demonstrates or other variables such as mother's separation from community or maternal depression may also effect children causing the impact that the researchers saw rather than the divorce / separation factor being the determining variable.
In effect, what the authors demonstrate is that both gender are negatively influenced by divorce and separation, although they had been negatively affected by adverse conditions before divorce / separation had occurred.
To Amato et al. (1995), the situation is not so simple. Reviewing cross-sectional studies between children who remain in conflict-ridden two-parent homes and products of divorced parents who experienced conflict prior to divorce, he discovers that all children are adversely impacted by parental conflict, but that children who remain in the conflict-ridden environment are apt to suffer more than those whose parents are divorced. Much also, however, depended on the intensity of the conflict. In other words, the 12-year longitudinal study of Amato and colleagues (1995) found that children from high-conflict families had higher levels of well being as young adults if their parents divorced than if they stayed together, but in low-conflict families, the reverse was found. Children who experienced low conflict demonstrated higher levels of well being by their families remaining intact than if the parents were divorced. In all marriages where parental conflict was the case and marriages did not end in divorce, conflict was negatively associated with children's well being.
How Amato et al.'s study (1995) contributes and adds to that of Mcclanahans's is that the authors make us see that each and every family instance is different and that numerous variables must be taken into account before passing judgment on the adverse impact of a single parent home on children. Whilst Mclanahan et al. may be correct in assessing that a two-parent home may be better for children's upbringing than that of a one-parent family, nonetheless, previous conditions for children before divorce must be taken into consideration too. It may be that, despite all its demerits, children may profit more in the well-functioning single...
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