Lecture 4/23/03 - Remarriage and Stepfamilies
Remarriages that involve children from a previous marriage create situations in which well-established rules about everyday family life don’t apply.
Legal
No legal status for a stepparent The stepparent has no legal obligation to contribute to the support of the step-children, even if he has lived with them for years. If there is a divorce between the stepparent and custodial parent, the stepparent has not further obligation to support the stepchildren. Likewise, he has no claim to the stepchildren. Biological parents remain the legal parents, even if they have little to do with their children. (Henrickson step-parent vs. Gable; biological parent)
Slow changes – many states allow a third party, such a stepparent, to obtain custody if parental custody would be detrimental to the well-being of the child.
Cherlin notes that a remarriage with children is an incomplete social institution.
No-taken-for granted social roles. What is a family and what are its boundaries? Who is a relative and who is not? What do you call the stepparent. The French have suggested for example, called the step-mother "belle-mere" rather than Maratre."
No taken-for-granted shared meanings. What obligations do adults and children sharing the same household owe to one another?
Demography of remarriage
Currently more are a result of divorce than death. 9 out of 10 remarriages follow a divorce rather than a death.
Annual rate has declined.
Men more likely than women to be among remarried.
2/3s of separated and divorced women will every remarry; for men 3/4s will remarry. Age becomes an issue for women; Women who divorce at a younger age are more likely to remarry than those who divorce at an older age. This could be explained by the limited marriage pool for older women or the fact that some older divorced women are financially independent and choose not to remarry.
Non-Hispanic whites more likely to remarry than members of other racial-ethnic groups. About 1/2 of all non-Hispanic white women will remarry within five years as compared to 1/3 Mexican-American women and 1/5 of African-American women. The low remarriage rates for African Americans are consistent with the lesser place of marriage in the African-American family. For Hispanics, the Catholic Church's opposition to remarriage influences the behavior of this predominantly Catholic group.
Cohabitation among formerly married is increasing which would lower the remarriage rate. At lest 60 percent of remarried people live with a partner before they remarry.
Remarried slightly more likely to end in divorce than first marriages However, Keshet points out that when couples in remarriages do divorce, it is likely that the difficulties of living in a stepfamily are not the only reason. Couples who divorce after a second marriage probably break up for the same reasons that their first marriages did. Many second marriages for one partner are first marriages for the other. The desire for individual gratification that is not found in the marriage may lead to divorce.
Cherlin says some of the problems might be:
Lack of institutionalized rules.
Remarried partners may be self-selected group
More willing to divorce
Not as skilled in holding marriage together.
Composition of remarried family-
Cherlin defines a stepfamily as a household in which
Two adults are married or cohabiting Under this definition one-fourth of stepfamilies involved cohabiting couples rather than remarried couples.
At least one adult has child present from a previous marriage or relationship.
Splits conjugal family into two households: one household containing custodial parent; one household containing non-custodial parent.
Creates "new extended family"
Ways to define newly created families
By household or stepfamily household-parent with children from a previous union and that parent's current partner
By human chains or remarriage chains across household boundaries.
Keeping kinship going.
More difficult for stepparents and stepchildren and other step relations than for blood relatives.
Requires establishment of relationship.
Building a stepfamily
Can take an average of 7 years to adjust
Transitional period - first two to 4 years. The stepparent goes from a "polite outsider" to "warm friend."
Young children are more accepting of stepparent. Early adolescence may be distancing and resistant.
Stabilization period (subsequent years)
Stepparent: warmth, disengaged parent, and supportive of biological parent.
Stepchildren - accepting of stepparent but some long-term problems with late adolescents.
Requires work on married couple's part
Tends to be harder for stepmothers than stepfathers. Stepfathers can often fill a vacuum left by the departed biological father. Stepmothers must crowd into the space already occupied by the biological mother.
Effects on children -Despite the advantages of having two parents, may studies show that the well-being of children in stepfamilies is no better, on the avera than the well-being of children in divorce single-parent households.
Behavior issues exist are higher rates for stepchildren than for children in first-marriage families.
Age at leaving home. - Children in stepfamilies - particularly girls -leave their households at an earlier age than children in single parent households or two-parent households. More likely to leave due to "friction at home" those who had not lived in stepfamilies.
