It  is unfortunate, but okay for kids: after the initial shock and dislocation, children generally do well after their parents divorce.

Not so says Dr. Judith Wallerstein.  In the late 1980s she published research  finding that divorce is devastating to most children and that the effects are long lasting. Wallerstein became the most prominent of several scholars during the last decade warning of the dangers of divorce and urging us to reexamine our attitudes about marriage.

This triggered a bitter debate between traditionalists, who want to make divorce harder, and liberals, who view the rise of alternative families including single parenthood as an advance brought on by more equality and freedom for women. In 1992 Dan Qualye, siding with the traditionalists, attacked the television character Murphy Brown. President Clinton defended the new family expressing his belief in "an America that includes every family. Every traditional family and every extended family.  Every two-parent family, every single-parent family, every foster family."

The public policy implications of divorce, according to Wallerstein's studies are far reaching. She found children from divorced families experience more difficulties than children in intact families: more depression, lower grades, more substance abuse and a  higher risk of mental health problems. Children of divorced and remarried families are two to three times more likely to be referred for psychological help at school than their peers from intact families. In short, the divorce revolution was hurting our kids, Wallerstein argued, and something should be done to strengthen the nuclear family.

Several studies took issue with Wallerstein. Divorce doesn't have to be an automatic disaster for kids argued to Dr. Andrew Charlin, a Johns Hopkins University sociologist and an expert on divorce and kids. Cherlin claimed "while it is a mistake to say that divorce does not hurt kids, the data also contradict the belief that divorce is inevitably a disaster for most children."

Liberal critics complained that her research was being used by the anti-divorce traditionalists to encourage the  preservation of bad marriages that harm children more than divorce does. And that her data was used to blame women's liberation for rise in divorce, while ignoring the largest source of family change and family stress-- the shift to a postindustrial, globalized economy and the stresses and anxieties experienced by all families. The new economy has indeed stripped family sustaining jobs for the poor, and especially for inner city African-Americans.

But Wallerstein's findings on the profound psychological effects of divorce on children gained wider acceptance as they were confirmed by other studies.

Despite her growing influence, Wallerstein believes we have done anything to change our divorce culture that harms children. So Wallerstein with her colleagues Julia Lewis, a professor of Psychology and coordinator of the Clinical Psychology graduate program at San Francisco State University and Sandra Blakeslee, a New York Times reporter wrote a new book; the Unexpected Legacy of Divorce. The authors drive home their message by describing  the experiences and anxieties of the children of divorce, now in their late twenties to early forties, in a clear and accessible style. And like her earlier work, it's sure to anger liberals and traditionalists alike.

What's unexpected about Wallerstein and her colleagues' findings is that the impact of divorce on children is more long-lasting than even Wallerstein had previously thought.  The authors found that children experience divorce differently from their parents. Most divorcing spouses experience intense conflict and pain during the divorce process, but more or less get over it within three years after divorce. The trauma of divorce remains with most children throughout their lives.

They argue that too many people still believe that divorce is a temporary crisis that exerts its most harmful effects at the time of the breakup. And that all parents have to do to protect their children is not fight in front of the kids and quickly settle the financial, legal and parenting issues that divide them.

Writes Wallerstein, "it's in adulthood that children of divorce suffer the most. The impact of divorce hits them most cruelly as they go in search of love, sexual intimacy, and commitment. Their lack of inner images of a man and woman in a stable relationship and their memories of their parents' failure to sustain the marriage badly hobbles their search, leading them to heartbreak and even despair. They cried, "No one taught me."

Wallerstein and her co-authors also expose the popular myth  that if parents are happier in divorce, the children will be happier. The authors write: "Although many people no longer believe the myth that children always benefit from a divorce that makes parents happier, it continues to exert subtle, unconscious influences on how we think about divorce and our reactions to it. It has encouraged parents to expect that their children will approve their decision." According to the authors this attitude makes it easy for divorced parents to concentrate of their search for new lovers and jobs devoting less time to their children and not properly preparing them for the effects of divorce. The children pay the price.

True, divorce does not inevitably lead to disaster according to Wallerstein and her colleagues. They found that many children overcame their dread of betrayal, went on to strong marriages and loving, protective parents. The authors also describe the great strengths and accomplishments of the children, as a generation of survivors who often had to raise themselves. As adults they became independent, self-reliant, and proud of their achievements. These children drew support from schools, sports teams, parents and relatives and social networks in their communities.

The findings in this book are important not only because the research involved hundreds of hours of interviews with children of divorce and their parents, but because it continued long after the divorce, following the children as they grew and began families of their own. This book also has the virtue of  using a comparison group of adults who grew up in the same communities but whose parents never divorced.

The study certainly has its flaws. Its  findings rest on anecdotes and on an unscientific sampling--the subjects are predominantly white, middle class, and well educated. And the authors don't deal with the impact of genetics and temperament on how children respond to divorce.  In her book The Nurturing Assumption, Judith Rich Harris contends that children turn out the way they do because of genetics and peer groups. She claims that it is the peer group, not an individual's parents, that determines how the genetic inclinations with which we are born develop into the personality we are blessed, or burdened, with by the time we reach adulthood.

And how do we know that problems we see in children of divorced parents are not due to long-standing psychological problems of the parents, the stresses of poverty and racism and disabilities the children themselves suffer? The authors avoid discussing these potential causes.

Traditional family advocates will surely use this new study to support  tougher divorce law while feminists point to the successful children and will note that  Wallerstein herself opposes making divorce harder especially in high conflict families.  In cases of physical abuse, for example, she concedes divorce is probably necessary. Otherwise, though, even a bad marriage might be better for kids than divorce.

Because of the importance of the family in raising children, happier families should be an overriding concern to our society. Fortunately there is a curious meeting of the minds among feminists and traditionalists. Feminists of the baby boom generation that gave the country an era of cultural freedom and permissiveness, now want an era of commitment. They look at the cost to women who sacrificed to raise their kids only to be rejected later life and face large losses of income and security. The generation Xers in their 20s and 30s who suffered from divorce in the 60s and 70s, may love their parents but are mad at how divorce disrupted their own lives. They remember and resent the disruption in their lives to spend time with the non-custodial parent and that visitation arrangements were made for their parents' convenience and not theirs. Stephanie Koontz, a family historian, writing in The Nation concedes that "Divorce can trigger new difficulties connected to loss of income, school relocation, constriction of extended family ties, or escalation of hostility over issues like custody and finances."

The bottom line is this: How do we discourage divorce and encourage more people to have better, happier marriages? Its hardly controversial to suggest that we encourage men and women to share childcare and housework more equally, help couples to manage conflict in less destructive ways, and build family-friendly workplaces. Wallerstein and her colleagues make positive suggestions for strengthening marriages that people on all sides of the debate can support. They urge the corporate world to consider the impact of its policies on parents and children calling for them to support part-time work, job sharing, flex time, telecommuting, parental leave-- anything that will permit parents to spend more time with their children.

The authors critique of our family law system is great and should be read by every family law judge and divorce attorney. For parents in a bad marriage, Wallerstein, et al., emphasize teaching them how to minimize the impact of their divorce on kids by making the children's concerns a priority.

This is a serious balanced, complex study  and a worthy read. Some of her recommendations help bridge the gap in the policy divorce wars. But with Wallerstein recommending parents generally stay together for better or worse, the book will draw fire from those who argue that a truly unhappy marriage is worse for a family that splitting up might be. In some cases, perhaps many, staying together for the sake of the kids could be helping no one at all.