Psychology Structured Interview Assignment

Chapter 1 A Map for Stepfamilies

DOI: 10.4324/9780203813645-1

Blending or Blundering?

Claire Abbott and Kevin Anderson have come to therapy for help with “communicating better.” Kevin has two children, Kendra and Katie, from a previous marriage. Claire and Kevin describe themselves as a blended family. “We thought we were blending,” says Kevin, sighing, “but it feels a lot more like blundering to me.” In their first session, this is what their therapist hears:

Figure 1.1 The Abbott/Anderson family at 2 years (followed through seventh year).

Figure 1.2 The Chen/Czinsky family at 8 months of marriage (followed through third year).

Figure 1.3 The Danforth/Emery family at 12 years.

CLAIRE When your kids are here, it's like I don't even exist.

KEVIN (sighing) There you go again. How many times have I told you? Please. Don't make me choose!

CLAIRE But Katie comes and sits herself on the couch, right between us! You do nothing.

KEVIN (jaw clenched) You just don't understand. She wants a hug! That's what kids do. What's your problem?

CLAIRE You’re always defending them.

KEVIN They’re my kids! What do you expect!

CLAIRE But what about me? I’m your wife: (her voice is rising) when do I ever get to come first? You give them your total attention!

KEVIN (getting more agitated) Can't you see, they’re my kids. Of course I give them my total attention.

CLAIRE But can't you see, Kendra treats me like a piece of furniture, if that!

KEVIN Well maybe if you weren't so short with her, she wouldn't be so distant.

CLAIRE What! I stay home from work to bake Kendra's favorite cake for her birthday, from scratch, and she barely touched it. Her mother wouldn't bake a thing, much less spend a whole day baking her a carrot cake. She didn't even thank me. And you said nothing. Nothing!

KEVIN (slumps in his chair and turns to the therapist) See. We can't talk about anything without Claire getting upset.

CLAIRE (beginning to cry) What am I supposed to do? He just doesn't get it. He never gets it.

Meanwhile, Kevin's 13-year-old daughter, Kendra, is at school, talking to her guidance counselor. This is what the counselor hears:

KENDRA I hate having a stepmother.

COUNSELOR How come?

KENDRA I feel like I don't have a daddy any more.

COUNSELOR How do you mean?

KENDRA I don't know. I can't explain it. It's like he's different since he's with Claire. It's like he's not my dad.

Especially in the early years of a stepfamily, and sometimes many years down the road, living in what we blithely call “blended families” poses significant challenges to everyone involved. For helping professionals, step relationships sometimes appear as the presenting problem. Equally often, step dynamics are hovering in the background as ostensibly unimportant details that are nonetheless exerting a powerful effect. This book follows 13 families as they struggle with the challenges of becoming a stepfamily. Here are a few of them:

Connie Chen and Burt Czinsky began their new family full of hope after both had lost their partners to cancer. Connie had coped alone as a single mom for six years. Burt's wife had recently died after a long fight with cancer. Eight months into their new family, Connie felt that Burt's adolescent son Brandon was “ruining everything.” Meanwhile, Brandon was telling his own therapist that he was trying to “run a marathon with two broken legs.”

Eric Emery and Sandy Danforth have been together for 12 years. Sandy recalled that “just when we thought we were done with the hard ones,” they had suddenly found themselves divided along familiar lines over college for Eric's daughter Elyssa. Sandy and her siblings had worked their way through public universities. Eric and his older sister had attended private liberal arts colleges, funded by their parents. Sandy was appalled that Eric fully expected to provide the same for his daughter Elyssa.

Jody Jenkins was in a “truly wonderful” new relationship with Duane. However, her nine-year-old daughter Jenna had become “unbearably difficult.” Duane felt that Jenna was “bratty, whiny, and clingy.” Jody called her old therapist saying that she was confused, and scared.

Figure 1.4 The Jenkins/King family at 6 months (followed through first year).

Len Powell, age 57, is divorced with two adult children. After several painful years alone, Len met his new love, Doris. He was thrilled when Doris and her nine-year-old twins moved in with him. However, a year and a half later, both Len and Doris were extremely upset that Len's 32-year-old adult daughter Lindsay still refused to accept their relationship. Len called asking for family therapy to “help my daughter adjust.”

Dick Tucker and Frank Wolfe came to couples therapy soon after their fifteenth anniversary wanting to “get closer again.” It soon emerged that some of the distance between them was rooted in longstanding stepfamily issues that have left painful knots in their relationship.

Figure 1.5 The Powell family at 18 months (followed through third year).

Figure 1.6 The Tucker/Wolfe family at 15 years.

Charting the Territory

Each of the people we have just heard from is experiencing the intensity and complexity of living in a stepfamily. Understanding the predictable challenges they are facing, and knowing what works to meet them, will help them immensely.