Perform less well in school than children from two-parent homes.
Conflicting evidence about effects due to age and sex of children.
Number of major transitions may be main factor affecting children of remarriage
Lessons to learn from divorce and remarriage
Emphasis on personal fulfillment and growth of women's economic independence have made marriage more fragile
Divorce and remarriage increase created kinship ties and networks as alternatives to assigned kinship ties.
Divorce and remarriage have altered many children's lives - on average, bad in short-term, no so bad in long-term.
Jamie Keshet
Concepts of family - One of the tasks of the remarried couple is to create a family concept, similar to the marital definition, that can help them to provide leadership for their new family. Working out a mutually acceptable concept of family may be more difficult than working out a definition of marriage.
Five different ways that remarried couples reconcile their desires to be like ordinary families with the realities of their step-family.
Type 1: Not really a stepfamily - these couples did not have to change their concept of the nuclear family and the stepparent was able to function as a parent. Either the children were quite young when the remarriage took pace or they had no contact with their parents outside the stepfamily home.
Type 2 _ Looking forward to the empty next.
Type 3 - The progressive stepfamily. These couples changed their family ideals so they were no longer modeled after the nuclear family. They recognized that they had a different kind of family and saw themselves as part of a historical trend.
Type 4 - The conscious pursuit of ordinary family fife. These couples attempted to live by the nuclear family imagery. The stepparent performed the functions of parents without having blood ties to the children. In this way they reconciled their family concept and function. In doing so, however, they reduced their allegiances to biological children who were living outside the home.
Type 5 - conscious pursuit of ordinary family life frustrated. These couples attempt to become Type 4 families but were unable to do so, largely due to the interventions of former spouses or to unresolved problems dating back to the divorce.
Different definitions of the family. When one partner in a marriage is in a first marriage, the couple members may have particular problems in working out a definition of their marriage that works for both of them.
Different Orientations to Child-rearing - for example two ways of looking at morality, a rules orientation and a response orientation.
Research on stepfather families indicates that stepfathers tend to be more authoritarian and traditional in their views about family and child-raring than are natural fathers.
Disagreement about the Former Spouse - the former spouse of one member of the married couples can also continue to exert an influence on that partner, which makes it more difficult for the couples to establish stability between them.
He ex-wife is frequently a character to be reckoned with. Problems seem to occur more frequently with former wives of remarried husbands than with former husbands.
Living in the stepfamily structure - the remarried couple is embedded within the larger and more complex family constellation of a stepfamily. Through their children they are tied to former souses who may also be in stepfamilies of their own.
The couple, their children and their children's parents are all functioning within a larger system that Ahrons calls the binuclear family and Bohmnon refers to as a kinship chain.
Being part of a stepfamily has a very specific influence on the couple. On the positive side, the other adults in the binuclear family may be resources for the couple, when they need time without children or when the children are having difficulties. On the negative side, the couple may find their autonomy, intimacy, and power limited by the larger system.
Limits on Intimacy Children themselves interfere with intimacy. Old concepts of the famil often get in the way of ensuring the couple's privacy. The former spouse can also interfered with intimacy. Reminders of the past, if the one member of the couple can cause friction.
Limits on Autonomy and Power of the Couple - Being a couple in a stepfamily limits the couple's power in several says. Within their household they have to work hard for ach parent's authority to be respected by all the children. The children's needs and requests interfere with couple goals and priories.
Gender differences - A stepmother's experience and a stepfather's experience are not interchangeable, primarily because being the partner of a divorced mother is different from being the partner of a divorced father.
Most mothers are awarded custody or have joint custody following divorce. The stepfather is usually not defined as the children's primary caretaker. However, the stepmothers have a more difficult time. When the stepchildren come to visit (which is the usual scenario), the stepmother is a secondary parent, second to the father. But her ideal of a parent is usually that of a mother. Differences in the socialization of men and women also influence the expectations stepmothers bring to the stepparent role. She may want to feel like the mother. On the other hand, the husband may expect the stepmother, as a female, to take the primary responsibility for the children during their visits.
