| Abstract: | The experience of being a single mother with custody following divorce is influenced by many variables across several levels of interaction, such as age of mother and child, potential for remarriage, coping skills, social networks and income changes. Cross-sectional studies have examined additional variables such as time since divorce and level of family religiosity and subsequent impact on individual well-being. Whereas most studies took a cate- gorical approach to examining the experience of divorce, a few refreshing studies were based on an ecological systems model. As divorce also involves building a new life, longitudinal research pro- vides the best picture of how divorced women accomplish this task. Long-term research clearly points to the fact that divorce is an event whose impact is individual and very often life long. Researchers have provided valuable information to build meaningful programs of intervention for divorced mothers. Perhaps the biggest challenge is to design flexible programs which can grow and change with the needs of the divorced mother. Future research will be most beneficial when it addresses the divorced mother family as a healthy family unit. |
