Children of Divorce and Remarriage

Divorce and remarriage can be stressful on partners and children alike. Divorce is often justified by the notion that children are better off in a divorced family than in a family with parents who do not get along, but many other variables are important specifically parental involvement of the non-custodial parent and the socioeconomic status of the custodial parent.

Children’s ability to deal with a divorce may depend on their age. Research has found that divorce may be most difficult for school-aged children, as they are old enough to understand the separation but not old enough to understand the reasoning behind it. Older teenagers are more likely to recognize the conflict that led to the divorce but may still feel fear, loneliness, guilt, and pressure to choose sides. Infants and preschool-age children may suffer the heaviest impact from the loss of routine that the marriage offered (Temke, 2006).

Proximity to parents also makes a difference in a child’s well-being after divorce. Boys who live or have joint arrangements with their fathers show less aggression than those who are raised by their mothers only. Similarly, girls who live or have joint arrangements with their mothers tend to be more responsible and mature than those who are raised by their fathers only. Nearly three-fourths of the children of parents who are divorced live in a household headed by their mother, leaving many boys without a father figure residing in the home (U.S. Census Bureau, 2011b). Still, researchers suggest that a strong parent-child relationship can greatly improve a child’s adjustment to divorce (Temke, 2006).

Domestic Violence

Domestic violence is a significant social problem in the United States. It is often characterized as violence between household or family members, specifically spouses. To include unmarried, cohabitating, and same-sex couples, family sociologists have created the term intimate partner violence (IPV). According to the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence, nearly 20 people per minute are physically abused by an intimate partner in the United States. During one year, this equates to more than 10 million women and men. Women are the primary victims of intimate partner violence. It is estimated that one in four women has experienced some form of IPV in her lifetime (compared to one in seven men) (Catalano, 2007).

IPV may include physical violence, such as punching, kicking, or other methods of inflicting physical pain; sexual violence, such as rape or other forced sexual acts; threats and intimidation that imply either physical or sexual abuse; and emotional abuse, such as harming another’s sense of self-worth through words or controlling another’s behavior. IPV often starts as emotional abuse and then escalates to other forms or combinations of abuse. About 1 in 4 women and 1 in 10 men experienced contact sexual violence, physical violence, and/or stalking by an intimate partner and reported an IPV-related impact during their lifetime (Centers for Disease Control, 2018).

According to the National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey, IPV affects different segments of the population at different rates with American Indian and Alaskan Native women experiences the highest levels of IPV at 48 percent compared to 47 percent among multiracial women, 45 percent for black women, 37 percent for white women, 34 percent for Latinas, and 18 percent Asian/Pacific Islander women. Contact sexual violence, which includes rape and unwanted sexual contact, is experienced by 42.6 percent of women and 24.8 percent of men in the U.S. (Centers for Disease Control, 2018). Bisexual women are most likely (61 percent) to experience rape, physical violence, and/or stalking by an intimate partner compared to 44 percent of lesbians, 37 percent of bisexual men, 35 percent of heterosexual women, 29 percent of heterosexual men, and 26 percent of gay men.

Accurate statistics on IPV are difficult to determine, as it is estimated that more than half of nonfatal IPV goes unreported. It is not until victims choose to report crimes that patterns of abuse are exposed. People who have the most to lose by reporting domestic violence, such as women who are in arranged marriages, lack U.S. citizenship, and/or are homeless or involved with the criminal justice system, are likely the most undercounted in these victimization surveys.

Sometimes abuse is reported to police by a third party, but it still may not be confirmed by victims. A study of domestic violence incident reports found that even when confronted by police about abuse, 29 percent of victims denied that abuse occurred. Surprisingly, 19 percent of their assailants were likely to admit to abuse (Felson, Ackerman, and Gallagher, 2005). According to the National Criminal Victims Survey, victims cite varied reason why they are reluctant to report abuse, as shown in the table below.

This chart shows reasons that victims give for why they fail to report abuse to police authorities (Catalano, 2007).

Child Abuse

In the fiscal year 2017, approximately 4.3 million children are the subjects of Child Protective Services (CPS) Reports and this number includes duplicates (more than one report for the same child) and the majority (65.7 percent) of these reports were made by professionals such as educational personnel (19.4 percent), legal and law enforcement personnel (18.3 percent), and social services personnel (11.7 percent) ^[4]. Of these, 17 percent or 674,000 are classified as victims, with 74.9 percent of victims described as neglected, 18.3 percent as physically abused, and 8.6 percent as sexually abused. These victims may suffer a single maltreatment type or a combination of two or more maltreatment types. An estimated 1,720 children died of abuse and neglect at a rate of 2.32 per 100,000 children in the national population.

Infants are also often victims of physical abuse, particularly in the form of violent shaking. This type of physical abuse is referred to as shaken-baby syndrome, or abusive head trauma, which describes a group of medical symptoms such as brain swelling and retinal hemorrhage resulting from forcefully shaking or causing impact to an infant’s head. A baby’s cry is the number one trigger for shaking. Parents may find themselves unable to soothe a baby’s concerns and may take their frustration out on the child by shaking him or her violently. Other stress factors such as a poor economy, unemployment, and general dissatisfaction with parental life may contribute this type of abuse. While there is no official central registry of shaken-baby syndrome statistics, it is estimated that each year 1,400 babies die or suffer serious injury from being shaken (Barr, 2007).

In a study conducted by the Medill Justice Project using nearly 3,000 cases nationwide, 72.5 percent of those accused of shaken-baby syndrome crimes are men, while 27.5 percent are women ^[5]. The gender discrepancy found in this study has been attributed to socialization and teaching men how to care for infants. Other studies have questioned whether males are more likely to be the perpetrators or are just more easily convicted given their size and strength.

Although definitions of child abuse vary, international studies conducted by the World Health Organization have shown that a quarter of all adults report having been physically abused as children and 1 in 5 women and 1 in 13 men report having been sexually abused as a child. Additionally, many children are subject to emotional abuse (sometimes referred to as psychological abuse) and to neglect.

In armed conflict and refugee settings, girls are particularly vulnerable to sexual violence, exploitation and abuse by combatants, security forces, members of their communities, aid workers and others.

Watch the UNICEF clip below about the story of a child soldier in South Sudan.

Child abuse occurs at all socioeconomic and education levels and crosses ethnic and cultural lines. Just as child abuse is often associated with stresses felt by parents, including financial stress, parents who demonstrate resilience to these stresses are less likely to abuse (Samuels, 2011). As a parents age increases, the risk of abuse decreases. Children born to mothers who are fifteen years old or younger are twice as likely to be abused or neglected by age five than are children born to mothers ages twenty to twenty-one (George and Lee, 1997).

Drug and alcohol use is also a known contributor to child abuse. Children raised by substance abusers have a risk of physical abuse three times greater than other kids, and neglect is four times as prevalent in these families (Child Welfare Information Gateway, 2011). Other risk factors include social isolation, depression, low parental education, and a history of being mistreated as a child. Approximately 30 percent of abused children later abuse their own children (Child Welfare Information Gateway, 2006).