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This is one of a series of lesson-7 articles
on how to evolve a high-nurturance stepfamily. This series extends
the concepts in Lessons 1-6, so study them first.
These articles augment other
qualified
pro-fessional help. The "/" in re/marriage and
re/di-vorce notes that it may be a stepparent's first
union. "Co-parents" means both bioparents, or any of the
three or more related stepparents
and bioparents co-managing a multi-home nuclear stepfamily.
This nonprofit
educational Web site ex-ists to help family adults and supporters
over-come five major
hazards to forge satisfying
high-nurturance family
relationships. Amidst daily
chores, challenges, and problems,
it's easy to lose sight of the
significant benefits that stepfamily mem-bership can bring your adults and
kids.
Though every
multi-home stepfamily has unique
benefits, this article proposes key "uni-versal" advantages.
This complements
the worksheets you can use to tally and appreciate your stepfam-ily's
strengths.
these
Q&A items about stepfamilies
and step-relationships.
basic stepfamily
facts, and perspective on a
stepfamily's identity
Benefits Compared to What?
Let's start by
exploring two basic questions:
What makes
some families better than others?
What do typical adults and kids
compare their stepfamily experiences to?
Let's say that
a family is two or more people who maintain a significant
relationship to help each other fill some
primary needs. Adult members may or
may not have conceived or adopted one or more kids. Families occur across
ages, cultures, and animal species because they fill members' needs (nurture) better than
any other social unit - specially when kids are involved.
For various
reasons, some families fill their members' short and long-term needs more
consistently than other families. From this view, any family can be judged
locally or long-term as being somewhere between "very low nurturance"
(dysfunctional) and "very high nurturance" (functional).
If
filling human needs well is "good," then
high-nurturance families are
"better" than low-nurturance families. Do you agree? If
you're curious about the nurturance-level of your childhood family and/or
recent or current family, see this worksheet after you're done here.
As you know,
better is meaningless unless something is worse. By definition,
U.S. stepfamilies form after one or more co-parent
divorces and/or mate
deaths. Most American post-divorce stepfamilies evolve after bioparents and
kids have lived for months or years in a two-home nuclear family.
New
stepparents used to live alone, with parents, siblings, or a
roommate, or in an "absent-parent" family if they have kids. So
in identifying current benefits, adults can compare their
multi-home, dynamic
stepfamily to one or more of these...
their
childhood family and environment,
their former
marital family and environment,
a one or
two-home "single-parent" family and environment,
someone
else's family, or an idealized family, and/or...
the unbonded
network of relatives formed by stepfamily courtship.
Each of these
will have a different
nurturance-level because (a) membership, resources,
and environ-ments differ, and (b) each member's needs, and ability to
fill their and others' needs - evolve over time.
Which of these
do you think typical stepfamily members would base their comparison on? Which would
you
compare your present family to? Typically, we each will choose the family +
environment which
most often filled our needs - i.e. the one which was the most loving, fun,
safe, warm, contented, stimula-ting, and
accepting.
When you're
clear on which of these options you are (or someone is) comparing your
stepfamily experience too, see how you feel about these...
Common Stepfamily Benefits
In this context, a
benefit is anything that
fills one or more adults' or kids'
needs better than another family +
environment, in someone's opinion. Typical stepfamily members have
(a) normal daily-living and developmental needs, and (b) special
family-adjustment needs from co-habiting, re/marriage, a geographic
move, and major custody, visitation, health, or financial change/s.
Use this
representative list to reflect on the benefits that each member of your
multi-home stepfamily could acknowledge:
minor kids may get a sister or brother (companion,
playmate), and/or a different family
role or rank they've wanted ("Now
I'm not the youngest child / only boy / main troublemaker ___ any
more!). They may also share family pets they couldn't have before;
having three or four co-parents raises the odds
that a dependent child will get better short and long-term nurturance if the co-parents are motivated to overcome any
barriers to caregiv-ing-
teamwork;
divorced adults and
their kids and relatives can regain significant hope
for a more satisfying new start, and can regain a
lost personal status (identity label) of married
vs. single and divorced.
merging several biofamily
cultures
over several years enriches
everyone's understanding and experience ("We've never gone back-packing
or scuba-diving before!"), and expands friendship circles;
previously unmarried adults and unhappily-divorced
parents may experience more personal contentment, purpose, love, and
fulfillmentif they and their partner are (a) minimally
wound-ed and (b) steadily
motivated to help each other learn, risk changes, and patiently
evolve a
high-nurturancerelationship and stepfamily over many
years;
psychologically and financially burdened single
parents can enjoy having a supportive, lo-ving partner to share daily
household and childcare experiences and responsibilities, reduce anxieties, and increase their
kids' securities;
because typical stepfamilies have many
more members than
intact biofamilies, they poten-tially have more people on whom to rely
for
support in times of need;
grandparents and concerned siblings or other
relatives can feel reassured that a divorced adult child and
any grandkids are potentially happier, safer, and less burdened;
parents who trust older stepkids may acquire
responsible in-home baby sitters, allowing welcome adult couple-time
flexibility;
after early-merger
adjustments have
stabilized, minor kids from prior low-nurturance homes
may
experience more security, companionship, consistency, warmth, fun,
guidance, and privacy, and comforts. These can help to offset more and
different household rules and responsibilities, less freedom, and alien new
roles, rituals, names, and customs.
