Here's an article on how divorce affects kids: Between Two Worlds
I grew up in an intact family, and my kids are growing up like that as well. I appreciate what you do, Dr. Laura, to enlighten parents who are considering a divorce, yet think their kids will be happy and fine.
Summary of the article: kids from a broken home have to live in two worlds, have to feel old too soon, and alone. Their parents don't know their child's whole story, because each parent is with their child for only a split part of the time. Quote from the article: "Since the early 1970s, when divorce became widespread, there has been this mistaken idea that children do best when their parents are happy. Marquardt, Judith Wallerstein, and others completing long-term studies of kids of divorce, though, show that contrary to popular belief, a child from an intact, but unhappy family with only low-level conflict, tends to grow up happier and more secure than a child from a divorced family, even if that divorce was a "good" one. Children, you see, don't worry so much about their parents' happiness as they do about their own security. And divorce ends that abruptly, no matter how 'amicable' that divorce is supposed to be."
Sharon
