Blended Family Research Paper

Divorce is common in the United States; remarriage is just as common. As a result many marriages result in a blended family. A family in which both of the parents have children from previous marriages. Often the blended family shares a permanent residence. Clair Cartwright and Kerry Gibson state in their 2013 report, The effects of co-parenting relationships with ex-spouses on couples in step-families, that in the United States in 2008, around 9% of households and around 12% of cohabiting households were blended families ( Teachman & Tedrow, 2008). A blended family is an excellent place to observe symbolic interaction theory.

A family may face many trials involving illness, divorce or change in family structures. The movie Stepmom is a story of a divorced couple who are battling with the dilemma on how to keep their children happy despite the unexpected events and change of their family structure. In this movie, the children will learn how to cope with the new status of their parents as well as how to deal with the new woman in their father’s life. The movie presents family resiliency and durability and survival as they go through lifestyle changes and stressors. Stepmom is a movie that provides a picture of family values, processes, behaviors, as well as healthcare practices.

In today’s society, divorce is on the rise and has been for the past few decades. As the rate increases, so does the rate of remarriage. If there is a child whose biological parents divorce and remarry, the increase of stepfamilies occurs as well. This concept is the concept of what the reading this week connects to in the stepfamilies chapter of Floyd and Morman’s (2014) book. This chapter has truly spoken to me as a child of a remarriage by the age of 8 and 14and how difficult it was growing up dealing with two different stepfamilies. Reading this chapter this week gave me some more insight into how I have communicated within my stepfamilies.

The percentage of blended families in America is, “68% of re-marriages involve children from prior marriages” (The bonded family 2015). A majority of the families that you see are blended in some way or form. 48 percent of marriage will end in a divorce (The bonded family 2015), which says that many children are living in blended homes. The article talks about how parents struggle with keep tabs on everything that is happen at school for their children. Another issues that the article talked about was how if both parents were remarried that there was a lack of communication between the two parents about the child. “The parents likely couldn’t problem-solve then, when they were married, so I can’t really expect them to now” (H. Williams, 2014). This is an issue because the children are being effected by the bad communication between the

The text has only given the superficial analysis of the steps and the composition of the blended relations. It has failed to give insightful details that made some of the step families to work. It has based its argument on the premise that many literary writing have failed to capture fully the topic of the blended family. That is why it tries to justify its failure to fully disclose the emerging issues in these relations. However, step families are taking center stage, given the fact that at least 50% of the Americans are in a step family relationship. It is obvious that the matter has a very big impact in the social lives of many societies. That is why it calls for a serious social research to unearth the predominant issues that surround these common trend in the social set ups. It is a commonplace phenomenon but the article has failed to reattribute the salient features that surround it. It has only dwelt on the obvious reasons that influence the mixed or the blended families. The text has not provided any important solutions rather than stating the factors that affect both the step parents and the children. It is obvious to outline the basic factors that have resulted in the step family arrangements but the lack of vivid description of the social outcomes leaves out the significant points, which could have been explained by the

Did you know that one third of all children in the United States (US) are expected to live in a stepfamily before they reach the age of 18[helpguide.org 2008]? While some people consider blended families abnormal, they can be just as good as a “regular” family. With blended families becoming more common, there are more studies being done to show both the similarities and differences between “regular” and blended families.

Specific thesis: The blended families and multicultural families become increasingly familiar. Understanding the basics of these families, is, therefore, critical for the family embraces its strengths in working through their differences. According to the research carried out by Michele Martin on the experience of the remarried couples in the blended families, differing loyalties cause various challenges for both biological and step-parents. Just like blended families, the shadow side of multicultural families can loom heavily in the relationships leading to various challenges. Chang and Chin-Chun (page 24, 2014) agrees that it is caused, primarily, by differences in culture and the differences in the cultures makes the parents face difficulties in raising children.

