ABSTRACT
This article compares the results of two longitudinal studies on the effects of divorce and remarriage on children’s adjustment, one involving preadolescent children and one involving early adolescent children. With younger children the adverse effects of divorce and life in a single parent household headed by a divorced custodial mother are more marked and enduring for sons than for daughters. In contrast, although both male and female preadolescent children initially are disrupted by and resistant to the entry of a stepfather, boys may eventually adapt to and benefit from a close relationship with the stepfather. Few gender differences are found in adolescents’ responses to their parents divorce or remarriage. Early adolescence is an especially difficult time in which to have a remarriage occur. No improvement in stepfather-adolescent relationships or in adolescents’ behavior problems occurs in stepfamilies over the first 26 months of remarriage.