My own fascination with stepfamily relationships began in 1979. A few years into becoming a stepmother, I wrote my dissertation on stages of development in stepfamilies. This work ultimately became my first book: Becoming a Stepfamily (Papernow, 1993). In the late 1970s, the literature review for my dissertation was a cinch. There was nothing to read! In the decades since I began this journey, much has changed.

The awareness that step relationships differ fundamentally from first-time family relationships has increased exponentially, as has the willingness to reach out for help. However, clinicians, originally the driving force in the field, lapsed into silence about 15 years ago. Until Scott Browning's book on family therapy with stepfamilies, there were no up-to-date resources to guide good practice.1 Meanwhile, the research has exploded, tripling in just the decade between 1990 and 2000.2 Sadly, the particular journals in which these works appear are not read by either stepfamily members or those in a position to help. Thus, despite the growing public awareness that stepfamilies have unique needs, there has been a stunning dearth of good information and informed guidance. Indeed, lack of training and knowledge was cited by half of stepfamily members who found therapy unhelpful (Pasley, Rhoden, Visher, & Visher, 1996). Most graduate programs in psychology, marriage and family therapy, social work, school psychology, and pastoral counseling do not provide even the most basic education about stepfamily dynamics.3 A legion of bloggers, Facebookers, and trade book writers has stepped in to fill the gap, offering mountains of well-intentioned, but sometimes frighteningly misguided, advice.

It continues to give me great pleasure to hear from people who find the developmental framework I offered in Becoming a Stepfamily comforting and helpful. However, in the 30 years that have elapsed since I began exploring this territory, my understanding has deepened and grown. Surviving and Thriving in Stepfamily Relationships: What Works and What Doesn't integrates my own three decades of clinical practice, the now substantial research, and the personal stories of stepfamilies, both thriving and struggling. It maps the five major challenges created by stepfamily structure and provides a wealth of evidence-based and practice-proven ways to meet them. I hope it will help fill a gaping hole in our communal wisdom about family life.

Surviving and Thriving in Stepfamily Relationships: What Works and What Doesn't is intended as a guide not only for therapists, but for the legions of others step-family members turn to for guidance and advice. I hope that it will also be helpful to stepfamilies themselves, and to the friends, neighbors, grandparents, sisters, and brothers who care about them.

tepfamily Architecture: The Five Major Challenges

Parents are stuck insiders in a stepfamily. Stepparents are stuck outsiders

This is the core challenge for the adults in a stepfamily. Just when a new and vulnerable adult stepcouple is expecting interdependence and intimacy, stepfamily structure constantly puts stepparents and parents on opposite sides of an experiential divide. The stepparent is the stuck outsider. The parent is the stuck insider. The feelings in both positions can range from unpleasant to extremely upsetting. This challenge comes early and stays late. It also winds through all the others. Stepcouples who meet this challenge reach out to understand and comfort each other. However, the constant missed connections can easily trigger angry fault-finding or helpless withdrawal.

Children struggle with losses, loyalty binds, and too much change

The new stepcouple relationship is a wonderful gift for the adults. However, for children, becoming a stepfamily can launch a cascade of loss and change. When things go well, warm, empathic, and moderately firm parenting supports children's wellbeing. However, at a time when children need caring connection to make a difficult transition, parents are often unaware of their children's feelings, confused by their behavior, and at a loss about how to respond.

Stepfamily architecture polarizes the adults around parenting tasks

Stepfamily architecture easily pulls stepparents toward a more authoritarian parenting style and pushes parents toward more permissiveness. Neither serves children's needs. Stepcouples who meet this challenge collaborate to support the parent's “authoritative” (both loving and firm) parenting. Parents retain the disciplinary role while stepparents concentrate on getting to know their stepchildren. When things go poorly, stepcouples get caught in increasingly entrenched cycles of polarization as stepparents ever more desperately seek firmer boundaries and parents strive to protect their children.

Stepfamilies must create a new family culture while navigating a sea of differences

New stepfamilies encounter a multitude of differences over everything from whether Grape Nuts is a form of cardboard or a breakfast cereal, to the “appropriate” cost of a new pair of sneakers. Those who meet the challenge engage over differences with respect and curiosity while moving a step at a time toward a sense of “we-ness.” When this goes poorly, depleting struggles over “right” and “wrong” erode relationships. Some stepcouples rush forward too quickly, compounding the stress of children.

Ex-spouses, alive or dead (and their parents, sisters, and brothers), are an inextricable part of the family

Living parents affect everything from how much a partner's mood dips after a conversation with an ex, to whether a child's graduation is a celebration or a nightmare. Parents who have died, or who have been destructive, may disappear from the scene, but they leave a hole in children's hearts. When ex-spouses handle this well, children feel centered and safe in their relationships with all of the important people in their lives. When the adults handle this poorly, children are caught in adult tension and conflict, with devastating results.

