Stepfamilies in the 1980's*

• Author: Emily Visher,John Visher
• Published date: 01 June 1982
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/j.174-1617.1982.tb00076.x
• Date: 01 June 1982

Stepfamilies

in

the

1980's"

Emily Visher and John Visher

Introduction

The shape of today's families is changing.

During the 1970's the divorce rate rose 79%,

and since 75-80% of divorced people remarry,

60%

of them with children,

it

is

estimated that

approximately 500,000 new stepfamilies are

formed each year in the United

States.

Stepfamily statistics differ because of the

definition used. For example, the stepfamilies

that are counted may be those in which there

is

a

stepchild living most of the time in the house-

hold of the parent with custody. However,

there are many children living in single parent

households who also spend time with their

other biological parent who may have remar-

ried. We use the term stepfamily to include any

household in which there

is

at

least one adult

who

is

a

stepparent or acting in

a

stepparent

role. This latter pattern occurs with increasing

frequency as couples form long term rela-

tionships when there are children from

a

pre-

vious relationship. Without marriage, similar

situations and feelings occur. In some step-

families the children may have considerable

contact, while in others there may be very little.

These are

all

stepfamilies, because there are

many basic structural and dynamic similarities

between these households which need to be

recognized and dealt with.

There are, however, some consistent fig-

ures that do not depend on definition. In 1980,

40% of

a//

marriages were remarriages (not

all

with children, of course), and one child in five

under the age of 18

is

a

stepchild. Projections

indicate that of children born today, 45% will

live in

a

single parent household or

a

steppar-

ent household before they are 18 years of age;

by

1990

there will be more single parent and

stepfamily households than there will be bio-

logical family households. The shape of Amer-

ican families

is

changing rapidly!

*This paper was presented

at

the AFCC Annual Confer-

ence

held

in May

1981

at Indianapolis, Indiana.

It

has been said that biological families

have family trees, and stepfamilies have family

forests. Anyone who has worked with remar-

ried couples knows how complicated things

can seem. Whatever the age of the children,

there is legal complexity. If the children are

young there are custody issues and issues of

visitation, child support and alimony. If chil-

dren are older, most of them also have feelings

of abandonment and displacement which are

as

strong

as

those of younger children, and

legal questions

of

inheritance

stare

you in the

face. To quote one woman in her 30's:

"Here

I

am

a

35-year-old woman who

has been married and divorced. Then

a few years ago my mother died and

a

couple of years later my father remar-

ried and when

I

walked into his house

for the first time after they were mar-

ried

l

had the strangest feelings.

Everything was changed. The furni-

ture was different and things didn't

look the way they had before.

I

found

it

was very upsetting.

"I

felt

like

an unbaked cookie.

When things started to heat up

I

started to rise.

My

stepmother feels

insecure with me because her children

have had real problems,

so

she keeps

wanting to feel that

I,

one of her step-

children, am also not perfect. This

makes her feel better about herself

since she sees her children

as

a

reflec-

tion of herself.

So

everything

I

do or

want

is

somehow wrong.

"As for me,

I

was very close to my

mother and my father didn't give her

as much

of

his time

as

he could have.

Then my mother died and my father

changed and it's awfully hard to see

another woman getting what

I

always

wanted my mother to get.

I

identify

with my mother and

so

this makes me

very resentful.

15

CONCILIATION COURTS REVIEW/VOLUME

20,

NUMBER liJUNE

1982