This Just in from the ‘Duh’ Department

Now we know.  When parents get divorced, the distance between the children and the mother lessens while the distance between the children and the father increases.  Now why would that be? 

Because she got primary custody?  Because courts don't enforce his visitation rights?  Because she alienates the kids from him?  Because she moved to a different state?

To be fair, this is an article on a study done on data generated by the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health by three researchers from Penn State University and another from Child Trends (Science Daily, 1/11/08).  They don't delve into causes; they just report the effects.  And the effects include the distancing of children from their fathers because of divorce.  Divorce has little-to-no effect on mother-child closeness.

And one researcher cryptically noted:

"Future research may look at information directly from the fathers about their evaluation of father-child closeness and his views of opportunities and constraints affecting before and after-divorce closeness with their children.

Translation:  One day research may actually asked divorced dads why they can't see their children.

We hope so.

Thanks to Jeremy for the heads-up.

Help for Colorado Dads As someone who has personally experienced the heartbreak of divorce and family breakup, Brett W. Martin, Esq. works to advance the interests and concerns of fathers in domestic and family law litigation. Personal attention is given to clients to help them through a very difficult time in their lives. www.brettwmartin.com

This entry was posted on Friday, January 30th, 2009 at 9:34 am and is filed under blog. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. | 321 views | Trackback | Print this page |

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