Helping Stepfamily Members to Meet Their Challenges: A Three-Level Framework

This book introduces a three-level framework that integrates educational, systemic, and individual therapeutic approaches with the research. Level I provides psychoeducation about what works and what doesn't. Level II focuses on the interpersonal skills that are necessary to meet each challenge. Level III turns attention inward to intrapsychic work. I often introduce these three levels to stepfamilies as a way to identify what they are doing well, pinpoint where they are struggling, and make a plan for what needs to happen next. For helping professionals, this framework provides a tool for assessment and offers clarity about how to intervene. It is applicable to work with individuals, couples, and families, and to both adults and children.

The clinical vignettes and longer case studies throughout this book illustrate my own work as a therapist on all three levels. The first two levels also provide key strategies for the many others who can play a critical role in steering stepfamilies toward success: School counselors, ministers and rabbis, family physicians, nurse practitioners, lawyers, judges, and court-appointed parenting coordinators, as well as stepfamily members and those who love them.

Level I Psychoeducation

Therapists are often taught to “attend to the process, not the content.” While process is important, effective psychoeducation is a central component in meeting life's challenges. When traveling in difficult territory, an accurate map and good driving directions make it infinitely easier to stay calm, make wise decisions, and avoid frustrating wrong turns. A parent with realistic expectations of a toddler is much more able to respond effectively to a tired two-year old's grocery store temper tantrum than a parent who expects self-control in an exhausted child. Psychoeducation provides more direct pathways to success, and some short cuts around misery. It is invaluable in navigating the complexity and intensity of step relationships. Chapter 14 elucidates the skills involved in working effectively on this level.

Level II Interpersonal Skills

Successful stepfamilies use more effective interpersonal skills than struggling ones do.4 A stepparent says to a parent, “Your son is a brat. He doesn't even look me in the eye.” Contrast this with, “I know all this is new for your son. Can we talk about getting him to give me some eye contact? That would help me a lot.” Assessing and building interpersonal skills is as important when working with individual stepfamily members as it is in work with couples and families. Chapter 15 provides a toolbox of interpersonal skills, with step-by-step directions for teaching them.

Level III Intrapsychic Dynamics

“Papernow's Bruise Theory of Feelings” helps explain this level of work: If I bump my arm in a place where the tissue is healthy, it hurts. If I hit my arm in a spot that is already bruised, the pain can be agonizing. Some of our deepest bruises may be tucked away out of awareness until current events spring open a long-closed door. The flood of feelings can overwhelm the resources needed to meet the challenges. Healing these old wounds can significantly ease the way forward.

The intensity of step relationships may lead individual therapists to begin their work on this intrapsychic level. However, prematurely attributing the pain to individual psychopathology is shaming and unproductive. It ignores the fact that the challenges created by stepfamily living can engender distressing feelings in the best of us. It also overlooks the importance of a good map and the calming power of better interpersonal skills. Work with stepfamily members usually begins on these first two levels. Then, if emotional reactivity remains high, it is time to begin making what Dick Schwartz calls a “U-turn” inward (Schwartz, 1995, 2001). For non-clinicians this is the signal to begin encouraging a referral. Chapter 16 focuses on the skills involved in moving into this level of work with step issues.

The Families in This Book

This book follows 13 stepfamilies as they engage with their challenges. As you might have already noticed, keeping the facts straight about even one stepfamily can strain the best of brains. For easy reference, The Families chart at the beginning of the book (pages x through xi) lists each family alphabetically and provides some basic information about them. The chart also provides the page number for the genogram that accompanies each family's first appearance. All of the families are also listed in the index at the back of the book, where you can find the other places they appear.

Stepfamilies are like snowflakes—they all have something in common, and yet each has its own unique identifying characteristics. A few specific details easily expose identity. Even changing several elements leaves many families still recognizable. To protect confidentiality and privacy, all cases combine aspects of several families in ways that capture commonly recurring patterns. While blurring details to protect my clients and interview subjects, I have tried to stay true to real events and to authentic clinical work.

Stepfamilies Are Everywhere

Forty percent of American women will live in a stepfamily as a parent or stepparent. One out of three U.S. children under 18 will live in a stepfamily (Bumpass, et al., 1995). One in four cohabiting adults brings children with them from a previous relationship (Bumpass, Sweet, & Cherlin, 1991). Many more stepfamilies are simply not counted (Ganong & Coleman, 2004; Teachman & Tedrow, 2008). These include single parents with a visiting adult partner, like Jody Jenkins, gay and lesbian-headed stepfamilies like Dick Tucker and Frank Wolfe, and later-life recouplers like Len Powell and his adult children. The demographer Paul Glick estimates that one out of every two Americans will live in a step relationship at some point in their lives (quoted in Larson, 1992).