Successful Coping Patterns -The couple's sense of connection is enhanced by building a boundary that separates them from the rest of the family and by becoming a team in solving stepfamily problems. The couple also has to learn to say no to children and former spouses on issues that interfere with their needs as a couple. Communication is an important aspect of coping.
Lynn White - reviews four theories of stepfamily life and concludes that all four predict that stepparents and stepchildren, on average, will not provide as much support for each other as biological parents and children usually do.
Sociobiology - The sociobiological argument suggests that animals are reproductive strategists who maximize the survival of their genes into the next generation, in part by focusing nurturance on their own offspring. Therefore, less attention is given to stepchildren. Also higher like hood that stepchildren will be abused or killed. Stepchildren (particularly the post-pubertal stepdaughter) may be become the sexual competitor to their mother for the stepfather's attention.
Social Psychological Perspective - Taking a very different approach, scholars who approach the family from a social-psychological orientation argue that what sets parent-child relationships apart from others is the long-term cumulative nature of the affective bond. The issue is not whether you like or love your parents/children, but the extent to which your relationship to these persons is a defining characteristic of your identity.
Crescive bonds - that "link irreplaceable individuals... into a continuing relationship. A) the relationship has to have a long history and an open-ended future orientation, B)be a label others se to identify you. - "John's father." C). be a label you use to identify yourself, and d) provide rewards, particularly enhanced self-esteem. When all criteria are met, the relationship become an integral part of identity, and it is maintained even if it ceases to be rewarding. For most, "parent" is a defining role, "stepparent" is not.
Social Network Perspective - Social network - an interacting group whose exchanges are regulated by the density and duration of social relationships. The family has high levels of density and high social control capacity; long and open-ended interaction and great likelihood of cooperation and diffuse reciprocity. And strong similarity which reduces the cost of exchange. In every case, the stepfamily is structurally weaker than the biological family. The structural weakness of the stepfamily implies that stepfamilies will be less able to maintain and enforce obligations to one another.
Institutionalization Perspectives - Many family scholars arguer that what sets the family apart form other collections of individuals is not genetics, crescive bonds, or density of networks, but the institutionalized norms of obligation - norms that hold us responsible for our children or parents even if we don't like them. These norms are even weaker for stepfamilies, it is not all clear how much obligation stepparents and stepchildren owe one another. Both legal obligations and normative obligations are much weaker for stepparents.
Legal obligations - child support and inheritance provide insight into the sustainability of institutionalized obligation. In 45 states, stepparents have no obligation to support minor stepchildren even while they live with the child's parent; in no state are they required to continue providing support if their marriage to the child's parents ends or they case to live with the childr.
In regard to inheritance, stepparents may choose to specify that their stepchildren receive a share of their estate, but in cases where they die without a will, the courts will assume that they intended to omit their stepchildren. California recognizes stepchildren's right to inherit, if the relationship is clearly shows that the stepparent would have adopted the person but for a legal barrier.
Normative Obligations to Stepfamily Members - There is less normative pressure and more dependence on individual characteristics, such as affection, affluence and proximity to obligate stepfamily members.
"Stepfamilies are weaker support networks than intact families. The effects are not simply statistically significant; they are of substantive magnitude. Thus, I think we can set aside the view that stepfamilies mean more relatives, broader networks, and more support. This potential is generally not realized."
However, Rossi and Rossi showed that normative obligations to stepchildren fall very materially below those to own children, but they are nevertheless substantial. There is a public perception that stepparents outs to feel a moderate obligation to assist adult stepchildren, and although the obligation to assist stepchildren falls materially below the obligation to help own children, obligations to stepchildren are rated higher than those to nieces/nephews, aunt/uncles, cousins, friends and neighbors.
11% of divorced men and 3% of divorced women reported being a stepparent - therefore for some, the role relationships and role obligations between stepparents and stepchildren may have a lasting quality not entirely embedded in the marriage between parent and stepparent.
Factors like whether the parent/stepparent marriage is intact, the longer duration of childhood co-residence, weakness of competings are enhancing factors to the sense of obligatio.
She says that stepfamily members are best viewed as affines. Much like parents-in-law or children-in-law. "Their relationship is created and sustained by a marriage; although affectionate relationships may develop, the primary impetus for exchange with the affine is to benefit or please the biological relative. When the marriage ends, the relationship falters or dies."
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