This Paperback Book item from Mariner Books was reviewed on 3-Nov-2008.
Search ISBN:0618446893 offer from Abebooks or used books from Alibris. Second Chances: Men, Women and Children a Decade After Divorce Reference Book. Classifications : General Psychology & Counseling Health, Mind & Body Subjects Books General AAS Psychology & Counseling Health, Mind & Body Subjects Books Interpersonal Relations Relationships Health, Mind & Body Subj . Click the following link to view the cover of Second Chances: Men, Women and Children a Decade After Divorce. Related topics: General. Health, Mind & Body. Subjects. Books. General AAS. Health, Mind & Body. Subjects. Books. Relationships. Health, Mind & Body. requestid: 12ddc2c4-9de6-4134-a9f9-b919abd3e6a7
requestprocessingtime: 0.1500220000000000
salesrank: 247390
numberofitems: 1
packagedimensions: 9081085550
1) Paperback Book Second Chances: Men, Women and Children a Decade After Divorce by Mariner Books. What a marvelous book. Children of divorce and their parents were tracked over 10 years (some for 15 years), using in depth interviews, questionnaires, and conversations with school personnel. There were some startling findings, such as that children who initially seemed to adjust very well to the divorce, could have specific kinds of problems years later. However, Wallerstein´s answer to the question of whether people should stay married for the sake of the children is "of course not". Knowing what the potential difficulties are, well meaning parents and step-parents can try to minimize them.
For a reader such as myself (happily married) looking not for answers but insight into human nature, the book is very rewarding and very moving. Parents and children often speak eloquently through these pages, and there are many people to admire and empathize with. Wallerstein is very sympathetic, and non-judgmental except when condemnation is clearly deserved. There is a certain amount of repetition, which would normally bother me, but here it just reinforces the emotion and the content. Readers with a little less patience might be advised to start with chapter 2.
¤ 2) Paperback Book Second Chances: Men, Women and Children a Decade After Divorce by Mariner Books. This book reports the results of several research projects conducted by Wallerstein to investigate recovery from divorce. As divorce statistics were mounting in the 1960s and 1970s, conventional wisdom held that divorce was rough on spouses and children, but after one or two years, most people got over it and moved on. Wallerstein and her team decided to see how true this was. They interviewed spouses and children who happened to live near their offices in California during the early 1970s and who were going through a divorce at the time. Then they found the same people a year later and interviewed them again to see how many had recovered from the divorce, and to what extent. At the time of the second interview, they were surprised to find out how many people hadn´t recovered yet, so they checked back again with the same people after five years to see when the recovery happened. They were quite surprised to find that most people still hadn´t recovered after five years, so they found the people again at ten years, and some of them even after fifteen years, and were dismayed to find that most people never really do recover completely from divorce. Some of the spouses, often who originally sought the divorce, came out ahead, but most of the children were devastated by the divorce and hadn´t recovered even by the fifteen year mark, when many were already young adults and forming families of their own. Important results from Wallerstein´s research include:
--Women who are older (40+) when they divorce are much less likely to ever remarry than men who divorce at a comparable age. Women who are younger at the time of divorce often remarry.
--The age of the children plays a very important role in how well they adjust to the new family structure. Boys are especially vulnerable if they are between the ages of five and seven when their parents divorce. Girls who are young when their parents split up may suddenly need stronger connections with their fathers when they become teenagers.
--Joint custody didn´t seem to be any better for the eventual development of the children than traditional single-parent custody arrangements- -but some parents enjoyed the regular time away from the kids. My husband´s parents divorced when he was three. We´ve been together twenty years, but until reading this book, I never was truly aware of how devastated he was by the divorce. I knew that the divorce still disturbed him, but I never understood how much or why, or why it was still so sad for him forty years later. The book also got me thinking back to my best friend in middle school, whose parents got divorced. I knew she was very upset about the divorce at the time, but I couldn´t understand what she was going through. Her family decided on joint custody, and for a while, it seemed every time I would call her house to ask her to come over, her mother would tell me that she was staying at her father´s. Since neither of us were old enough to drive, we stopped getting together as often as before, and eventually, I stopped calling. We found that we couldn´t maintain our closeness with all of her bouncing from house to house, and we drifted apart just at a time when she needed close friends the most. After reading this book, I began to understand that to a child, divorce seems to be like amputating a limb- -if someone loses an arm or leg, they generally learn to compensate within a year or two, but they are never completely whole again. The information and depth of research represented in this book is very good, but the story is not quite complete. In order to determine whether the continuing problems that the children had were due to the divorce or to chance, the study would have much better if Wallerstein had included a control group of similar families who did not divorce. It also would have been good to compare the children of divorced families with children who have lost a parent through death, and adopted children, and children who are raised in single parent families from birth. Designing a study to include all of these groups would be unwieldy, but it would have been nice to at least see for comparison results from other published studies that covered these groups. Overall, though, the book is quite well done, and extremely thought-provoking.¤ 3) Paperback Book Second Chances: Men, Women and Children a Decade After Divorce by Mariner Books. What a self righteous load of crap! The purpose of this book, I think, is to scare unhappily married people out of getting divorced. It details all of the different ways in which the children and their parents are still miserable ten years later. Obviously, divorce is painful, but sometimes, inevitible...Who needs to read this during such a difficult time? The truth is there are many, many ways to screw up kids...divorce is just one!¤ 4) Paperback Book Second Chances: Men, Women and Children a Decade After Divorce by Mariner Books. I first found this book as part of a Psychology research project.
The research that founded this book has influenced the way that government systems deal with divorcing families across America. It is one of the best resources I can think of for families that are going through divorce. Though the title states a decade after divorce the follow up has gone well beyond this. I have been divorced for 15 years - today I am purchasing a copy for my sister who is getting divorced after 18 years of marraige - This is one of those books that I have loned out and lost and loned out and lost repeatedly - they keep getting passed forward. Well worth the little investment of money and time.¤ 5) Paperback Book Second Chances: Men, Women and Children a Decade After Divorce by Mariner Books. It wasn´t until recently (I´m almost 40) that I began to look at my parent´s divorce as a source of some of my behaviors. I´m very functional,even successful, but sometimes wonder if I haven´t been undercut by the blow of losing "home". This is an interesting read, and worth exploring by those who share my suspicion about their own lives. Knowledge is power. Good luck.¤ 6) Paperback Book Second Chances: Men, Women and Children a Decade After Divorce by Mariner Books. A ten-year study of sixty middle-class families served as the basis for this book. Twenty-five years after the original breakup, Wallerstein discovers unexpected changes in the children, now mostly adults.¤ Page Updated: Robert N. Goolsby, 1-Dec-2008, 06184468939780618446896, 090-830-550-930-120-610-160-G0B-ZEB-8 
Second Chances: Men, Women and Children a Decade After Divorce, Book, Image © Mariner Books
|