Approximately forty-five percent of all people in the United States will marry divorce and remarry. Because of this statistic and the rising rates of divorce this is also making the number of step families to rise in the country. Remarrying can be very difficult most of the time and this may make your step family a complex institution. A complex institution is an institution that affects people in more than one way. For example, it may cause physical and mental issues and stress.

American novelist, Barbara Kingsolver, in her excerpt, “Stone Soup”, taken from, High Tide in Tucson: Essays from Now or Never, recounts the outrageous view that society has on divorced families/homes. Kingsolver’s purpose is to impress upon readers that it is okay for families to stem away from the traditional, “Dad, Mom, Sis, Junior”, family. She creates a persuasive tone in order to get rid of stereotypes and judgments of marital issues held by her readers and society. Through the effective use of anecdotes, appeals, and passionate diction, Kingsolver establishes her claim that blended families can get through life happy and perfectly fine by themselves or with close friends and family.

In today’s society, there are a variety of family structures in which children live. Normally, a traditional family consisted of a married couple and their biological children. No other persons were involved in the household except the children and their parents. Over the last several decades, we have seen a change in family structures. We see a new family structure called blended families growing every day. According to researchers, there are now more re-married couples than there are first married couples. They are the majority of marriages in America. Blended families include at least one step parent, step siblings or half siblings. These children do not share a common biological parent. Although there are many children who can say they

Blended family is one of the examples of new form of family units. Blended family is when two people get married and live together with their children from previous marriages. The child always follow their mother as women often win custody of their children when divorce. The stepfathers in blended families might encounter the same problem, that is, hard to discipline the child. These children, especially the teenagers during puberty might refuse to obey their stepfather and ignore them. For example, when the stepfather reprimand the child for playing computer games, the child may refuse to obey and claim that his biological father allows him to

Divorce can be hard on anyone and to expect it not to have a significant impact is wishful thinking. However, the reality is that the construct of the family may be shifted from your standard nuclear family to one of a single-parent home and possibly more. Either one of these single-family homes may transform again into another form of family that is referred to as a blended family. This occurs when one of the parents, or both, finds another person which they consider to be their significant other and then merge them, and possibly their family, into yours. This path shows that a family is capable of many transformations prior to settling into something

In modern scieties as divorce rate rising, the growth of women independencies, and cultural differences, families nowadays are leading various lifestyles. Single-parent families for example, are resulted from the loss of spouses as well as divorced marriages. These families often lead tougher lives for their economic circumstances. While the number of divorced marriges increasing dramatically over the few decades, the growing numbers of blended families came along. Blended families often struggle in building the relationships between the stephparents and their adolesent children, who are likely to ignore their stephparents or even fight against them. Last but not least, extended families are families

Some of the biggest challenges are those created by the government. The stepparent according to the government is considered an intimate outsider whom plays the role of a parent but is not given the same legal rights as biological parents. Not allowing a stepparent financial and legal rights for the stepchild is limiting their rights as parents. When two people decide to get married there should be certain rights given to the stepparent. As far as financial support goes with stepparent to step child the economic support that the stepchild receives from their stepparent is very important for their well-being. As a stepparent it should be assumed that they have as much responsibility over the children like biological parent in whom they married. The fact that the stepparent doesn’t have legal rights over the stepchild can be potentially devastating if a child experience the death of their primary caretaker. An example of this scenario would be the Henikson v. Gable, 1987 case. The trial judge in this case failed to precisely rule whether the children had an established custodial environment with their biological father. The mother died leaving the stepdad whom was the child devoted father of his stepchildren (Cherlin, 2013). Due to the fact that the stepfather is not given legal rights over the children he had no control when his stepchildren were taken from him and sent to live with their biological father. The biological father was not

I am so happy that my parents are remarried. There is no better life than to see your parents working out things that has always been affecting their lives in regards to differences in many aspects of their lives. When parents compromised and agreed to live together after divorce for their own benefit and for the interest of their young children, those parents should be praised. Single parenting has adverse