The Love They Lost: Living with the Legacy of Our Parents' Divorce Book + PRICE WATCH * Amazon pricing is not included in price watch

The Love They Lost: Living with the Legacy of Our Parents' Divorce Book

The traditional family is no more: half of all marriages today end in divorce, and approximately one-third of children under the age of 18 live with only one parent. Yet while a multitude of books have been written about children of divorce, few show a split's effects on these children as they grow into adults and attempt to forge their own romantic and familial relationships. Stephanie Staal, a newspaper reporter whose parents divorced when she was 13, tackles this issue not by presenting studies and recommending solutions or policies, but by sharing the stories of 120 "Generation Ex-" adults whose parents divorced when they were children. These are the kids who grew up in the '70s and '80s, when divorce was becoming increasingly common. These are the kids who are now adults longing for intimacy and connection, but fearing commitment and expecting failure, abandonment, and hurt. "For my generation, divorce has taken on the social proportions of a Great Depression, a World War II, or a Vietnam in influencing our lives," writes Staal. "Divorce struck in the privacy of our own homes, shaking our beliefs about family to the core." The path to healing for these Generation Exes, she believes, lies in recognizing the far-reaching effects of divorce, and in learning--often through the experience of others--how to overcome the trauma of divorce to fashion satisfying lives and relationships. Like Hope Edelman's Motherless Daughters, Staal's eloquent words shine the light on a massive social issue that has been explored from almost every angle possible, except for the one that perhaps counts most of all: from the mouths of the babes who experienced it. --Nancy MonsonRead More

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  • Product Description

    "Divorce May Be Everywhere We Turn, Yet for Many Adult Children of Divorce, There Remains a Silence on the Issues We Want Most to Hear About.

    "Experts try to measure the effects of divorce through school performance, criminal records, psychological tests, but we know the final price of our parents' divorce is paid when we make our own attempts at love and security. After all, in the conversations that pepper everyday life, we talk about our intimate relationships--our hopes and our fears, our fights and our reconciliations. It is not enough to say, as many experts do, that children of divorce are more likely to divorce themselves. The anxiety that crackles through so many of our relationships cannot be dismissed as a simple matter of cause and effect. Of course, divorce continues to shape our behavior, for divorce is all we know. It's a part of who we are. That much is obvious. The hard part is for us to figure out how to move forward while living with the past. Through frank conversations with other adult children of divorce, this book will trace some of the specific ways in which our emotional makeup today is informed by our parents' divorce of yesterday.

  • 0385334095
  • 9780385334099
  • Stephanie Staal
  • 26 October 2000
  • Random House South Africa
  • Hardcover (Book)
  • 256
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