Woozles and Blogger Boo Boos

Stepfamily scholars Marilyn Coleman and Larry Ganong used the term “woozle” to denote an unsubstantiated piece of information that gets passed on as fact (Ganong & Coleman, 1986). The internet endlessly multiplies woozles. Cyberspace also offers a rich breeding ground for what I call “blogger boo boos”—seductively simple but mistaken “solutions” to complex issues, such as the common but misleading counsel to “put the couple relationship first.” What may seem intuitively right, and may in fact be right for a first-time family, is all too often a recipe for struggle in a stepfamily.

In the interest of correcting woozles and blogger boo boos, this book aims to bring key research findings into the public domain. Mastering the sheer volume of family scholarship that has accumulated since my first book, and putting it into accessible form, proved to be one of the most demanding tasks of this undertaking. For those who are as fascinated as I am, the notes section at the end of the book provides a fuller sense of the details.

A Vocabulary for Stepfamilies

Stepfamily relationships strain available language. Many terms in common usage are misleading and inaccurate.

Blended Family

It may already be clear that “blended” does not very accurately describe this family structure. Although it is the language we commonly use, the expectation of blending has led all too many stepfamilies astray.

This book uses the term “stepfamily.” Although it is the word that scholars and clinicians in the field prefer, it does carry some negative connotations. (“That division of the company is the stepchild of the organization.”) Nonetheless, it accurately reflects the step-by-step process by which step relationships are best built. It also captures the step-removed nature of early stepparent–child relationships.

Stepfamilies Are Intact Families

ou will note that the phrase “intact family” does not appear anywhere in this book. Ganong and Coleman have dubbed this “deficit comparison language,” as if a first-time family is “intact” and other family structures are “broken” (2004, p. 38). Neither stepfamilies nor single-parent families are broken. They are simply different family forms. Indeed, as you will see, increasingly sophisticated research is establishing that family processes, especially the quality of parenting and the level of adult conflict, are far more important in determining outcomes than family structure. This book affirms that stepfamilies can be environments where all family members can flourish.

I use the term “first-time family” to describe the family that precedes a stepfamily, even if this term does not quite fit. If John, a previously childless adult, partners with Jane, who has always been the single parent of an out-of-wedlock child, their stepfamily is actually a first-time family for both.

Many Stepcouples Are Not Remarried

The term “remarried family” has been used interchangeably with “stepfamily” for many years, including in the subtitle of my own first book. However, unmarried cohabiting stepcouples are fast becoming the majority stepfamily form, rendering this language obsolete. In addition, as we just saw, a stepcouple's marriage may be the first for one or both members of the couple. Furthermore, only half of remarriages actually form stepfamilies. To reflect all these realities, the terms remarried family and remarried couple have been replaced with stepfamily and stepcouple.

Adoptive Parents Form Stepfamilies, Too

Clinicians and researchers have long referred to “stepparents” versus “biological parents.” This language does not include parents with adopted children, who also form stepfamilies. This book uses the more inclusive word “parent” to differentiate from stepparent.

Becoming a Stepfamily Is a Process, Not an Event

Thriving stepfamilies face the same challenges as those who are struggling. Even for the most successful, building a stepfamily takes time. The fastest stepfamilies begin to reach equilibrium within about two years, finding full stability within about four years (more about this in Part IV). In the chapters ahead you will meet many families who intuitively find their way through together and others who move forward with considerably more struggle. Just a little guidance will be enough to steer some toward success. For a number of them, stepping up to the challenge will involve a courageous journey back in time to heal old childhood wounds.

Stepfamilies are our neighbors, cousins, sisters, brothers, grandchildren, and colleagues. Their challenges are confronted daily not only in therapists’ offices, but in our schools, churches, synagogues, courts, doctors’ offices, and in both day centers and senior centers. The numbers make it very clear that a few specialists cannot possibly meet the need for expert guidance and support. Up-to-date date information about what works, and what does not, needs to be integrated into our shared picture of family life. A full understanding of stepfamily dynamics should be a fundamental part of every helping professional's training. Surviving and Thriving in Stepfamily Relationships is intended to meet these needs.

chapter 2 What Makes Stepfamilies Different?

DOI: 10.4324/9780203813645-2

Stepfamilies must build their relationships with each other on a very different foundation than first-time families. A visual model of physiological arousal frames the challenges this creates. Two powerful, intertwining forces for connection, attachment, and “middle ground,” help us to understand the differences between first-time families and stepfamilies.

Physiological Arousal Levels

Things should be made as simple as possible, but no simpler.

(Albert Einstein)

The simple but enormously useful visual aid in Figure 2.1 is drawn from the work of Pat Ogden (Ogden, Minton, & Pain, 2006). It delineates three levels of physiological arousal or emotional temperature. Like Goldilocks and her three bowls of porridge, hyperarousal makes things “too hot” for intimate connection and wise decision-making. Hypoarousal is “too cool” for full-enough engagement. Optimal arousal is “just right.”

