The Breakup Conundrum

__"Transitions in Family Structure and Adolescent Well-Being" by Ed Spruijt and Martijn de Goede, in Adolescence (Winter 1997), Libra Publishers, Inc., 3089C Clairemont Dr., Ste. 383, San Diego, Calif. 92117.__

Should parents who are always at each other’s throats stay together for the sake of the children? The traditional answer is yes; the modern one is no. A study of 2,517 Dutch youths (ages 15–24) suggests there may be something to the older view.

The overwhelming majority (2,177) of the youths studied were in families with both natural parents present, and 139 of them were in homes with serious marital discord. The parents of the remaining 340 youths had divorced (10 years before the 1991 interviews, on average), with 91 of the offspring subsequently acquiring a stepparent.

Spruijt and de Goede, social scientists at Utrecht University, found that the youths in single-parent households were worst off—in terms of physical and psychological health, success in relationships with the opposite sex, and ability to hold down a job. The youngsters in harmonious families with both natural parents present were best off. No surprises there. Nor, perhaps, in the finding that the youths whose parents were perpetually at odds "are somewhat comparable to single-parent youngsters in their psychological well-being." (On that score, the youths in stepfamilies did better.)

But the authors also found that when it came to relationships and holding down a job, the youths from troubled intact families, as well as the youths in stepfamilies, did better than their counterparts in single-parent homes. Indeed, they did almost as well as those in stable intact families. The researchers’ conclusion: parental conflict can hurt children, but "the effects clearly become stronger when the parents are in fact divorced."