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- A stepfamily includes at least one minor or adult stepchild and one
stepparent. Typical stepfamilies are very different from intact
(“normal, or traditional”) bio-families, and face up to five major
hazards. One of them is adult ignorance (lack of knowledge) of
stepfamily norms, facts, and realities.
- These 20 slides aim to reduce such ignorance by summarizing key things
to know about typical stepfamilies. This presentation is for…
- Couples who may join or form a stepfamily,
- adults and older kids already in a stepfamily, and…
- lay and professional people wanting to support typical stepfamilies.
- Option: take this self-assessment quiz on stepfamily basics. Then get
clear on why you’re about to study this – what do you need?
- Suggestion – to gain “the big picture,” study all the slides without
following any links. Then return and follow any links of interest in
each slide.
- To view or hide the slide index, click the “Outline” icon in the lower
left corner of your screen. To see the previously-viewed slide, click
the left arrow
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- This presentation summarizes co-parent Project 4 – learn stepfamily
basics, and convert myths into realistic expectations. These 20 slides
include links to more detailed articles and related slide presentations.
- Stepfamily facts you should know (6 slides)
- 16 things new stepfamilies must merge and stabilize
- Five silent stepfamily (re/marital) hazards
- Common stepfamily myths and their usual realities (3 slides)
- What it usually means to be in a stepfamily (2 slides)
- Common stepfamily problems
- Common barriers to stepfamily teamwork
- Now what? Options and next steps (2 slides)
- Useful stepfamily resources
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- Suggestion - review these points slowly, and discuss them with other
family members. See which ones you knew and which points are new…
- Stepparent and stepchild are roles (sets of responsibilities and
values), not people! So a “good stepparent or stepchild” is a
respectable, likable person who performs their nurturing role well, in
someone’s opinion.
- Our prefix “step-” comes from the Middle English root “stoep-”, which
meant “not related by marriage” to our ancestors a thousand years ago.
- Stepfamilies are normal social groups. They have occurred in every age
and culture because of parental disease, war, rape, and unprotected
sex.
- About 90% of recent American stepfamilies follow one or more divorces.
Around 1900, most U.S. stepfamilies followed the death of one or more
parents.
- Parental divorce and/or death cause all family members major losses
(broken bonds). The formation of a stepfamily causes more losses, so all
step adults and kids need to help each other grieve. Typical stepfamily
adults minimize or ignore this, and/or don’t know how to grieve
effectively. This can hinder healthy bonding and cause other
significant personal and family problems.
- Typical multi-home stepfamilies are just like average intact
biofamilies in some ways, and differ from them structurally and developmentally
in over 70 ways! People who don’t know this can mistakenly assume that
“a family is just a family,” so intact-biofamily norms will apply “well
enough.” They often don’t.
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- Average post-divorce nuclear stepfamilies are composed of the adults
and kids who live regularly in two or more co-parenting homes. They are
intimately connected by genes, ancestries, history, roles,
relationships, common goals, (usually) last names, and legal
responsibilities. A nuclear stepfamily looks like this:
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- Full stepfamilies can have 80 or more members, living in many scattered
homes. A partial multi-generational (“extended”) stepfamily looks like
this:
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- Many members of a multi-generational stepfamily don’t know each other,
and will rarely or never meet – yet they influence each other in many
ways, for years.
- The number of relationships in any group of “N” people is [N x (N-1) /
2]. If a nuclear stepfamily has 9 people living in two homes, they have
to negotiate and stabilize [ (9 x 8) / 2 ] = 36 relationships. A
multi-generational stepfamily with 83 members (excluding pets!) has [
(83 x 82) / 2 ] = 3,043
relationships to forge and/or adjust!
- There are over 100 different structural types of stepfamily, so the
odds of your meeting members of a similar stepfamily approach zero.
- Typical stepfamily adults and kids come from low-nurturance childhoods,
and bear significant psychological wounds. Few know this, what it means,
or what to do about it.
- A stepfamily “begins” when a divorced or widowed parent starts to date
a prospective new partner “seriously.” If they agree to commit and cohabit
– with or without formal re/marriage – they start a complex organic
merger of three or more co-parents’ multi-generational (“extended”)
families.