Figure 2.1 Physiological Arousal Levels.

Used with permission of Pat Ogden.

Hyperarousal describes very high energy: anger, anxiety, extreme excitement, etc. Hyperarousal creates too much energy and intensity for learning, listening, communicating, or effective problem solving. In fact, as heart rates increase above a certain level, the thinking and regulating parts of the brain go off line.

Hypoarousal describes very low energy: withdrawal, numbing, depression, spacing out, shutting down, etc. In hypoarousal there is not enough energy, attention, or presence to engage fully with others.

Our wise minds are most available in optimal arousal. We can be most intimate, and we solve problems best, we are at our most loving, creative, and wise in optimal arousal. John Gottman, one of the premier researchers on long-term marital satisfaction, believes that the ability to maintain or return to optimal arousal, i.e., the capacity for self-regulation and soothing each other, is the key interpersonal skill (2011). In contrast, as we move toward the extremes of hyperarousal and hypoarousal, the perceptual field narrows considerably, and we are thrown into automatic fight, flight, freeze, numbing, or clinging responses.

Preview: Optimal arousal is critical to meeting the challenges created by stepfamily architecture. However, stepfamily structure pulls for hyper and hypoarousal. The three levels of intervention described in Chapter 1, psychoeducation, interpersonal skill building, and intrapsychic healing, provide three different pathways to maintaining, establishing, or restoring the optimal arousal that is so essential to becoming a thriving stepfamily.

Attachment and Middle Ground: Two Forces for Connection and Optimal Arousal

Attachment

Attachment is the hard-wired neuro-physiological force that binds humans to each other. Parents build secure attachment by responding in a way that helps children “feel felt.” This resonating sense of “I get you” between a parent and a child actually grows neural connections between the regulating part of a child's brain and the parts of the brain that hold upset feelings. The expanding field of interpersonal neurobiology is establishing that secure parent—child attachment is the primary neurobiological regulating force for children. Securely attached children calm themselves more easily. They score higher on measures of empathy, resilience, attentional focus, confidence, autonomy, and prosocial skills.1

Secure attachment continues to be a powerful regulating and soothing force throughout the human lifespan. Securely attached adults can turn to one another and soothe each other when they are frightened, confused, sad, disappointed, or hurt. Adults evoke this regulating force by helping each other feel seen, known, and understood. Researchers have identified many of the moment-to-moment moves that build, or erode, attachment in adult couples. These moves are critical to high rates of marital satisfaction and predict longer marriages.2 Clinicians like Diana Fosha (2000), Sue Johnson (2004, 2008), and Richard Schwartz (1995, 2001) harness this potent healing force in their therapeutic work.

Middle Ground

Middle ground describes another, more behavioral pathway to connection created by established patterns, habits, and rhythms of doing things together (Nevis & Warner, 1983). I find it helpful to add that middle ground builds in three different ways: Some middle ground can be brought to relationships through similar interests, shared values, or compatible interpersonal styles. Much middle ground in any group evolves slowly over time, often without awareness, as patterns of behavior are repeated over time. Still other middle ground must be forged through active negotiation over differences (Papernow, 1987).

As middle ground grows, it creates easily-traveled behavioral paths to joint action. Eventually, little discussion is needed. Very thick middle ground can become boring and even suffocating. Even then, however, there is often comfort in familiar rhythms and routines.

Areas of thin middle ground in a relationship can bring the excitement that comes from encountering newness. Thin middle ground can also generate anxiety, constantly interrupting forward movement with differences that require discussion, negotiation, and experimentation: If one person likes spicy food and the other likes theirs mild, figuring out how to cook together will require more patience, persistence, and skill.

Attachment and Middle Ground Impact First-time Families and Stepfamilies Differently

Both secure attachment and thick enough middle ground support optimal arousal. When secure attachment is not available, thick middle ground provides a shared sense of “how we do things” that enables continuing joint action. Conversely, when middle ground is thin, secure attachment can help generate enough optimal arousal to ride through the bumps together.

In the dialogue between Claire Abbot and Kevin Anderson that opened Chapter 1, optimal arousal flew out the window within the first couple of exchanges. Attachment breaks (Claire feels left out and Kevin doesn't get it) and the lack of shared middle ground (Claire feels Katie is misbehaving; Kevin feels she is just being a kid) created by Kevin and Claire's stepfamily structure quickly triggered hyperarousal in both of them. Each exchange intensified their feelings of disconnection from one another and raised their emotional temperatures yet another notch, until, finally, Kevin finally collapsed into hypoarousal and Claire dissolved into tears.