some new-stepfamily members
also enjoy...
a bigger
dwelling and yard, and maybe a recreational property;
a more congenial neighborhood,
church, and/or community; and...
shorter and/or safer commutes to schools, shopping centers, jobs,
health profes-sionals, recreation facilities, and churches;
(add your own benefits)
Try a "Benefit Hunt"
To make this subject more real and less abstract, consider doing some form
of this exercise the next time you gather with your (step)family members:
Review this
outline of
co-parent : help each
other keep your balances and enjoy your stepfamily-building adventure as it unfolds!
Pick a comfortable place with few distractions, and allot
enough time to do this experience;
Give a brief introduction as to what you're about to do
and why;
Offer some safety guidelines, like "you can observe and
say 'I pass' if you need to, without guilt;"
Illustrate some common stepfamily benefits like those
above; and then...
Invite each willing person to identify (a) one or more
benefits they feel your stepfamily provides them recently or long-term,
and (b) what former family environment they're comparing to. If useful,
help people get started by inviting them to complete sentences like...
What I appreciate about our stepfamily recently
is..."
This family feels better to me than (another family)
because..."
Something our stepfamily offers me that I never had
before is..."
If we lost our stepfamily, I'd really miss..."
"When I'm old, I'll probably be glad that our
stepfamily..."
"Something my friends like about our stepfamily
is..."
"Compared to other families, we..."
(your choice)
Encourage comments and discussion, and when you feel
"done," encourage awareness and feed-back by asking people to reflect and
comment on "What are you aware of now?"; or "How was this exercise for
you?"; or "What, if anything, did you just learn about us?
Consider doing a similar exercise in identifying your
stepfamily's strengths. Use this multi-part
worksheet as a guide or resource.
Key Factors
Which stepfamily benefits seem significant to each child and adult at a
given time will depend on a mix of factors like these:
the person's
basic attitude toward life: glass half full, or half empty? This
is strongly influenced by whether the person's
personality is
guided by her
or his
true Self or a protective
Skeptic / Pessimist subself;
where the
stepfamily is on their developmental path.
Those early in their development are often beset by the most
simultaneous problems, which can
eclipse benefits like those above. A key developmental factor is how
each member is progressing at
grieving their prior
and new
losses (broken bonds);
how
aware and informed the
stepfamily's adults and key supporters are about
key topics. Less aware
and informed usually means more concurrent role and relationship
problems, and less odds of appreciating current and long-term benefits;
how
effective co-parents and
supporters are at communicating and resolving their
primary problems together;
whether
stepfamily mates chose the right
people to commit to, at
the right
time, for the
right
rea-sons. Those who
did are more likely to experience and appreciate the great potential
benefits of co-creating a stepfamily;
how successful
co-parents are at overcoming their teamwork
barriers together.
This largely depends their combined motivation to help
each other progress on these
7 Lessons over time;
and...
Each stepfamily will have a unique mix of factors like these which
determine if and how often they help each other affirm their benefits and
strengths. Which factors are most important in your stepfamily now?
Perspective: Millions of average U.S. stepfamilies eventually
divorce legally or psychologically. Their hopes, commitments, and set of benefits succumb to their mix
of core stressors. This hilights how
essential it is for courting co-parents to do
these Lessons together to
make three wise stepfamily-commitment choices.
The guidebook for this adventure isStepfamily Courtship (Xlibris Corp, 2002).
Recap
Adults and kids get benefits and stresses from belonging to
their unique family. Some benefits only become
apparent in middle or later life. ("I really loved our bi-annual
hayride reunions in Colorado!") Step-family complexity and stressors make
it specially important - and difficult - for co-parents and kids affirm
their unique benefits and strengths together, while they're
mastering significant problems.
outlines typical "other families"
that step-people may compare their
family to;
hilights some common benefits for kids, co-parents, and
relatives living in a healthy stepfamily,
proposes a way you can identify
your stepfamily benefits
together, and...
illustrates key factors that shape how often and how well
the adults and kids appreciate the good things they enjoy from stepfamily
life.
Pause, breathe, and recall why you read this article.
Did you get what you needed? If so, what do you need now? If
not - what
do
you need? Is there anyone
you want to discuss these ideas with?
Who's
answering these questions - your wise resident
true Self
or
'someone else'?
The Web address of this article is
http://sfhelp.org/sf/benefits.htm
Benefits Compared to What?