Stepfamily
A
stepfamily is the
family one acquires when a parent marries someone new, whether the parent was widowed or divorced. There is a counseling slogan, "Stepfamilies are born out of loss".
For example, if one's
mother dies and one's
father marries a new woman, that woman is one's
stepmother, and any
children she already has are one's stepsiblings. Any subsequent children fathered through the new marriage, however, are one's half-siblings instead of stepsiblings.
Although, historically, stepfamilies are built through the
institution of
marriage, and are legally recognized, it is currently unclear if a stepfamily can be both established and recognized by less formal arrangements, such as when a man or woman with children cohabits with another man or woman outside of marriage. This relationship is becoming more common in the U.S. Many divorced parents, often with children, re-couple with new partners outside of
traditional marriage.
Historically and to this day, there appear to be many
cultures in which these families are recognized
socially, as
de facto families. However in modern western culture it is often unclear as what, if any,
social status and protection they enjoy in
law.
With regard to unmarried couples; one can easily imagine such social and legal recognition; most notably in the case of
common law marriage. Unmarried couples today may also find recognition locally through
community consensus.
Still it is not at all clear what formal
parenting roles, rights, responsibilities and social
etiquette, should exist between "stepparents" and their "stepchildren". This often leaves the parents in unexpected
conflicts with each other, their former spouses and the children.
For all the confusion which stepparents may feel, it is often even less clear to the stepchildren what the
interpersonal relationships are, or should be between themselves and their stepsiblings; between themselves and their stepparent; and even between themselves and their birth parents.
These relationships can be extremely complex, especially in circumstances where each "step spouse" may bring children of their own to the home. Or alternatively, in
households where children are expected to actively participate in each of the newly created families of both birth parents.
Although most stepfamilies can agree on what they do not want to be for one another, they are often hard pressed to agree upon what they do want to be for one another. This makes it difficult for everyone in the family to learn their
roles. It is especially difficult for the children, because the roles and expectations of them change as they move between the
homes and families of both of their birth parents.''
In her book, Becoming a Stepfamily, Patricia Papernow (1993) suggests that each stepfamily goes through seven distinct stages of development, which can be divided into the Early, Middle, and Late stages. The early stages consist of the Fantasy, Immersion, and Awareness stages. In the Fantasy stage, both children and parents are typically "stuck" in their fantasies or wishes for what their family could be like. The developmental task for this stage is for each member to articulate their wants and needs. In the Immersion stage, the family is typically struggling to live out the fantasy of a "perfect" blended family. In this stage, it is critical for the "insider spouse" (i.e. the biological parent who typically forms the emotional hub of the family) to understand that the feelings of the "outsider spouse" and children are real. The task of this stage is to persist in the struggle to become aware of the various experiences. This stage is followed by the Awareness stage, in which the family gathers information about what the new family looks like (e.g., roles, traditions, "family culture") and how each member feels about it. The tasks of this stage are twofold: individual and joint. The individual task is for each member to begin to put words to the feelings they are experiencing, and to voice their needs to other family members. The joint task is for family members to begin to transcend the "experiential gaps" and to try to form an understanding of other members' roles and experiences.
The middle stages consist of the Mobilization and Action stages. In the Mobilization stage, the step-parent can begin to step forward to address the family's process and structure. The tasks of this stage are to confront differences in each member's perception of the new family, as well as to influence one another without shaming or blaming. In the Action stage, the family begins to take action to reorganize the family structure. The goal here is to make joint decisions about new stepfamily rituals, rules, and roles. The focus in this stage is on the stepfamily's unique "middle ground" (i.e. the "areas of shared experience, shared values, and easy cooperative functioning created over time," p. 39), and on balancing this new middle ground with honoring of past and other relationships.
The later stages consist of the Contact and Resolution stages. In the Contact stage, the couple is working well together, the boundaries between households are clear, and step-parents have definite roles with step-children as "intimate outsiders." The task for this stage is in solidifying the step-parent's role, and in continuing the process of awareness. Finally, in the Resolution stage, the step-family's identity has become secure. The family accepts itself for who it is, there is a strong sense of the step-family's middle ground, and children feel secure in both households. The task for this stage is to nourish the depth and maturity gained through this process, and to rework any issues that might arise at family "nodal events" (e.g., weddings, funerals, graduations, etc.).
