Stepfamilies
Margorie Engel*
* Prior to their deaths, Emily and John Visher contributed portions of this stepfamily information to chapters in the 1st and 2nd edition of this book.
I. Description of the problem.
A. Epidemiology.
Almost 16 million children live in a stepfamily relationship according to the 2000 U.S. Census Bureau. This number does not include the many stepfamilies formed by a child’s noncustodial parent, stepfamilies with college-aged and adult stepchildren, and families in which an unwed mother married a man who is not the biological father of her child, as well as the growing number of cohabiting stepfamilies or gay and lesbian households in stepfamily-like relationships.
The prefix “step” denotes connection between members of a family by the remarriage of a parent and not by blood. Approximately 65% of all remarriages create a stepfamily, whereas 35% of all remarriages are created by childless couples. Therefore, it is important to note that the words “remarriage” and “stepfamily” are not synonymous, especially when reading redivorce statistics.
It is estimated that by the year 2010, the stepfamily relationship will constitute the most common type of American family.
B. Stresses for children.
1. Multiple changes. Stepchildren come into their stepfamily with a history of multiple changes related to their parents’ divorce that may put some of the children at risk. Life in a stepfamily brings another set of changes. When a residential move occurs, some obvious ones include leaving a familiar home, neighborhood, school, and best friends. More subtle changes include the new status of being the eldest or youngest child in the family, of no longer being the only child, and of sharing time, attention, and intimacy with a parent who previously had no competing emotional ties.
The new stepfamily adults, often caught up in their own personal happiness, may not be fully aware of their children’s feelings about all of these changes. Processing change postdivorce usually takes 3-5 years; the remarriage occurs on average 2-3 years postdivorce and may explain the child’s heightened resistance to the new set of changes.
In the short run, divorce is usually painful for a child, although new and extensive research indicates that the long-term effects may have been exaggerated. Comprehensive studies indicate not all children experience change and loss to the negative degree often implied. In terms of general well-being, a significant percentage of children not only survive the breakup and remarriage but also thrive. As young adults, they emerge from divorce and stepfamilies with enhanced functioning—not despite the things that happened to them during the divorce and after but because of them.
2. Loyalty conflicts. Loyalty conflicts are inevitable. An emotional connection to a stepparent may be experienced as a betrayal of the parent who is not living in the household. The absent parent is usually considered to be physically available to the child on a periodic basis. Loyalty conflicts are also present following parental abandonment or death when a child’s parent remains present only in memory.
3. Loss of control. Feeling a loss of control may be at the root of much of the anger and depression in children and often predates life in a stepfamily. The adults have chosen to make major changes in their lives, oftentimes for the better; the children have had those changes imposed on them.
4. Stepsiblings. The presence of stepsiblings may exacerbate the stresses that accompany stepfamily life. Feelings of sibling rivalry, jealousy, insecurity, and the fear that
a sibling may be more loved are often more intense in a stepfamily. Noncustodial children may be offered special treats or exempted from the house rules that resident children must follow. Grandparents may give their grandchildren more lavish gifts than those to their stepgrandchildren. If a baby is born into the stepfamily, sibling jealousy might be magnified by the fear that the “mutual child” may be more loved by the adults. Conversely, the birth may help to solidify the stepfamily because the new baby is biologically related to all of the children and adults. It is certainly true that many stepsiblings develop close bonds, united by their common experience of many family changes.
C. Children’s responses.
1. Preschool. The stress of a remarriage may cause some preschoolers to cling to parents and to regress behaviorally. In the stage of magical thinking, they may believe that their angry thoughts already have led to or will lead to family disruption. They may also harbor thoughts that they can magically reunite the divorced parents.
2. School age. School-aged children are often angry about their powerlessness to halt the changes in their lives. They may counter these feelings of helplessness by imagining that they caused the breakup of the marriage—a fantasy that at least offers some influence over a situation they cannot control. They may still wish that their parents were together and fantasize that if they are “good,” their parents will be reunited or that if they are “bad” or “sick,” their parents will come together to help. As a result, when divorced parents do work together for the benefit of their child, he or she may unrealistically anticipate that short-term togetherness will lead to long-term reunion.
Children at this stage are rarely able to express these feelings verbally and are likely to act out their anger and guilt. They may have tantrums at home, fight with siblings or classmates, develop psychosomatic symptoms, become accident prone, start failing in their schoolwork, or even try to break up the new marriage. Conversely, they may respond by behaving with an angelic virtue, following all the rules and making no obvious waves, so that their inner turmoil remains concealed.
3. Adolescence. Adolescents present special difficulties for the stepfamily. They are caught up in their own issues of identity and autonomy, making the new relationships even more difficult to accept. Teen sexuality is burgeoning at the very time they enter a household that is, inevitably, highly sexualized by the newness of the adult marriage. The residential presence of close-in-age stepsiblings or stepparent of the opposite sex can also create sexual tensions.
Often an independent teenage child of a single parent is pressured, after the parent’s remarriage, to return to a more childish stage of dependency. Teenagers who are used to being a parent’s confidant and the “man” or “woman” of the house find themselves losing that favored status when they are expected to become “children” again. This may accelerate their drive to separate from the parents or a desire to live in the home of the other parent.
D. Stress for couples in stepfamilies. Adult couples in stepfamilies must also deal with many strong emotions. Loyalty to their children predates the stepfamily and may create conflicts with the new spouse. Parents may attempt to please the children at all costs in order to compensate for the many family changes. They may also avoid forming a solid bond with a new spouse because they mistakenly feel that to do so would be experienced as a betrayal of their relationships with their children. This, in turn, frequently conflicts with the needs of the new spouse, who may understandably feel like an outsider in an established household.
II. Helping children.
A. General principles.
1. Accept the child’s feelings. While always validating a child’s feelings, from a developmental perspective, children can be taught empathetic skills from early childhood onward and are cognitively capable from around the age of 5. The research on adolescent stepchildren’s initiation of conflict with stepparents prescribes emphasizing empathetic skills on the part of children, just as we emphasize this with adults.
2. Reassure the child (repeatedly, if necessary) that he is not responsible for the dissolution of the parents’ marriage.
3. Stress that the child is a worthwhile, special person, no matter what decisions parents have made about their own lives.
4. Help the child put feelings into words rather than into negative behaviors. Encourage verbal expression. For example, “A lot of children feel very angry when they have to share a room with stepbrothers or stepsisters. Maybe you feel that way sometimes.”
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