Chapter 7, Divorce Summary and Analysis

In this chapter, Dr. Pipher discusses divorced and divorcing parents seeking treatment for their adolescent daughters. The first patient is fourteen-year-old Julia, who is arrested for possession of alcohol. Julia's parents are divorced. Her father is married to a younger woman and has a new baby. Julia is not spending much time with him. Now attending a different school, Julia is cut off from her closest friends. Her mother Jean is also remarried, and Julia has three new stepbrothers. Julia complains that she has to clean up after the boys and shoulder most of the chores. Julia expresses frustration with her mother after she comments that times are different now from when she was a girl. "You have the same stupid rules for me that your mother had for you. Don't you understand that I can't live by those...