Only Stepchildren Who View Stepparents As Family Maintain Links

Whenever a "stepfamily unit" splits up following a divorce, the relationships between former stepparents and stepchildren also dissolve. After a remarriage, two separate families might come together into "one stepfamily unit". Stepparents do tend to put in a lot of time and effort into raising children, but then they end the relationship completely after a divorce, according to helpinus.

People tend to assume that after the marital relationship ends, the parent-child links need not continue.

Former stepparents tend to maintain less frequent relationships with their stepchildren than the current stepparents, especially if there has been a divorce. While stepparents who become widowed tend to break links gradually, the divorced stepparent relationships reduces suddenly, according to psychsocgerontology

Former stepfathers have even less contact with their stepchildren than former stepmothers. The (step)parents' marriage length as well as the number of their biological children on the widowed stepparent-stepchild contact also impacts their relationships.

Researchers in the University of Missouri College of Human Environmental Sciences found that stepchildren's opinions of the earlier stepparents were dependent on "emotional reactions to the divorce, patterns of support or resource exchanges, and parental encouragement or discouragement to continue step-relationships."

Said Marilyn Coleman, a Curators' professor emerita in the Department of Human Development and Family Science:"For a substantial portion of these children's lives, they've been living with a stepparent, who, in many cases, became a parent to them. Then, the couple breaks up, the family breaks up, and what happens to these kids? Stepparents may have invested a lot of time, a lot of emotion in raising a child and then end the relationship completely. Sometimes, there's an assumption that when the relationship ends, there's no need to continue ties. But for children who have grown up viewing someone as a parent, it may not be so easy for them to lose that relationship."

About 41 young adults were surveyed. Half the participants considered or "claimed" their stepparents as family at some point. Half these adults continued to maintain links with earlier stepparents, but the other half had ended the relationships.

"In post-divorce families - stepfamilies and former stepfamilies in particular - kinship is an important notion," said Larry Ganong, a professor in the MU Sinclair School of Nursing and co-chair in the Department of Human Development and Family Science. "People make judgments about whether or not people are 'family,' and if you are, then there's some sort of expectation about interactions, feelings, expectations. If you aren't 'family,' then there's ambiguity. It's stressful, and people are less sure about how to act and feel."

There is a lot of uncertainty and ambiguity when the family stays together as one unit. It increases further when they dissolve.

"Stepparent-stepchild relationships in particular have neither legal nor genetic ties, which are the two markers that legally and culturally we use to decide who is obligated to whom," Ganong said. "When there's a second divorce, there are neither blood nor legal ties binding stepparents and stepchildren, so that creates an added level of complexity about who's in families and why."

Taking their children's lives into consideration is important. Ten years may not mean much to the parents, but it is hugely significant to children.

"Don't put your kids in the middle," Coleman said. "When stepfamilies dissolve, the biological parent can completely cut ties with the stepparent - the children could never see him or her again. Until children are old enough to drive, they have no way to maintain contact with former stepparents unless the parents facilitate visits."