In first-time families, attachment and/or middle ground can operate as soothing and regulating forces that bind the family together and help maintain optimal arousal. In a stepfamily, these two forces pull parents and children together, but in a way that generates discomfort and disconnection in step relationships. Let's look in more detail at how the intertwining forces of attachment and middle ground unfold in first-time families and stepfamilies.

irst-time Family

Attachment and Middle Ground in a First-Time Couple

First-time couples, like Kevin and his first wife Ellen, have time without children to ride the yummy currents of attachment. We call this the “honeymoon.” When things go well enough, first-time couples have time to build trust that they can turn to each other with hurts, and they can establish some ways to repair emotional ruptures. Kevin is sharp with Ellen. Ellen gets hurt. Kevin accuses her of being “over-sensitive.” The next day as they cook dinner together, they find their way back to each other. Over time, when these processes to repeat themselves, attachment deepens and becomes more secure.

First-time couples also have some time without children to develop some shared middle ground. On their first date, Kevin and Ellen find they both love 1960s music. As they court, they sing their favorite tunes to each other. Perhaps they evolve harmonies for their favorite Beatles tunes. Ellen introduces Kevin to the outdoors and they begin hiking and camping together. Maybe Kevin introduces Ellen to Chinese food and they stumble on a great Chinese restaurant that stays open late. This little restaurant becomes “their” spot after a night out.

First-time couples like Kevin and Ellen also have the opportunity, before the arrival of children, to become familiar with some of their differences, and even to resolve some of them. Kevin discovers that Ellen leaves the cap off the toothpaste. Plus she mangles the tube! Neither likes how the other loads the dishwasher. These items become a source of irritation and some sniping for a few months until one of them discovers the pump toothpaste tube. How “we” handle toothpaste becomes a done deal, part of the easy middle ground between them, as is how we spend Sunday mornings, what food we like, how we play, make noise (or don't), and thousands of other details of daily living. How we load the dishwasher remains unresolved, but over time, that, too may become part of Kevin and Ellen's shared middle ground, handled in optimal arousal with increasing ease.

If things go well enough, the intertwining forces of secure attachment and thickening middle ground will enable this first-time couple to embark on parenthood with some clear pathways to optimal arousal in place.

Figure 2.2 First-time couple married 1 year.

Children in a First-Time Family

As we see in Figure 2.3, Kendra, Kevin and Ellen's first child, is born into this growing web of emotional and behavioral connection.

Figure 2.3 First-time couple—first child.

It is well understood that children do, of course, interrupt the marital connection. Even then, shared middle ground and a reservoir of secure attachment can provide a place to retreat for rest and comfort. Furthermore, children usually arrive in a first-time family hard-wired to attach to both of their parents. Often the adults’ shared attachment to their child provides a potent source of shared joy that can reset emotional temperatures amid the stresses of parenting.

New babies do require abandoning some supportive old ground and developing some new shared ground. Late night Chinese food is no longer feasible nor even desirable, given the couple's chronic lack of sleep. However, Kevin finds a local Chinese restaurant with an early family hour. Kevin and Ellen begin meeting there after work on Fridays, perching Kendra in her car seat on the table. Kendra sings the words to the Beatles song “I Want to Hold Your Hand” as part of learning to talk. The young family begins singing to pass the time on long rides. Kendra, of course, uses pump toothpaste. Kevin and Ellen still load the dishwasher differently.

In Figure 2.4, Kevin and Ellen's second child, Katie, enters these already established relationships and shared habits of living. Proving to be a much livelier child than Kendra, Katie does not sleep through the night. Kevin and Ellen must now negotiate how “we” handle a crying baby at 2 a.m. However, the whole family takes comfort in meeting at “our” Chinese dive during family hour on Fridays. Katie now occupies the car seat on the table. Kendra has graduated to her own jump seat. Both Kendra and Katie know the words to “our songs.” Some have become evening lullabies. The girls grow up singing on car rides and vacationing in the outdoors. Kendra takes her first steps in a lakeside campground that becomes their family summer vacation spot. And, of course, everyone uses pump toothpaste.

stablished First-Time Family

Figure 2.5 shows us this first-time family with two children seven years down the road. If things have gone well, a sense of secure attachment extends throughout the family. The family's middle ground has become a rich tapestry of habits, values, and rhythms of behavior. Some of these understandings have been built on the shared interests and preferences Kevin and Ellen brought to the relationship. Much has taken root over time, almost unconsciously, without discussion or even awareness, gathering durability with repetition. Some, like the pump toothpaste solution, has been forged out of successfully resolved disagreements. Differences continue to arise, of course, as do emotional injuries. However, these difficult moments appear against a background of reliable attachment and shared understandings that enable family members to continuously reset their arousal levels.

Figure 2.5 First-time couple married 7 years.

The Adult Couple Splits

But suppose things do not go well? Perhaps Kevin and Ellen fall into increasingly negative interactions in which Ellen feels hurt and dismissed and Kevin feels criticized and misunderstood. Arguments over how to load the dishwasher deteriorate into several-day wars. Trust erodes until, ultimately, Kevin and Ellen decide to divorce. A parental split creates multiple shifts in attachment and tears in the fabric of comfortable middle ground for both children and adults. Daily living is often littered with reminders of the losses: maybe Mom still takes the girls for Chinese food, but Daddy isn't there, so nobody orders moo shu to share. Dad and the girls still sing show tunes on car trips, but without Mom's alto harmonies. Ellen and Kevin now split the week at the family's lakeside campground, so one parent is always missing there, too.

