Customer Reviews

Divorce Culture, The

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Ms. Whitehead really hits the nail on the head. No holds barred, but extremely thoughtful and insightful. Painfully truthful to those in society who wish to assume no responsibility for their actions, but truth seldom offers solace to those seeking to shift blame.

ok-- not the most helpful review! (as I havent read the book) lol BUT, the book caught my eye enough that I am offering a "pre" view insight as to why I am going to buy this: I have been a single mom, dating for 5 years and NOT ONCE have I met a man serious about dating and marriage in my new-found singledom (Ex husband, btw dumped me for my ex-best friend and both of them are now on their 4th marriage together). Its all about "the me syndrome" getting what they can for nothing, with no obligations or committment. A free-ride for sex, fun and NO respect for love and values anymore. Maybe some of you would turn your heads away and call me bitter-- but take a look at your own dating these days? How many of you, women in particular are tired of the dating run-around this society promotes? I'm tired-- we need a change-- I hope this book offers me some helpful insights-- its at least worth trying...

As a child of divorce I found "The Divorce Culture" by Barbara Dafoe Whitehead fascinating and wonderful. It gave me some answers I have been looking for during my life as I have undertaken to be husband and father without making the mistakes of my parents. Her account of the development of the divorce culture, and most importantly the philosophical basis for that development, is a most important contribution to the current debate on the problems facing the American Family in the late 20th century.

Nothing develops in a vacuum and the rise of divorce is not an exception. Ms. Whitehead looks at the social and historical framework that defined the family and the ends to which that framework was built to serve. By comparing the social and historic record to the theories and forecasts made before the divorce revolution, she gives us the most clear summary possible in a work meant for the public, of the failure of those theories to meet or even suggest the results of large scale divorce on the society and on the children specifically. Personally, I was able to understand that my parents had a whole social-economic model that suggested to them, however incorrectly, that it was ok for them to divorce, and by divorcing they might be doing my siblings and I a favor. The model was wrong, and now Ms. Whitehead has written, clearly and without jargon, but with full bibliographical references, that this was so. She may be forgiven for making suggestions for solving the problems of divorce that seem vague and general. She states that it will take a change in the views of individuals to change the culture of throwaway marriages. In this she is no doubt correct, and therefore suggesting how this is to be done is by nature vague and general. We must each, on our own with our spouses, make decisions and sacrifices that will make the committed family the pillar of our culture again.

Ms. Whitehead has suffered the barrage of negative criticism that comes with challenging the accepted wisdom of the culture. She has been attacked as a reactionary by those who incorrectly equate easy divorce with liberation. She shows however, that easy divorce instead limits most of the women, and children, of divorce into the lowest levels of society and the economy. Ms. Whitehead has been attacked by those who say she would suggest that women should stay in an abusive or violent marriage for the "sake of the children." Anyone who gives this work even a casual reading will see that Ms. Whitehead makes clear that divorce has an important role in extreme cases. However she correctly points out that the vast majority of divorces are not for these extreme reasons.

I would recommend this work for anyone curious how divorce became so common in America. I would also suggest that anyone in the field of marriage counseling, especially those counseling prospective couples, recommend this book to their clients.

Whitehead has stolen a phrase from Blankenhorn as the title of her book. Yes, there is a culture of divorce in American, but data the author uses for her perspective is one sided and narrow. She forgets that Newt, Graham, and many others in the Republican camp have helped to create this culture. As an academic who teaches and conducts family relations, I am surprised by the author's lack of balance in her research on this issue. She constaintly cites marriage and family textbooks and research out of context. There are those of us in academics who believe that marriage is in a crisis and want to see a renewal of concept of commitment among married partners. The author fails to examine the attempts of the helping professions to stem the tide of divorce by designing implimenting Programs such as PREP (Markman, Stanley, & Blumber), Couple Communications (Miller & Miller), and PREPARE/ENRICH (Olson, D.). My guess she is preaching to the converted, but fails to see that there are individuals in the professions she degrades, trying to cry in the wilderness that there is hope for the future. The hope will only be fulfilled when we stop pointing fingers and start seeking solutions

Yes, divorce is taking a toll on children all across America. But Whitehead's analysis is another version of "blaming the victim" not the causes. In this case, the victims are families themselves. If we are sincere about forging stronger family bonds, we need to address those causal issues which really tear at the core of family stability and health -- maldistribution of wealth in America, underpaid and dead-end jobs, the consumer culture, and corporate tax evasion. The divorce culture is really an artifact of where corporate America has been taking us for the last few decades. To insist that families must simply swallow their angst and try harder to stay together is to miss the whole point -- and dispense absolution on the guilty parties

Having leafed through this book, I was very upset that Barbara Whitehead chooses to blame (across the board) all parents who have ever had to come to grips with the reality of divorce for the plight of the children today. Divorce is a regrettable part of modern life however what Ms. Whitehead fails to understand is that some children are spared further agony by divorce. She fails to account for the high incidence of abuse in marriages which, sadly, all the counseling in the world sometimes cannot help. She recommends counseling as if it is a cure-all for every situation and it is not. Are children supposed to grow up seeing how their parents wrongly treat each other every day (while in therapy of course) and thus learn to behave the same way? Her analysis is flawed at best. The very children she writes about in the hopes of protecting are hurt by her idea of marital preservation. Unfortunately, some people are not emotionally equipped to be married. This is a hard fact. The children involved are indeed innocent victims. However, prolonging the agony of a failed marriage hurts the children more than anyone. She writes with the assumption that we are all living in a perfect world in which everyone has access to good counseling and where we all have spouses who are willing to work on themselves for the sake of our children. She needs to take a step back into reality and stop unilaterally blaming the populus for its ills. Whitehead is no fairy godmother to the social structure of this country and her views do not help, they hinder. She cites that children of divorce often times grow up in lesser financial situations. I would take less change in my purse for a more secure future when it comes to mental well-being. Everyone is entitled to their opinion and hers is quite obviously well-thought out but it just doesn't apply to life as we know it. Not everyone who is a child of divorce grows up suffering and sad. She should stop to consider that it might be better for a child to grow up with one happy, stable, loving parent who tends to the needs of the child instead of two parents who balk at each other all day and all night depriving their progeny of a true childhood. Save your money and spare yourself from this moral drivel