This merger requires
all adults and kids to combine up to 16 catagories of things
simultaneously, which takes many years. This merger usually cause
complex conflicts over family inclusion, priorities, rituals, roles,
values, assets, names, and alliances. This is one reason it’s essential
for stepfamily adults to help each other learn effective communication basics
and skills - i.e. to work together at family Project 2!
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- A typical stepdaughter or stepson may...
- have three or four co-parents (a divorced biomom and biodad, and a
stepmom, stepdad, or both), living in two homes. These adults can
range from cooperative to disinterested to antagonistic;
- have living bio- and step- grandparents, and a proportionately large
number of bio- and step-aunts, uncles, cousins, and other relatives;
- have biosiblings, stepsiblings, and/or half-siblings in the same home,
in their other bioparent's home, in both homes, or none of these. And
a minor or grown stepchild may…
- be legally adopted by their stepmother, their stepfather, both (?), or
neither. Most U.S. stepparents don't adopt. And stepkids may…
- have the same first name as a stepsibling and/or their same-sex
stepparent, and may have a different last name than their re/married
biomother. “The “/” notes that it may be a stepparent’s first union;
- Depending in state laws, stepkids may receive no bequest if their
stepparent dies without a will, even if they were close for many
years.
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- Over time, stepfamilies go through the same developmental stages as
intact biofamilies, and must negotiate some complex extra stages. If
adults are wounded and unaware, these alien stages may hinder (a) some
members’ per-sonal development, and (b) evolving a stable,
high-nurturance stepfamily.
- American stepfamily couples are more apt to differ widely in age, race,
religion, ethnic ancestry, and educational level than typical
first-time couples. Stepfamily wives are more apt to be older than
their husbands than in first marriages.
- Typical stepfamily adults can only name a few of their minor kids’
specific devel-opmental and family-adjustment needs, and are only
vaguely aware of what specific help their kids need from their family
adults. This often leads to signifi-cant confusion, doubt, and conflict
over co-parents’ roles and priorities.
- Average stepparents’ caregiving goals are usually similar to
bioparents’ – and their household and social environments may differ in
up to 40 ways from intact-family bioparents! This can promote
confusion, uncertainty, and unrealistic (bio-family-based)
expectations.
- Pause and reflect on what you’re thinking and feeling about all these
facts...
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- My research since 1979 suggests five combined reasons for the major
stress that average stepfamily adults and kids experience: The
accumulated stress often results in legal or psychological re/divorce.
The “/” notes that it may be a steppar-ent’s first union. The hazards
are:
- unrecognized psychological wounds in adults and kids from
low-nurturance childhoods; and…
- adult ignorance (lack of information) on up to seven key topics,
including these stepfamily basics; and…
- incomplete grief in one or more adults and/or kids.
- These combine to promote…
- up to three unwise courtship decisions - needy, love-struck partners
committing to the wrong people, for the wrong reasons, at the wrong
time.
- And stepfamily adults inevitably encounter major stepfamily role and
relationship problems, they and their supporters usually discover…
- there is little informed stepfamily help available locally and via the media.
- The good news is – once aware of these hazards, co-parents can commit to
12 related Projects – seven ideally starting in courtship – to avoid or
master these hazards, and make wise commitment choices for them and
their kids.
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- Lay people and family professionals who aren’t aware of the ~70
structural and dynamic differences between typical stepfamilies and
“traditional” intact biofamilies often have very unrealistic
expectations about how a stepfamily “should be.”
- This can cause up to 60 (!) specific myths about stepfamily norms,
roles, rules, and relationships. If co-parents (bioparents and
stepparents) haven’t learned stepfamily real-ities (which is the norm), these
myths can combine to cause significant stressors and problems for all
family adults and kids.
- Kids whose caregivers are unaware of step-realities are specially prone
to unrealistic role and relationship expectations of other family
members and themselves.
- The next two slides illustrate sample myths and their common realities.
To see the full array of myths and realities, click “more detail” below.
- + + +
- * Myth: Stepfamilies are inferior
and second-class compared to intact biofamilies
- Reality: Stepfamilies are
normal, and can be just as nurturing, stable, and enjoyable as
biofamilies if their adults are (a) minimally-wounded and committed to
(b) overcoming any teamwork barriers and (c) learning these step facts
and other topics.
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- * Myth: Stepparents and stepkids should and
can learn to love each other
- Reality: this illusion usually
promotes pretense, hurts, resentments, and guilts. It’s far more
realistic to strive for mutual respect. Even if “love” grows, it often
feels different than bioparent-biochild love, unless the stepchild was
initially very young when s/he met the stepparent.