Two Single-Parent Families

Despite the issues between them, Kevin and Ellen manage their divorce well. They keep conflict to a minimum. Each of them provides enough good parenting and soothing attachment to help Kendra and Katie through this transition. Both maintain some comforting middle ground of bedtime rituals, homework structures, and familiar food. Maybe Daddy keeps singing Beatles tunes with the girls on car rides. Mom continues to take the girls hiking when they are with her. And of course, in both houses, everybody uses pump toothpaste. Kendra and Katie now become part of what Constance Ahrons (1994) calls a healthy “binuclear family.”

Over time, single-parent families develop their own new middle ground. Friday nights at Kevin's become Snuggle Night. When Kendra and Katie arrive on Friday night, all three of them get into their pajamas and snuggle together watching a movie and eating pizza and popcorn. Perhaps Kevin teaches Kendra, who has always liked to cook, how to make pancakes. Since it's the kids’ favorite meal, pancakes become dinner on Wednesday over-nights with Dad.

Single-parenting can be exhausting. Important for our story, both Ellen and Kevin simply let some things go, slipping into a somewhat more permissive parenting style. In both households, decisions previously made by the adult couple (“What shall we have for dinner?” “What movie shall we watch?”) are now shared with Kendra and Katie. In Figure 2.6 we can see Kevin Anderson's family just before he meets Claire Abbot.

Figure 2.6 Two single-parent families (“binuclear family”).

Stepfamily Structure: A Very Different Foundation for Family Life

As you can see in Figure 2.7, Kevin and Claire begin their relationship very differently than Kevin and Ellen did in Figure 2.2. Kevin and Claire are delighted with their new relationship. Ellen had long ago become cold and distant; Claire is warm and physical. For her part, Claire had dated for many years and is thrilled to have finally found a good guy. They are madly in love.

Figure 2.7 New stepfamily.

Nonetheless, Kevin and Claire's connection is brand new. They have had little time to build a history of secure attachment or to establish shared middle ground. Claire has entered as an outsider to all that we have been describing. Unlike Kevin and Ellen, Kevin and Claire begin their lives together with children on board. And, unlike children in a first-time family, children in a stepfamily begin with bonds of attachment to one adult in the stepcouple, and not to the other. Those deep emotional bonds extend to another adult outside the household, the children's mother, Ellen. When Kendra and Katie need comfort or they want to share something exciting, they turn to Kevin (or Ellen), not to Claire.

Shared understandings about how “we” do car rides, what “we” do for vacations, and what should be eaten for Wednesday night dinners are well-established between Kevin and his children. In fact, Claire does not actually sing. Nor does she like 1960s music. The singing in the car is cute for a while, but it soon becomes irritating. Claire also happens to be a health nut. She is appalled by the Wednesday night pancake dinners. Claire must also contend with the fact that Kevin and Ellen have been making decisions together for ten years as a married couple and another three years as divorced co-parents.

This, then, is what I call “stepfamily architecture.” It is a very different foundation upon which to build relationships than a first-time family. Even after a year of marriage, when the fraught dialogue between Kevin and Claire on page 4 takes place, the step relationships in their family sit on a much shakier base of attachment, with much thinner middle ground, than the parent—child relationships. These unique characteristics of stepfamily structure create the five key challenges introduced in Chapter 1.

tepfamilies Come in Many Forms

A stepfamily is created when an adult with a child (or children) couples with another adult who is not the parent of those children. Beyond this basic definition, stepfamilies come in many forms.3 All of them face these challenges.

Stepfamilies May Be Simple or Complex

Scholars call stepfamilies like Kevin Anderson and Claire Abbot's, where only one adult brings children, “simple” stepfamilies. Many of the families you have already met are “complex” stepfamilies to which both adults have brought children. Like the family in Figure 2.8, complex stepfamilies face the task of bringing together two already-formed parent—child units, each with their own deep channels of attachment and their own fully established middle ground.

Figure 2.8 Complex stepfamily.

Children in a Stepfamily May Be Full-Time, Part-Time, or Both

Stepfamilies include children who reside in the household full-time or part-time. Many include both. In addition, custody arrangements, particularly for adolescent boys, shift over time. In the Danforth/Emery family whom you met in Chapter 1, Sandy Danforth's daughter Sabina lived in the household almost fulltime. Her partner Eric's daughter Elyssa spent the second half of each week with them. In their first years together, Kevin Anderson and Claire Abbot had Kendra and Katie on weekends and Wednesday overnights. Later, due to a change in Ellen's travel schedule, the girls began spending equal time in both houses.

