do not agree on a number of matters) have many problems. In other types of stepfamilies things go reasonably well. In short, there should be more clarity as to the question, which is worse for children: growing up in a one-parent family or in a stepfamily (sub-question 2).
Although in 1996 most one-parent families and stepfamilies came into being by divorce, there are still one-parent families and stepfamilies that arose after the death of a parent-particularly if it concerns older children. Though for children this death is a very drastic incident with the strong emotions that go with it—particularly in the short term—there are obvious differences between the effects of death and those of a divorce. The latter usually has a longer period of domestic problems as a result and also the painful process of rediscovering a new balance after one of the parents has left. Whereas after death the memory of the deceased parent is almost always positive, the memory of, or the contact with the absent parent after the divorce is hardly ever without problems [16]. van Gelder [17] did not find any big differences between divorced families and widowed ones in, for instance, the help one-parent families receive. van Delft and Niphuis-Nell [18] point at differences and agreements between divorced families and widowed ones. They especially emphasise the problems in widowed families in the short term. In the longer term, the negative effects tend to decrease. Empirical screening for effects of divorce and the formation of stepfamilies shows that the greatest negative effects appear to have diminished after about 2 years. In their study of men, women and children, 10 years after the divorce, Wallerstein et al. [19] conclude, however, that many young people, it is true, finally appear to be able to start ‘stable’ relationships, but that the entry into the phase of young adulthood is a critical threshold for all interviewed children. McLanahan and Bumpass [20] also ascertain for the US that children of divorced families do not enter adulthood light-heartedly. De Graaf [21] reported some long-term effects of divorce for The Netherlands: for many youngsters of one-parent families the entry into adulthood may be accompanied by feelings and memories from the time of their parents’ divorce. With a number of aspiring adults it is conceivable that there is a certain degree of fear to start a relationship. They are afraid to repeat their parents’ mistakes. In short, we would like to have a better understanding as regards the question what the effects are for children of growing up in divorced families or in widowed families (sub-question 3).
In order to answer the question on which attention is focussed and the three sub-questions as to the effects of growing up in different family types, we will, in this paper, compare six family types: well-functioning intact families, mediocre and badly functioning intact families, one-parent families after a divorce, stepfamilies after a divorce and one-parent families after widowing. In the next section, we will first discuss the theoretical perspectives employed in the literature in order to investigate the effects for adolescents and young adults. After that we will in Section 3 discuss which concrete effects in the literature are usually involved. Subsequently, we will submit our findings and the discussion.
Section snippets
Theoretical perspectives
What theoretical interpretations are used to investigate the consequences for children of growing up in a particular family type? Several authors [22] correctly point out that in many studies on the effects of a divorce the two-parent family is implicitly or explicitly the norm. Hereby the Freudian principle is adopted that both a father and a mother are indispensable for the normal development of a child. Many researchers take this principle which is also known as the deficit-comparison
The effects on children and youngsters
What effects on children and youngsters of growing up in different family types are usually distinguished in the literature? It generally concerns their well-being which may be summarised in a number of widely asked questions:
- 1.
How do youngsters feel physically and mentally?
- 2.
What is the relationship with their parents like?
- 3.
How does their relationship develop?
- 4.
Do they have problems with their boyfriends and girlfriends?
- 5.
Do they have problems at school and/or at work?
- 6.
What about their risky habits?
- 7.
How
Data collection
We made use of the data of the longitudinal panel study “Utrecht Study of Adolescent Development” (USAD; wave 1 in 1991; wave 2 in 1994, and wave 3 in 1997). This is a Dutch project based on a representative random sample of adolescents and young adults. The random selection was based on statistics of households or youngsters living independently, from the National Script Panel and the National Mini Census [43], [44]. For each household there was a maximum selection of two persons between 15
Results
Table 2 shows the average scores for the different aspects of well-being of youngsters of the distinguished family types. The first question in this connection concerns physical and mental health. The top four lines of Table 2 indicate that adolescents and young adults of well-functioning nuclear families do best. They make the most positive scores on all four distinguished variables. Although youngsters of the two family types after a divorce also score lower, the lowest scores of youngsters
Conclusion and discussion
Serious parental conflicts and divorce are a bad thing for the long-term well-being of children. Our data show that, on average, 11 years after a divorce different effects are still perceptible. Although the scores on different variables are indeed significant, but not so strong, a number of results is nevertheless a cause for concern: the mental and physical health, the relatively weak parental bonding, the early start of the relational career, including the stated relational problems, and the
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