Table Of ContentCHANGING FAMILIES,
CHANGING RESPONSIBILITIES
Family Obligations Following
Divorce and Remarriage
CHANGING FAMILIES,
CHANGING RESPONSIBILITIES
Family Obligations Following
Divorce and Remarriage
Lawrence H.Ganong
Marilyn Coleman
University of Missouri—Columbia
LAWRENCE ERLBAUM ASSOCIATES, PUBLISHERS
Mahwah, New Jersey London
This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2009.
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Copyright © 1999 by Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any
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means, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc., Publishers
10 Industrial Avenue
Mahwah, New Jersey 07430
Cover design by Kathryn Houghtaling Lacey
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Ganong, Lawrence H.
Changing families, changing responsibilities: family obligations
following divorce and remarriage/Lawrence H.Ganong and
Marilyn Coleman.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-8058-2691-2 (alk. paper)
1. Divorce—United States. 2. Remarriage—United States. 3. Divorced
parents—United States. 4. Children of divorced parents—United
States. 5. Intergenerational relations—United States. I. Coleman,
Marilyn. II. Title.
HQ834.G375 1999
306.89—dc21 99–17930
CIP
ISBN 1-4106-0255-9 Master e-book ISBN
Contents
Preface vii
Chapter 1 Who is Responsible for Dependent Family Members? 1
Chapter 2 Parental Financial Support of Children
Following Divorce 25
Chapter 3 Mom’s House? Dad’s House?
Parents’ Responsibility to Assume
Physical Custody of Children 45
Chapter 4 Older Family Members’ Financial
Obligations to Younger Generations 62
Chapter 5 Adults’ Obligations to Parents, In-laws,
and Stepparents: A Review of the Literature 87
Chapter 6 (Step) Filial Obligations 101
Chapter 7 Responsibilities to Elders After the Divorce
of the Middle Generation 121
Chapter 8 Building Models of Intergenerational Obligations 138
Appendix A Vignettes Used in the Family Obligations Studies 164
Appendix B Methods 182
References 184
Author Index 197
Subject Index 202
v
Preface
The research presented in this book has been a labor of love (and responsibility)
for several years. When we first embarked on a set of studies to assess
intergenerational family obligations, we had no idea that the subject of family
responsibilities following marital transitions would be so interesting, nor did
we anticipate finding the issues surrounding intergenerational responsibilities
so compelling. The more we discussed these ideas, the more we saw examples
in newspapers and on television of how ambiguous and complex the issues of
obligations to kin are, especially after divorce and remarriage.
It is likely that everyone will encounter a dilemma surrounding the issue of
intergenerational responsibilities sometime in their lives. We were surprised at
the number of people we encountered whose families have grappled with some
of the very issues of intergenerational assistance that we examined in our studies.
During the last few years, friends and acquaintances to whom we explained our
program of research eagerly offered to share with us, from their own lives and the
lives of their family members, example after example of the various ways they
were touched by questions regarding family obligations. We knew then, as we
know now, that this is an exceedingly important topic to an aging society that is
raising children in a multitude of family forms.
Moreover, we began to understand how issues related to intergenerational
obligations are relevant to many other important topics, such as kinship, moral
values and beliefs, family relationships, economics, caregiving, domestic policy,
and personal identities. These studies launched us on a pathway of examining
new bodies of literature and new topics. We are learning, and have learned, new
research methods so that we can address questions that cover the gamut from
individual responsibilities to interpersonal relationships to cultural values. This
book represents the culmination of one stage in what we envision as an ongoing
exploration of family obligations.
Several of the 13 studies discussed in this book have been reported in
professional journals. Consequently, we tried not to merely repeat what we have
written before about intergenerational obligations. We reexamined all of our
data and reinterpreted what the results of earlier studies meant in light of the
analyses of data from newer, unpublished studies. Moreover, we attempted to
examine the responses of study participants as holistically as possible, comparing
and contrasting results of similar investigations in pursuit of common underlying
principles. One of our goals in writing this book was to make the findings as
accessible as possible to people who are not social scientists; therefore, we
avoid detailed explanations of statistical tests and statistical analyses in the text.
Interested readers may refer to previously published journal articles or to Appendix
vii
viii Preface
B, where more detailed explanations of our quantitative and qualitative analytic
methods are presented. In the text, when we mention differences between study
conditions or relations between variables, we are always referring to relations that
are statistically significant. Qualitative data lack the advantage of statistical tests
to help researchers draw inferences, so we followed some rules of our own; we did
not report qualitative responses that represented less than 25% of the participants
unless we noted otherwise.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
We have many people to thank. Many colleagues and graduate students have
helped us in both tangible and intangible ways over the past few years. Among
the colleagues are Mark Fine, Larry Kurdek, Steve Duck, Pat Noller, and Theresa
Cooney. Among our former graduate students to whom we owe a debt are Deborah
Mistina, Susan Cable, Monique Perricone-Wihlen, Cara Saling, Lee Ann Taylor,
Tim Killian, Annette Kusgen McDaniel, Shannon Weaver, Ken Reed, Elizabeth
Arnold, Art Schneider, and Annelle Weymuth. We owe Jane Johnson a debt for her
assistance with the periodically tricky statistical and data management problems
we encountered. Although we have never met them, we have been inspired by the
creative scholarship and writing of Janet Finch and by the research of Peter and
Alice Rossi. We want to express our appreciation to Judi Amsel, who allowed us
some flexibility in meeting our responsibilities to her and to Lawrence Erlbaum
Associates. Of course, we also want to thank the more than 6,000 participants in
our studies, who took time to share their beliefs with us.
The University of Missouri (UM) financially supported some of the work
reported in this book through a grant from the UM Research Board. Over the
course of this program of research, the UM Cooperative Extension Service has
underwritten much of the cost of several of the studies. Dick Dowdy and other
administrators at our university have been nothing but supportive of us in this
work, and we deeply appreciate their financial assistance and their cooperation.
Finally, we want to acknowledge the importance of our families in these efforts.
We are grateful both to our families of origin and to our extended kin as well as
to the family that we have shared for two decades. The most profound lessons we
have learned about family responsibilities have come from them.
—Lawrence H.Ganong
—Marilyn Coleman
1
Who Is Responsible
for Dependent
Family Members?
There is enough guilt in every family to trip the responsibility wire, to push
the button that says families should take care of their own.
—Goodman (1996)
We’re going to have to accept more personal responsibility in our own
families for reading to our children and caring for our parents, and that’s
going to be inconvenient and difficult.
—Alexander (1996)
No modern (and perhaps preliterate) society exists in which members do
not mutually understand the demands associated with moral obligation.
—Weiner (1995, p. 24)
It is time to demand that people take responsibility for the children they
bring into the world.
—Clinton (1993)
Issues surrounding family responsibilities are everywhere. For instance
• In Oregon, parents are fined up to $1,000 and required to attend parenting
classes under the state’s parental responsibility law if their children break
the law (Jacobs, 1995).
• In Washington, DC, a group of activists and politicians spearheaded a
fatherhood initiative designed to increase father involvement in childrearing
(National Fatherhood Initiative, 1998).
• The Republican Party’s Contract with America contained a platform
called the Personal Responsibility Act. This act, part of the Republicans’
1
