Typical
are formed from three or more multi-generational biofamilies,
often totaling over 100 kids and adults. The
co-parents'
biofamilies are often from different ethnic cultures, religions, geographic
regions, and even races. These differences mean that the odds of conflicting
values and traditions among all these people is higher than in typical intact
biofamilies.
A century ago, ~90% of American stepfamilies formed after the death of the
stepkids' biomother or father. Thanks to better nutrition and health care, women's
(partial) emancipation, and increased social acceptance of divorce, now ~90%
of U.S. stepfamilies form after the legal
of one or both new partners.
When a minor child's father or mother dies or parents divorce, each child
and emotionally-bonded relative must
their web of
before being able to form new bonds with a new stepparent and their (kids
and) relatives.
Divorce usually implies (a)
relatives in both co-parents' biofamilies, and (b) complex webs of current
relationship
among blood and legal relatives.
The Seeds of Family Discord
Typical parents of kids who divorce agonize over whether their grandkids' family disintegration is somehow "my
or our
fault." This is specially true in grandparents who divorced
themselves. Many have strong religious training that decrees divorce to be a
sin, and remarriage to be unholy in God's or their church-congregation's judgments. They want their kids to be happy anyway, and their
grandkids to be safe and nurtured.
Grandparents may have grown strong bonds with their former son or
daughter-in-law and/or their relatives. When a divorced parent chooses a new
partner, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and siblings may or may not want to
accept and build relationships with the new mate and any stepkids and
relatives. This mutual-acceptance dance can breed a bewildering array of plastic smiles
and loyalty conflicts for years after nuptial vows. In the best cases, it can also bring immediate good chemistry, and fine
new bonds and good times.
We all long for love and harmony, specially in the home we wake up in each
morning, and among the relatives we're share special occasions with. This is
specially true for the grandparents, parents, and kids who have known years of
tension
to divorce, then more
stress during the grinding
separation and legal-divorce process.
Relatives surviving the sudden or drawn-out death of a child's parent live
with their own longing for family stability and happiness to replace their
anxiety and sorrow.
Meet Re/marital Dreams and Expectations
The joy and hope of a fresh-start re/wedding often rekindles everyone's
dream that somehow the spirit of the TV Brady Bunch will infuse all the
new (alien) kinfolk, starting with the
co-parents, their minor
and grown kids, and six or more co-grandparents. Why does that seldom happen?
This is a complex topic, so let's create some structure to ground us.
What
follows focuses generally on the key problems typical re/married co-parents
face when one or several of their blood or legal relatives disapprove of
or reject them and/or their kids. What does that
"look like"?
To illustrate, let's meet a mythical couple who just re/married - Joe and
Barbara Silverman. She has two custodial minor kids, and he's a childless
first-time husband. He was raised in a Detroit suburb by well to do,
traditional Jewish parents, while her childhood culture was small-town
southern Baptist. Barbara's ex, Frank, grew up in an Appalachian
coal town amidst a clan of hard-working blood relatives with little formal
education and a lot of calluses. To keep it simple, we'll say that Frank and
Barbara's divorce was granted two years ago, and he's starting to date, but
has no new partner yet.
If Barbara, Frank, and Joe are under 45, all six of their parents may be
alive. They total (6 grandparents + 3 co-parents + 2
kids) = 11 people. This means they have [(11 x 10) / 2] = 55
relationships to re/negotiate. Adding the brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, and cousins in their three
families, they might total (say) 64 people -
with [(64 x 63) / 2] = 2,016 relationships to stabilize! How would you
begin to do that? If 40-something Frank remarries a divorcee with
several kids (which is likely), that could easily double.
Each of the three co-parents have stable adult relationships with their
respective parents. Barbara and Frank "know" each other and their
kids, and the kids "know" (what to expect from) their four
grandparents from over ten years' shared experiences. Joe and his parents
are faced with "getting to know" (i.e. to understand, trust, accept, evolve
stable boundaries, care about) these eight people, and
their
traditions, values, and beliefs with theirs to form a stable (step)family.
In several years, Frank might eventually
remarry Sarah, who has an A.D.D. (Attention Deficit
Disorder) son failing high school, a hostile, guilty ex husband Jose in San
Juan, and has 47 blood and legal relatives living in 14 homes scattered over
North America and Puerto Rico. Their union would initiate another
merger of 16 groups of tangible
and invisible things that they - or any new stepfamily members - must combine and
stabilize after commitment and moving in together.
Try
bringing these ideas to life by
diagramming your present
(step)family now. Reflect on the mix of races, religions, ethnic and
educational backgrounds, and lifestyles. Then try
the number of possible relationships among all your members. What do you
learn?
Let's continue exploring how co-parents can cope with relatives'
rejection and disapproval by surveying common...
