and postdivorce family functioning. I chose to focus this paper on the impact of parental divorce on a child. To better understand the adjustment process, I decided to interview a 20-year-old woman whom I will call Ann for the purpose of this project. Anns parents divorced when she was nine. One of the reasons I selected her as my case study was the fact that I was aware that the divorce of her parents was a dramatic change in her family structure as a child well through her adolescent years. I asked Ann a variety of questions about her life prior to, immediately following, and several years after the divorce. I carefully examined family, peer, school, and cultural influences that affected her adjustment. Ann is able to recall vivid details of her extremely authoritarian father and home prior to the divorce. Her parents were immigrants who married at a young age and moved to the United States shortly after. She is the second youngest of six children, five girls and one boy. Anns father was the dominant parental figure with her mother being submissive to him. He ran the house quite militantly. Every rule was to be followed precisely, without exceptions. Each child was expected to perform outstandingly in school as well as complete all their cleaning chores in the home. Through the years, Anns fathers need for dominance over his family grew worse. He became abusive towards his wife and stricter on his children. The children were greatly united for they now had the additional duty of trying to protect their mother. Ann felt as though she had twice the responsibility as any child her age. She believed that she could not relate to her classmates and therefore kept to herself. When Ann was nine years old, her mother filed for divorce in an attempt to provide a more preferable environment for her young impressionable children. This experience was a traumatic change from what Ann perceived to be her family li...
