Effects of Parental Divorce and Memories of Family Problems on Relationships between Adult Children and their Parents

We examined adult child-parent relations by childhood family structure and memories of family problems. Relative to those who grew up in two-parent families, adult children of divorce perceive both relationships with mothers and fathers to be of lower quality, although the magnitude of effects is generally two or three times greater for fathers. We find these effects to be significant for positive features of father-child relations, whereby adult children of divorce report feeling significantly less loved and less listened to by their fathers. While in most cases part of the effect of parental divorce on relationship quality can be explained by memories of parental marital conflict or other family problems, there is one exception. Even controlling for memories of family problems, we find adult children of divorce have significantly less contact with their parents than adults from two-parent families. We also examine data about parental surrogates.