Cherlin (Again)

Sorry, but just one more reflection about the sociologist Andrew J. Cherlin of Johns Hopkins University. As I discussed elsewhere, Cherlin recently published a study of the long-term effects of divorce on children. In this study, he substantially revises his earlier view that pre-divorce family problems are “at least” as harmful to children as divorce itself. Cherlin’s new position is that the “continuing effects” on children of family breakup, some of which emerge only as children get older, are more likely to be “a result of the divorce.” Somewhat embarrassingly for Cherlin, this new position puts him rather squarely in agreement with Judith Wallerstein, the clinical psychologist whom Cherlin has previously criticized for exaggerating the effects of divorce.

So does Cherlin mention this fascinating convergence in his March 26 presidential address to the American Population Association? Perhaps offer some reflections, based on this episode, of how qualitative clinical findings, which tend to emerge early on in a debate, can usefully frame the questions to be pursued later, and on a larger scale, by quantitative sociologists? 

No. Instead, Cherlin announces that the entire public debate on this topic has been distorted by “extremists.” And one particularly unhelpful “extremist” is Judith Wallerstein, who “leaps” to conclusions, does not realize that the families in her clinical practice are not representative of American society, etc., etc. As as result, “most of the public” and “even many social scientists” struggling to understand this issue have been “puzzled and poorly informed.”

On the other hand, Cherlin clearly wants us to believe, there is hope. For amid all this harmful “extremism,” occupying an eminently respectable “middle position,” courageously indifferent to political fashion, ever attentive to complexity, always putting scholarly integrity ahead of public posturing, stands . . . Andrew Cherlin. You see, if a clinician publishes some controversial observations on Monday, she is an extremist. But if ten sociologists using large-scale data sets confirm those very same observations on Wednesday, they are reputable truth-tellers carving out a “middle position.” And then on Friday, of course, when you’re giving a speech in New York, it’s open season again on Monday’s extremists. What a pity.

Sources: Andrew J. Cherlin, P. Lindsay Chase-Lansdale, and Christine McRae, “Effects of Parental Divorce on Mental Health Through the Life Course,” American Sociological Review 63 (April 1998): 239-249. “Caroming Between Extremes, Social Scientists Can Overlook Reality,” New York Times, March 26, 1999.

First published Spring 1999.