Kids in Crisis 91
Parents as human safety nets. It is especially important for ado-
lescents to have a well-organized and functioning household and
a clearly defined sense of rules during this period. Can any par-
ent fail to notice the acute importance of a teenager having his or
her own room as a sanctuary? An organized and consistent home
front serves as the safety net for the adolescent to fall back into
between his or her periodic forays in search of self.
This need for a structured home life is extremely important for
both sexes, but it seems to be even more acute for adolescent girls
than it is for adolescent boys. Adolescent girls (particularly around
the ages of thirteen to fifteen) seem to have a particularly intense
need for closeness and direction from their natural fathers.
So we can see that adolescence is perhaps the most complex
and painful stage of all for a kid in a divorcing family. In a single-
parent relationship there is less opportunity to detach in the more
gradual fashion associated with normal adolescence, since that
parent-and-child relationship is likely to be both more central and
more encompassing than is a dual-parent relationship in an intact
family.
Certainly it cannot be easy to be the son of a woman who is
alone. The rising sexuality of an adolescent boy is very frighten-
ing to him, and he wants to get away from his mother. Without
his father present, he feels unprotected from his own impulses
and fantasies.
Dr. Wallerstein found in her study that fully one-third of both
boys and girls went to live with their fathers at some point during
their adolescence. Of these, half stayed about one year. They grew
disenchanted with what they found and realized, after a short
time, that they had been “following a fantasy.” Her observation
was that this is a widespread phenomenon during adolescence—
kids moving back and forth between two homes several times
during high school, essentially customizing their custody with
or without their parents’ approval.
So here we have this snapshot picture of the typical adolescent:
confused and confusing; sometimes delightful, but more often
rebellious; and, to top it all off, a burgeoning full-tilt sexual being.
A divorce during the adolescent stage is the hardest for both par-
ents and children to handle.