Stepmothers
In fiction, stepmothers are often portrayed as being wicked and
evil. The
character of the wicked stepmother features heavily in
fairy tales; famous examples are
Cinderella and
Hansel and Gretel. Stepdaughters are her most common victim, and then stepdaughter/stepson pairs, but stepsons also are victims as in
The Juniper Tree â€" sometime, as in
East of the Sun and West of the Moon, because he refused to marry his stepsister as she wished, or, indeed, they may make their step-daughters-in-law their victims, as in
The Boys with the Golden Stars. Fairy tales can have alternate versions where one tale has an evil mother and the other an evil stepmother: in
The Six Swans, the heroine is persecuted by her husband's mother, and in
The Twelve Wild Ducks, by his stepmother. Sometimes this appears to be a deliberate switch: the
Brothers Grimm, having put in their first editions versions of
Snow White and
Hansel and Gretel where the villain was the mother, altered it to a stepmother in later editions, perhaps to mitigate the story's violence. The Icelandic fairy tale
The Horse Gullfaxi and the Sword Gunnfoder features a good stepmother, who indeed aids the prince like a
fairy godmother, but this figure is very rare in fairy tales.
In
Classic of Filial Piety,
Guo Jujing told the story of
Min Ziqian, who had lost his mother at a young age. His stepmother had two more sons and saw to it that they were warmly dressed in winter but neglected her stepson. When her husband discovered this, he decided to divorce her. His son interceded, on the ground that she neglected only him, but when they had no mother, all three sons would be neglected. His father relented, and the stepmother henceforth took care of all three children. For this, he was held up as a model of
filial piety.
The ubiquity of the wicked stepmother has made it a frequent theme of
revisionist fairytale fantasy. This can range from
Tanith Lee's
Red as Blood, where the stepmother queen is desperately trying to protect the land from her evil stepdaughter's magic, to
Diana Wynne Jones's
Howl's Moving Castle, where, although it is known that stepmothers are evil, the actual stepmother is guilty of nothing more than some carelessness, to
Erma Bombeck's retelling where
Cinderella is lazy and a liar. More subtly,
Piers Anthony depicted the Princess Threnody as being cursed by her stepmother in
Crewel Lye: A Caustic Yarn: if she ever entered Castle Roogna, it would fall down. But Threnody explains that her presence at the castle caused her father to dote on her and neglect his duties to the destruction of the kingdom; her stepmother had merely made her destructive potential literal, and forced her to confront what she was doing.
Stepfathers
Though rarer, there also cases of evil step
fathers, such as Murdstone in
Charles Dickens's
David Copperfield, the classic
Twilight Zone episode, "Living Doll" and Gozaburo Kaiba (who adopted Seto and Mokuba Kaiba) from
Yu-Gi-Oh!. An analogous male figure may also appear as a wicked uncle; like the stepmother, the father's brother may covet the child's inheritance for his own children and so maltreat his nephews or nieces.
Step- and half-siblings
In fairy tales, stepsiblings and half-siblings can but need not take after their mother.
Cinderella and
Mother Hulda feature wicked stepsisters and
The Wonderful Birch a wicked half-sister, but
The Rose-Tree and
The Juniper Tree feature loving half-siblings, and
Katie Crackernuts loving stepsisters.
Many
romance novels feature heroes who are the stepbrother of the heroine. The step-relationship generally stems from a marriage when the hero and heroine are at least in their adolescence.
Stepfamilies
Some family
films and television
sitcoms feature a stepfamily as the center premise. In many cases, the stepfamily is large and full of children causing situations such as sibling rivalry, rooming, and getting along amongst the children as popular plotlines. The stepfamily premise dates back as far as the 1968 film
Yours, Mine and Ours. This film gave way to a classic family television sitcom about a blended family known as
The Brady Bunch. Some contemporary family sitcoms have made the blended family sitcom more popular with the TGIF show
Step by Step bringing about other shows such as
Aliens in the Family,
Life with Derek,
Drake & Josh, and the short lived
NBC family sitcom
Something So Right.
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Barbara LeBey, Author of Remarried with Children, Ten Secrets for Blending and Extending Your Family published by Bantam, now in paperback 2005.
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Stepfamily Zone Australian site dedicated to stepfamilies and their unique challenges.
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The Bonded Family The Bonded Family, a faith-based organization offering encouragement, hope and insight via seminars, workshops, and resources to churches and organizations.
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Blended And Blessed Blended & Blessed is a Connection Group at First Baptist Church of Indian Rocks (Largo, FL) with the focus of bringing together couples in a Blended Family / Step Family situation. "We focus on applying God's Word to our situations, strengthening marriages, raising children, and success in dealing with the intricacies of a blended family."
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Childfree Steps A message board community for childfree (childless-by-choice) people who are, or may become, stepparents.
Papernow, Patricia L. (1993). Becoming a Stepfamily: Patterns of Development in Remarried Families. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