Surface Reasons That Typical Step-relatives Don't Mesh
Though details vary
richly, the surface kinfolk-relationship problems that
co-parents like Joe and Barbara face fall into several categories. See if you
see a version of your situation here:
1) A
co-parent's bioparent/s and/or other relatives...
Refuse
to acknowledge they're
of a stepfamily, and behave as though
the steppeople have no personal or social relevance;
Are cool to,
distant with, or clearly rude and hostile
to, the co-parent's spouse, kids, and/or kin in
extended-family activities and decisions. Symptoms include...
-
"forgetting" to invite them to family gatherings;
-
excluding the
new adult's name from invitations;
-
not buying presents at gift-exchange
times;
-
not recognizing birthdays, achievements, or losses;
-
repeatedly
calling and asking "Can I speak to (Barbara)?" Without a
genuine "Joe, how are you?";
-
omitting or minimizing
step-relatives in estate plans; etc.
The extreme form of this is a
relative
relations with a co-parent and/or
their child completely.
Subtly or openly disparage (talk badly about) one or more of these:
(a)
the new partner as a person, (b) the partner's education, religion, or
ethnic, or social background; (c) the partner's child, or parenting
skills; and/or (d) the partner's blood relatives - e.g. "Joe,
dear, your father and I don't get along all that well with Baptists,"
or "Barbara, how could you pick an immoral man who got a girl
pregnant, and then allowed her to abort?"
Criticize
a co-parent's decisions, attitudes, values, or behaviors - "I think Barbara and Frank
gave up way to easily. They're obviously immature, and had no sense of
responsibility for their poor children;"
Repeatedly
decline invitations to visit the new couple's home or to socialize,
evasively or bluntly. A variation is they do socialize, and are
clearly uncomfortable, bored, disinterested, rude, or critical; or
step-relatives can...
Actively participate in a child-related legal battle
between divorced parents, or acidly disparage or reject one or both adults
for engaging in same;
Other typical surface problems between step-kin are...
2) A
minor or grown stepchild is rude to, disrespectful of, or "doesn't
want to" visit step-relatives - specially a step-grandparent; - e.g.
Barbara's teen daughter loudly resists going to have dinner with "Joe's totally
boring old-fogey parents."
3) A stepparent
resists social occasions with her/his stepkids' "other" blood
relatives - e.g. Joe balks at attending a family party that includes Frank
and/or his relatives;
4) One
or more relatives reject their
own child, grandchild, or ex in-law: "I will not be in the same
room with that loser / monster / pervert / whore / devil's spawn / addict /
ingrate /...";
5) One or more of the antagonists deny their behavior,
and pretend interest, acceptance, and concern that seems insincere: "Of course
we like Barbara's children, Joe! Your mother and I just... aren't used
to having such, uh, active (i.e. loud, rude, ill-mannered,
self-centered) young people in our home."
A last over-arching category of tension over relatives' disapproval and
rejection is...
6) One or more
of the conflicted people refuse to
together.
Variation: they'll try, but the attempt always ends up in
"fights," "attacks" (blaming and criticizing),
"yelling matches," "name calling," "power
struggles," or someone "not listening." The worst case is co-parents not talking with each other and/or their grown or
minor kids.
Can you think of other
examples of step-kin rejection or conflict?
For perspective, note that criticisms, discounts, and rejections can
erupt...
-
before co-parents divorce,
-
because of
a separation or divorce,
-
because of some post-divorce event like an ex
mate forcing the other into legal battle, or a child's residence-change;
-
because of pre-re/marriage
cohabiting, and/or
a re/marriage decision or ceremony; or...
-
as new kinfolk start
to merge and "get to know each other."
Sometimes several of these are true. One implication is that at any time in a
re/married couple's history, there may be little, some, or a lot
of tension with genetic and legal relatives. Cordiality during
pre-remarital courtship
is not a reliable predictor of long-term kinfolk harmony and bonding.
|
In sum: all families have tensions and conflicts among their members. Typical stepfamilies
have more members, more conflicts, the dynamics are usually more complex, and
the social environment is less supportive. One stress can be from
relatives disapproving or rejecting their new step-kin. |
Two key implications:
average stepfamily co-parents
have a higher chance of significant re/marital stress than
first-marriers, partly due to inter-relative discord. Therefore...
their minor kids have a
higher chance of significant family stress than peers in
typical intact,
biofamilies.
This stress is compounded by stepkids' many concurrent
developmental and
family-adjustment
needs
The second point is in the context
of typical stepkids possible concurrent
family-adjustment needs to fill, while trying to evolve into competent,
independent young adults!
This site proposes that most role
and relationship problems have surface
symptoms caused by a mix of unfilled
If unaware co-parents focus only on
problem symptoms, their discomforts will relentlessly
return and expand. Our American divorce
epidemic seems to
validate this opinion.
So - what
do couples like Joe and
Barbara (and you?) really
need, and what are your options for filling your needs?
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two-page article is http://sfhelp.org/Rx/kin/disapproval.htm