INTRODUCTION

Children of Divorce: Stories of Loss and Growth are wrote by two lecturers namely Dr.John
H. Harvey from University of Iowa and Dr. Mark A. Fine from University of Missouri. Dr.
Harvey is a Professor of Psychology while Dr. Fine is a Professor of Human Development
and Family Studies. This book is compiling the essays and stories from the respondents that
have involved in divorce family. All of the respondents are the student for both of the
lecturers. From the compilation of essays and stories, they were do some experiments or
research about the feeling and life of children that come from divorce family. From that
research, they illustrate a picture of the pain and the hope from the respondent. The authors
then write this book to show and provide the readers with more understanding about the
effects of divorce to the young people, how they feel when their parents divorced caused by
others men or women, or how they feel when their parents divorced without any reason. This
book also shows the readers how this children growing up without mother or father and the
effect of this situation to their emotion. The authors also wrote this book because they believe
when they understand and learn about the pain of divorced and dissolution, they can making
progress in recognizing the long-term widespread impacts of divorce. This book challenges
the contention that most children of divorce will be silently hurt by their parents’ divorce. It
presents a mixture of young people voices, showing the great variety of reactions to parental
divorce. It shows the strength and resilience many of these young people have learned in
surviving the pain and confusing surrounding divorce in their families. The book emphasizes
how hope about the possibilities and merits of having close relationships, and the willingness
to try to have stronger families in their own adult lives.
 REVIEW

In chapter one of this book (A Culture of Divorce and The Value of Diverse Voices), the
authors are presented the general background to the growth of divorce rate in United Stated
(US). Dr. Harvey and Dr. Fine were discussed about the negative effect that will affect the
children of divorce. Based on their research also, they wrote about the characteristic of adult
children of divorce. Among of these characteristics are; they are likely to fear to being alone,
likely to be very close with their siblings, they expect failure in their live and so on. The
authors also presented some of other researchers whose works support the notion that divorce
creates various aspects of effects which depend on the experience as a whole. Such mitigating
factors included the type of relationship with both parents, stressful life of family changes,
and life with step-parent.

The second chapter of this book is about Theoretical Perspective and Methods. Nothing much
is discussed under this chapter. It just about the explanation of the process involved in
collecting the stories from the children of divorce, how the stories were coded for emerging
themes, as well as the process for choosing which stories to use as the most appropriate
example of each theme.

The topic under chapter three, Voices of Despair (loss of hope) discussed about the despair
and pain experienced by children of divorce. There are almost ten essays about the stories of
children of divorced. The themes of these essays are under the same roof which is about the
depression, hatred and difficulties that they faced because of their parents’ divorced.

The stories that reflected a different side of divorce are included in chapter four, Voices of
Hope. Although the stories of divorced always have a sense of sadness, these stories in this
chapter reached beyond this sense of despair into feelings of hope. These respondents have
experienced more positive aspects of divorce and wrote the story of coming out of the divorce
with optimism for the future. The stories inside this chapter reflected with the positive themes
such as: divorces can lead to better parenting, parents should not stay in a conflicted marriage
for the sake of children, and the net result of divorces can be positive.

Next chapter, Becoming Fatherless Because Of Divorce, presented the stories from the
respondents that experience the feeling of loosing of their father after the divorce. One of the
storytellers in this chapter said that, he is lost contact with his father after his mother divorced
with him. He tried to call his father but never get it. Until now, he did not know how his voice
and face looks like. What left now is just a memory before the divorced occurs couple years
ago.

The last chapter in this book, Family Chaos and Resilience, illustrate the complex interactions
of family throughout the process of divorce. The stories from the respondents not only discuss
about the chaos, but they also presented a sense of resilience that permeated these individuals
(storytellers). Despite the chaotic and complex dynamics, these storytellers told a story of
family survival. The essay that have been wrote by them reflected the following this themes;
finding strength and willpower in complicated family situations, surviving multiple divorces,
and just pretending the family is ‘normal’, difficulty accepting a stepfather, and finding sanity
in a chaotic world.

CONCLUSION

This book is compiling the stories of the children of divorce in some sort of themes. There are
some respondent that negatively impact with the divorce by their parents and some of them
look it as positively. I am strongly agreed about the statement in this book about even though
there are a lot of negative aspects about divorce, we still look it from the positive side view.
For example, what is the point to stay with the marriage that fulfill with the dispute and
quarrel between father and mother, this will give a lot of pressure to the children, if they still
cannot make it each other even though after consult with the counselor, it is better for them to
live separately, so that the life of the children will become more calm and peaceful.

According to Islam, the most thing that Allah really hate but permissible to do is divorce.
Islam does not encourage their followers to divorce because it would lead to the negative
implication to the couple itself, children, family and society. The most party that will affect
badly is the children. The life of the children will be ignored by their parents after divorced.
The children then may involve in bad activities because of the lack of love from their parents.
That’s why Islam is not encourage their followers to involve in divorced. It can cause harm to
the children.