ABSTRACT
Each of these accounts provides a glimpse into the challenges and complexities associated with stepfamily relationships. From stepchildren’s feelings of being caught between their divorced parents, to ex-spouses negotiating their co-parenting relationships with each other and their remarried partners in the shadows of the divorce decree, to how biological parents introduce their new relational partners to their children (if at all), stepfamilies involve a plethora of personal relationships that vary considerably in form, structure, and complexity. Broadly defined as a family in which “at least one of the adults has a child (or children) from a previous relationship” (Ganong & Coleman, 2004, p. 2), stepfamily relationships include some of the most fascinating and most frustrating of family relationships to study (Ganong & Coleman, 2004). This is due, in part, to the difficulties associated with defining who is included in a study of stepfamilies. For example, U.S. census data suggest that 9% of married couple households and 11.5% of cohabiting couple households contain stepchildren (U.S. Bureau of the Census, 2003). These estimates represent underestimates, however, because the census relies on a household definition that is based on co-residence, one that neglects the complexity of stepfamily systems and the relationships they include (for a full discussion, see Teachman & Tedrow, 2008). Correcting for this definitional limitation, as of 2000, stepfamilies constituted 13% of all families in the United States (Teachman & Tedrow, 2008), and Stewart (2007) recently reported that 15% of children under the age of 18 reside in a married stepfamily. Taken together, these data suggest that the lifetime prevalence of stepfamilies, or the extent to which individuals will spend at least part of their lifetime in a stepfamily, is much higher than the cross-sectional prevalence upon which census data are based. Based on earlier estimates, for instance, Bumpass, Raley, and Sweet (1995) concluded that 40% of all mothers and 30% of all children will spend at least part of their lifetime living in a stepfamily. Consequently, the proliferation of stepfamilies has fueled an exponential growth in stepfamily research, as the amount of published research on stepfamilies during the 1990s tripled the previous total published prior to that decade (Coleman, Ganong, & Fine, 2000).
