Book Review: A Grief Out of Season
Classic Research on the Impact of Parental Divorce in Adults' Lives
The 1991 book by Noelle Fintushel and Nancy Hillard, Ph.D., still rings true when considering the experience of grown children whose parents are divorcing.
If you were eighteen or older when your parents separated or divorced, you’re a member of a uniquely under-examined demographic. Although it is taken for granted that young children are harmed by parental divorce, little consideration is given to children who are already grown. When Noelle Fintushel (herself an adult child of divorce or “ACOD”) and Nancy Hillard authored A Grief Out of Season: When Your Parents Divorce in Your Adult Years (1991), the book was the first written on the subject. Today, over fifteen years later, it remains one of few pieces of research and an important resource for this overlooked group of people.
The Origins of Grief
A Grief Out of Season began when Noelle Fintushel discovered, in the wake of her parents’ divorce (which happened when she was 22), that almost no research had been done on the experience of other adults like her. Noelle began to seek out other adult children of divorce to investigate their feelings and experiences.
When Nancy Hillard, Ph.D., took an interest in her research, the two teamed up to compile information and personal stories from over 100 adults whose parents had divorced when they were in their twenties, thirties, and older. These interviews and the responses to their questionnaire became the revealing, intense, and often illuminating material upon which this book is based.
Who is this Book Written For?
Written primarily to provide guidance and support to adult children during and after their parents’ divorce, the book is also a resource for parents who are divorcing and for psychologists, psychotherapists, and educators. With chapters addressing issues related to family, changes in one’s parents, adjusting to parents’ new partners, holidays and special events, and adult children’s own love lives, the book is a direct and easy read while remaining at all times compassionate to the feelings and situation of every individual involved in divorce or its wider impact.
In the introduction, the authors describe the purpose of the book as providing for two of the most urgent needs of ACODs: “to understand what’s going on inside and to have strategies for dealing with it.” Divorce after twenty or more years of marriage, they say, “throws an entire family system into chaos,” and there exists “the need for creating recognition and understanding of these forgotten ‘children’ of divorce.”
…a seemingly infinite number of practical questions arise: What can I do to help? How involved should I get? Should I take sides? What happens to my own marriage and family life?
The Message: You Are Not Alone
Most powerfully of all, Fintushel and Hillard offer dozens of examples of others who have been through the traumatic “death” of their birth family and the period of grief, mourning and slow healing that comes after.
The book is full of the personal, relationship, and family stories told by adult children of divorce. A Grief Out of Season is empowering to adult children of divorce in its conclusion that “it is a big deal when parents divorce – no matter how old or independent their children.” Divorce is a traumatic event for a family that “shakes the roots of each [family] member’s self-perception.” The combination of Fintushel and Hillard’s patient, compassionate analysis of their research with so many personal stories may be helpful to many people whose families are divorcing or have previously divorced.
See also: Adult Children of Divorce
