ABSTRACT
During the last three decades, divorce has became normative in American society. As most family scholars know, the divorce rate increased dramatically during the late 1960s and 1970s, then stabilized in the 1980s at a historically high level. According to recent projections, at least one half of recent first marriages will end in divorce (Cherlin, 1992). One might think that people would be more successful the second time around, but the likelihood of divorce is even greater in second or third marriages. The high rate of marital dissolution has touched the lives of a large number of children. Every year in the United States, over one million children experience divorce, and nearly one half of all children will experience divorce prior to reaching the age of 18 (Bumpass, Thompson, & McDonald, 1984). Along with skinned knees, braces, and the first day of school, divorce has become a common event in the lives of America's children.