- * Myth: My our kids are adults,
so we’re not a stepfamily
- * Myth: My (or my mate’s) ex
spouse is dead, so we’re not a stepfamily.
- * Myth: I’ve legally adopted my
stepkids, so we’re not a stepfamily.
- * Myth: We’ve conceived an
“ours” child together so we’re
not a stepfamily
- Reality (all): Yes you are a
stepfamily, and all the facts in this presentation still apply!
- * Myth: My and/or your ex mate is
not, and will never be, a member of our family.
- Reality: Genetically,
emotionally, and legally, both divorced bioparents are full functional
stepfamily members, even after the youngest child lives independently.
- * Myth: We can merge and
stabilize our families in a couple of months
- Reality: Most stepfamily
researchers agree that typical mergers take at least three or four years
after re/marriage (vs. co-habiting). Many take longer, and some never
stabilize.
- * Myth: Managing a stepfamily is
not that different from running an intact biofamily
- Reality: it is usually far more
complex and stressful, because there are many more people, roles, homes,
developmental stages, and adjustment tasks and conflicts – and average
co-parents and supporters (including many professionals) don’t know how
to manage these well.
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- * Myth: Principles of biofamily
child-discipline should work well enough in a stepfamily
- Reality: partially true, but
there are up to 21 important differences co-parents need to know!
- * Myth: Stepfamily (re)marriage is really no
different than first marriage
- Reality: true in some ways, but
there are usually many more concurrent distractions and stressors to
cope with. Many researchers estimate that a higher percentage of U.S.
re/marriages fail than first unions, though there is no Census data to
confirm this.
- * Myth: I don’t like the term “step,” so we
don’t (have to) use titles like “stepdad” and “stepson.”
- Reality: rejecting step
role-titles invites family members to forget, minimize, or ignore their
stepfamily identity, and use inappropriate expectations (myths). These
cause major stresses!
- * Myth: There’s no chance that we’ll have
problems with sexuality in our stepfamily home/s.
- Reality: experts agree that the
incest taboo is weaker in typical stepfamilies than in intact
biofamilies, so the odds of sexual desires and behaviors between
stepparents and stepkids – or stepsibs – is proportionally higher than
in healthy biofamilies.
- * Myth: Having one or more “ours”
children will strengthen our re/marriage and stepfamily.
- Reality: Perhaps. It also may
amplify asset, loyalty, and values conflicts and relationship triangles,
and increase household and family stresses.
- These are typical stepfamily myths and realities. There are over 50
more!
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- Premise: Every person (like you) and every family grows a unique
identity – a mix of traits and characteristics that distinguish them
from other people and families. Tho all stepfamilies are unique, they
share some common traits (an identity) that co-parents and supporters
need to know and accept.
- Family Project 3 is about (a) understanding and accepting your
stepfamily iden-tity, and (b) members agreeing on who belongs to your
stepfamily. Project 4 is about learning to accept what your stepfamily
identity means, and evolving realistic role and relationship
expectations. Key stepfamily meanings include:
- we are different than average intact biofamilies in up to ~70 ways, so
we all need to learn new rules about family roles (responsibilities) to
avoid stress from unrealistic expectations (myths);
- we are vulnerable to five major hazards, and our adults need to learn
how to avoid or master them together;
- our adults and some kids are probably significantly wounded from
low-nurturance childhoods, and we need to learn how to assess that and
help each other reduce any wounds we bear;
- Continued…
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- Our co-parents probably inherited significant ignorances (lack of
know-ledge) about key topics, and need to help each other learn them
and teach them to our kids now;
- Our adults and kids are vulnerable to incomplete grief, which can cause
significant health and relationship problems. We all need to learn
about healthy grieving basics, and how to spot and free blocked grief;
- We all must work together to merge up to 16 groups of things, as we
slowly integrate three or more multi-generational families;
- All our adults and kids will experience concurrent mixes of major surface
conflicts over stepfamily membership and identity, family roles, rules,
rituals, values, priorities, assets, names, and co-parenting issues for
many years (next slide).
- Pause and reflect – how many of these myths, realities, and meanings
could you have described before you read this? Do you think average
courting couples, stepfamily adults, counselors, clergy, educators, and
therapists could describe each of these in some depth?
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Notes
