Article Review: Later Life Parental Divorce and Widowhood by Aquilino - Essay Example

Several factors were included in the respondents’ psychoanalysis. 

It is asserted that divorce in later life would decrease parental attachment to adult children. The study conducted by the National Survey of Families and Households focuses on the quality of relationship each divorced parent has with their adult children and found out that the degrees vary according to sex and custody. Although the study may have been limited, and not stated the exact time at which the parents had divorced, there are still important implications to the psychological behavior of children in later life and their relationship with both parents.

However, the result of the study indicates that relationship gaps between parents and adult children are most likely to occur between father and child rather than mother and child. This is due to the custody of the mothers to their children, especially if financial support was not met by the father. On the other hand, widowhood does not impact much the children since they are concentrated on the grief of the other spouse, and would be busy giving emotional support.

The impact of divorce in later life might not be as strong, especially if the children are all grown up, considering that they understand the situation better than the young ones. Therefore, it would not be hard to adjust. Divorce has more lasting effects if it occurred sometime within the younger days of the children, as they perceive it to be abnormal to have only one parent (mostly mothers) in the household. This confusion can have fatal effects on the child’s psychological behavior. The reason widowhood not having the same impact as divorce might be the fact that adult children are ready for this kind of life transition. As adults, they already understand that death is a part of life and instead of grieving, they would resort to supporting the other parent in terms of emotional or possibly, financial support. Conclusion The decision to divorce is a prerogative of the couple if they think that the relationship is not working anymore.

When it comes to the relationship bond between the parents and their children, it is largely dependent on the relationship they had before the divorce was passed. It is reasonable that the result of the study shows that there is more bond between mothers and children in broken home since custody is mostly given to female parents. However, this is not true at all times. True, that widowhood has less impact compared to divorce, but again, this is dependent on the child’s psychological background.