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The Inner Lives of Children of Divorce
Crown
September 2005
288 pages ISBN: 0307237109 Hardcover
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Non-Fiction
A compelling new study reveals the true effects of divorce An astonishing one quarter of adults between the ages of
eighteen and thirty-five have grown up in divorced
families. Now, as this generation comes of age, Between Two
Worlds will speak to them like no other book. Elizabeth Marquardt (together with sociologist Norval
Glenn) conducted a pioneering new national study of the
children of divorce, surveying 1,500 young adults from both
divorced and intact families and interviewing more than
seventy of them at length. In Between Two Worlds, she
weaves the findings of that study together with powerful,
unsentimental stories of the childhoods of young people
from divorced families—as well as her own story of growing
up as a child of divorce. She asks us to acknowledge that
children are profoundly shaped by divorce, even though, as
adults, they might be accomplished and seem “fine.” While
many experts maintain that there are “good divorces,”
praise the idea of “blended families,” and assure divorced
parents that kids are resilient, Marquardt calls
this “happy talk” and warns that it causes children to bury
their real feelings. The hard truth, she says, is that while divorce is
sometimes necessary, there is no such thing as a good
divorce. An amicable divorce is certainly better than a
bitter one, but even amicable divorces sow lasting inner
conflict in the lives of children. When a family breaks in
two, children who stay in touch with both parents must
travel between two worlds, trying alone to reconcile their
parents’ often strikingly different beliefs, values, and
ways of living. Even a “good divorce” restructures
childhood itself. Not surprisingly, many children of divorce seem like old
souls. Often they feel like they have a different identity
in each of their parents’ worlds. Secrets are epidemic.
Home feels less safe, and they are far less likely than the
children of intact marriages to go to their parents for
comfort or emotional support. Some question their parents’
morality and choices. Like their peers from intact
families, they long for spirituality, but their feelings of
loss, mistrust, and anger toward their parents deeply
complicate their spiritual journeys—even translating into
anger at God. Marquardt’s data is undeniably compelling, but at the heart
of her book are stories—of reunions with one parent that
were always partings from the other, of struggles to adapt
to a parent’s moods, of the burden of having to figure out
the important questions in life alone. Authoritative,
beautifully written, and filled with brave, sad,
unflinchingly honest voices, Between Two Worlds is a book
of transforming power for the adult children of divorce,
whose real experiences have for too long gone unrecognized. Based on a pioneering new study, Between Two Worlds is a
book of transforming power for anyone who grew up with
divorced parents.
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