Characteristics Of Step Families

Register to read the introduction… James Bray from a nine-year study for the National Institutes of Health cites the characteristics of successful step families and discusses the importance of daily communication between husband and wife to prevent and defuse potential problems. The other recommendation that Dr. Bray suggests is that the relationship between the new spouse and children be developed very slowly. As a part of this research, Dr. Bray also lists the following types of step families and describes the characteristics and success rates of each (Herbert 60). Neo-Traditional Step families These families can be described as the most successful families in the nine-year study. The most striking characteristic of the neo-traditional family is that they take a very realistic and flexible approach to building a family. They accept that they are not a 1950's version of a nuclear family and don't try to be. This is also the type of family that after a few years most closely resembles the traditional nuclear family because of the level of intimacy and unconditional support of one another (60). Romantic Step families These families picture themselves as the idealized version of the nuclear family and do whatever they can to fit into that mold. The results are usually negative as the main problem becomes their impatience to be seen as a traditional family so they push for things that should evolve slowly. For example, in most families, as kids become teenagers there is more time spent apart because teenagers prefer to spend time with their peers. Romantic step families, in direct contrast, spend a lot of time in forced camaraderie, and teenagers are especially quick to detect this falseness. These families also break up at much higher rate than other step families (62). Matriarchal Step families As the name suggests, in this type of step family the mother plays the dominant role. These families often occur when a single mom finally remarries. Since she is used to carrying the full parenting load, she will continue to do so. These families are more successful when the new stepfather takes a less involved role, especially if the children are teenagers who are just beginning the process of distancing themselves from parental authority. Problems occur when the new father finds himself into a disciplinary role with which he is unfamiliar (66). A variety of studies have shown that there are a sizable number of step families that are not doing well at all. These studies demonstrate that step kids do more poorly on a variety of measures than do kids that live in a traditional, two-parent home, even with adjustments for income level.They are more apt to repeat a grade in school, have disciplinary problems, and drop out of school altogether (Stewart 7). Studies collectively indicate that stepchildren do about as well as kids who live with a single parent, which remains much worse than kids in traditional nuclear families (Mahony 40). According to extensive research by Martin Daly and Margo Wilson of McMaster University in Ontario, stepchildren are more likely to be abused, both physically and sexually, and even more likely to be killed by a parent-one hundred times as likely-compared with kids being raised by two biological parents (Boyd and Norris). Another study confirms that stepchildren are less likely to go to college …show more content…
It might be that step mothering is just more difficult, because the children's bond with the biological mother is very powerful. For the most part, a man can be a good stepfather simply by being a provider and a "nice" guy, but a stepmother is usually called upon to establish empathy and attachment, traits that are very difficult to establish, and impossible to fabricate. Other research shows that stepchildren are less likely to be provided for. Studies confirm that biological mothers around the world spend more family income on food-particularly milk, fruit, and vegetables-and less on tobacco and alcohol, compared with mothers raising non-biological children (63). Whatever the reasons, stepmothers and stepchildren are the losers in these reconfigured families. The issues surrounding step families have launched a conservative assault supporting the indictment of step families. This assault is fueled by the support of "evolutionary psychologists" who contend that parents have evolved over time to care only about the welfare of their own genetic offspring (Feifer