Family Life in Adolescence by Atkin Sharon & Noller Patricia

Author:Atkin, Sharon & Noller, Patricia [Atkin, Sharon]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: De Gruyter
Published: 2013-12-31T16:00:00+00:00

5.12 Living in a Stepfamily

When discussing stepfamilies, it is important to remember that these days children are much more likely to live with a biological mother and a step-father than was true in earlier times when women were much more likely than they are today to die in childbirth, at least in the West. Stories of wicked stepmothers tended to be written during that period.

In 2001, around 10 percent of couple-families with children were stepfamilies ( Cartwright, 2005 ), and around 20 percent of children are likely to live in a stepfamily at some time before they turn 16. According to this New Zealand study, after a resident parent remarries, relationships between the resident parent and child are likely to deteriorate. This finding is supported by a US study that found that mothers who had remarried were less positive and more negative towards their own children from previous relationships than mothers in first marriages or mothers in established single-parent families ( Hetherington & Clingempeel, 1992 ). In this study, pre-adolescent children were also likely to experience adjustment problems.

There is also evidence that children in stepfamilies tend to be less warm and communicative and also more negative in their interactions with their mothers ( Hetherington & Jodl, 1994 ). These young people are also likely to see their families as more conflicted and less warm ( Kurdek & Fine, 1993 ). These difficulties are likely to increase for adolescents who may disengage from their families and spend as little time as possible at home (Hetherington & Jodl). In addition, as will be discussed in Chapter 7 , adolescents in stepfamilies are also likely to leave home earlier, presumably because of their dissatisfactions with family life.

According to the Harper and McLanahan (2004) study mentioned earlier, those young people who were most at risk of ending up in prison were those from stepfamilies, even though household income increased and the mother had, at least in theory, an extra person to help with supervision and monitoring. In fact, in these US data, those young people in stepfamilies were three times more likely than those in biological mother-father families to be sent to prison. One of the weaknesses of this study, acknowledged by the authors, was that conflict in the family, known to be related to delinquent behaviour and leaving home to live on the street, was not included in the analysis ( Noller et al., 2008 ; Pears & Noller, 1995 ). Harper and McLanahan also note that other research has found that the complexity of relationships in stepfamilies may lead to adolescents experiencing uncertainty about how relationships should work and having more conflict with their parents than occurs in mother-father households (O’Connor, Hetherington & Clingempeel, 1997 ).

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