Stepcouples May Be Married or Unmarried

Although newer to the U.S., the rate of cohabitation in the general population is growing rapidly, more than doubling in the decade between 1990 and 2000 (Teachman & Tedrow, 2008). Demographers estimate that 25 percent of American stepfamilies and 50 percent of Canadian stepfamilies are headed by cohabiting couples (Cherlin, 2004). The rate is significantly higher for African American and Hispanic women (Stewart, 2007).

A Stepfamily May Be Formed by Divorce or Death, or Neither

As in the classic fairy tales Cinderella and Snow White, the Old English prefix “steop” designated a family relationship that resulted from the remarriage of a widowed parent. As we saw in Chapter 1, Connie Chen and Burt Czinsky, both widowed, were facing the same basic architecture as the other families. As we will see, some of their challenges were actually intensified by the recent death of Burt's wife, Joan. Most stepfamilies are now preceded by divorce or, increasingly, the breakup of a cohabiting couple (Teachman & Tedrow, 2008).

Step Dynamics Often Begin When a Couple Is Dating

Stepfamily structure can make itself felt very quickly. In Chapter 1, Jody Jenkins had only been dating Duane for a few months. However, Jody's daughter Jenna was struggling with losses and loyalty binds and the couple were already becoming polarized over parenting issues.

Stepcouples May Be First Marriages, Not Remarriages

Jody is the never-married parent of a child born out of wedlock. If Jody and Duane marry, it will be a first marriage for both of them.

The Couple May, or May Not, Have a Child of Their Own

Several of the stepcouples in this book have a child of their new relationship. Others do not. About half of stepfamilies go on to have a child between them (Pasley & Lee, 2010).

Stepfamilies May Be Headed By Gay or Straight Couples

In Massachusetts where I practice, legalization of gay marriage has greatly increased the number of lesbian and gay couples and stepcouples who, like Dick Tucker and Frank Wolfe, feel freer to step out into the open and ask for help. Throughout this book, you will hear same-sex stepcouples experiencing many of the same challenges that heterosexual couples do. In Chapter 8 we will see that they also bring some unique strengths and experience some added variations.

Many Stepfamilies Begin with Children Over 18

“Stepfamily relationships do not disappear when children reach their eighteenth birthday” (Stewart, 2007, p. 20). While the overall divorce rate has remained steady or declined, the divorce rate among older adults has more than doubled since 1980, concomitantly increasing the number of stepfamilies formed in later life.4 As we will see in Chapter 11, stepcouples who come together in later life, and their adult children, face issues that are strikingly similar to those in younger stepfamilies.

Ethnicity May, and May Not, Make a Difference

Very little research focuses on non-White stepfamilies. However, as we will see in Chapter 9, family scholars have long noted that African American stepfamilies benefit from norms that support cross-household parenting and communal responsibility for children. Emerging research is finding better outcomes for Black adolescent stepchildren than for their White counterparts (Adler-Baeder, Russell, Lucier-Greer, Bradford, Kerpelman, Pittman, Ketring, & Smith, 2010). Chapter 10 will focus on the similarities and differences in Latino stepfamilies in the U.S. However, research on the impact of other cultures on stepfamily challenges remains almost non-existent.5

Adoptive and Foster Families Are Not Stepfamilies

Unlike in a stepfamily, adopted and foster children join an already established adult couple. The pre-existing attachment bonds and the thick middle ground in the new family lie within the adult couple, just as they do in first-time families. What may be similar, however, are the fantasies of “blending” and closeness, and the disappointment that emerges as parents find themselves struggling with adoptive and foster children's losses, and their difficulties with attachment.6

Thriving Stepfamilies Face the Same Challenges as Struggling Ones

Stepfamilies, then, are incredibly diverse. Research on these diverse forms remains in its infancy (Ganong & Coleman, 2004; Stewart, 2007). In my experience, while themes and variations may differ across these various stepfamily forms, the dynamics of stepfamily architecture and its resulting challenges are present whether the couple is married or unmarried, whether one or both adults bring children, if there is a child of the new union, or if children reside with the family full-2ime or part-2ime. These dynamics are also there whether stepchildren are under 18 or adults, whether the couple is gay or straight, or whether the pathway into the new family has led through divorce or death or nonmarital childbearing.

As we will see in the chapters ahead, the data does indicate that complex stepfamilies can pose more challenges than simple ones and that stepmother— stepchild relationships, especially with stepdaughters, are more challenging than stepfather—stepchild relationships (Chapter 5). Adolescents have a harder time adjusting than children under nine, and girls have a harder time than boys (Chapter 4). Even with these factors in play, the five key stepfamily challenges are usually present in some form. And, again, strong stepfamilies face the same challenges as struggling ones do.7 It is how stepfamilies meet their challenges that determines their success.