Answer to Question 1
Berman and Visher and Visher offered the following suggestions to parents in blended families for increasing the chances of positive relationships between adults and children.
1. Maintain a courteous relationship with the former spouse or spouses. Children adjust best after a divorce when there is a harmonious relationship between former spouses. Problems are intensified when former spouses continue to insult each other and when the children are used as weapons by angry former spouses to hurt each other.
2. Understand the emotions of children. Although the newlyweds in a recently blended family may be fairly euphoric about their relationship, they need to be perceptive and responsive to the fears, concerns, and resentments of their children.
3. Allow time for loving relationships to develop between stepparents and stepchildren. Stepparents need to be aware that their stepchildren will probably have emotional ties to their absent biological parent and that the stepchildren may resent the breakup of the marriage between their biological parents. Some children may even feel responsible for their biological parents' separation. Others may try to make life difficult for the stepparent so that he or she will leave, with the hope that the biological parents will then reunite. Stepparents need to be perceptive and understanding of such feelings and patiently allow the stepchildren to work out their concerns. Stepparents should take time in bonding with their stepchildren.
4. New rituals, traditions, and ways of doing things need to be developed that seem right and enjoyable for all members of the blended family. Sometimes it is helpful to move to a new residence that does not hold memories of the past. Leisure time should be structured so that the children spend time alone with the biological parent, with the stepparent, with both, and with the absent parent or parents. In addition, the new spouses need to spend some time alone with each other. New rituals should be developed for holidays, birthdays, and other special days.
5. Seek social support. Parents in blended families should seek to share their concerns, feelings, frustrations, experiences, coping strategies, and triumphs with other stepparents and stepchildren. Such sharing allows them to view their own situations more realistically and to learn from the experiences of others.
6. Provide organization for the family. Children need to have their limits defined and consistently upheld. One of the difficulties is that children are faced with a new stepparent attempting to gain control when they have not as yet enjoyed many supportive and positive experiences with their new stepparent. Therefore, it is important for this new stepparent to provide nurturance and positive feedback to stepchildren in addition to making rules and maintaining control.
Answer to Question 2
Technology has had profound effects on the family. The following are some changes in the social structure of our society that are also causing us to redefine our notion of what a family is:
Childless Couples: Perhaps in the future the myth of procreation will be shattered by the concern about overpopulation and by the high cost of raising children; the average cost of raising a child from birth to age 18 for a two-parent family is estimated to be 245,000. The expenses are for food, shelter, and other necessities.
Postponement of Parenthood until Middle Age or Later: Biological innovations, such as embryo transfers, are now making it possible for women in their 50s and even their 60s to give birth. As a result, couples have more leeway in deciding at what age they wish to raise children. Young couples today are often torn in their time commitments between their children and their careers. In our society, most couples now have children at the busiest time of their lives. Deferring raising children until later in life provides substantial activity and meaning in later adulthood.
Professional Parents: Alvin Toffler predicted that our society will develop a system of professional, trained, and licensed parents to whom a number of natural parents (bioparents) will turn to raise their children. The natural parents would, of course, be permitted frequent visits, telephone contacts, and time to care for the children whenever they desired. Many parents already hire part-time professional parents in the form of nannies and daycare center workers. In our society, there is currently a belief system that bioparents should care for their children, even if they find the responsibility unrewarding. Only a tiny fraction of bioparents currently terminate their parental rights.
Serial and Contract Marriages: With the high rates of divorce and remarriage, some sociologists have pointed out that a small proportion of our population is entering (perhaps unintentionally) into serial marriages-that is, a pattern of successive, temporary marriages. Serial marriages among celebrities have been widely publicized for a number of years. Viewing marriage as temporary in nature may help reduce some of the embarrassment and pain still associated with divorce and perhaps result in an increase in the number of unhappily married people who will seek a divorce. If marriage is increasingly viewed as temporary in nature, divorce may become even more frequent and result in an expansion of related social services. Several sociologists have proposed that the concept of marriage as temporary be legally institutionalized through a contract marriage. A closely related type of contract is the prenuptial agreement, in which a couple prior to marriage specify how their financial assets will be divided if they divorce. Another arrangement embodying the temporary concept is trial marriage, which is increasingly being tested out by young people. They live together on a day-by-day basis and share expenses. Closely related-and perhaps more common-is the arrangement in which the two maintain separate addresses and domiciles but for several days a month actually live together. Acceptance of trial marriage is currently being advocated by some religious philosophers, and many states no longer define cohabitation as illegal.
Open Marriages: An open marriage offers freedom to pursue individual interests, flexible roles in meeting financial responsibilities, shared domestic tasks, and expansion and growth through openness. In an open marriage, the partners are free to have extramarital relationships or sex without betraying one another. Such a marriage is based on communication, trust, and respect, and it is expected that one partner's growth will facilitate the other partner's development. Marriage counselors increasingly report that couples have serious interaction difficulties because one spouse has a traditional orientation whereas the other has an open-marriage orientation.
Group Marriages: Group marriage provides insurance against isolation. In the 1960s and 1970s, communes of young people flourished. In the later 1970s and in the 1980s, most communes disbanded. The goals, as well as the structure, of these communes varied widely, involving diverse social, political, religious, sexual, or recreational objectives. Interestingly, geriatric communes (which have many of the characteristics and obligations of group marriages) are being advocated by a number of sociologists. Such arrangements may be a solution to a number of social problems of older people. They may provide companionship, new meaning, and interest to the participants' lives, as well as an arrangement in which older adults with reduced functioning capacities can be of mutual assistance to one another. Older adults can thereby band together, pool resources, hire nursing or domestic help if needed, and feel that life begins at 60. In nursing homes, retirement communities, group homes for older persons, and assisted-living residences, some of the older adults are presently developing relationships that are similar to group marriages.
Same-Sex Marriages: The number of same-sex marriages is on the rise in the United States. Over the past few decades an increasing number of states in the United States have recognized same-sex marriages as being legal. Fifteen years ago a majority of citizens in the United States disapproved of same-sex marriages. This sentiment has gradually changed. A majority of citizens now approve of same-sex marriages. In a landmark decision in June of 2015 the U.S. Supreme court declared, on a 5-4 vote, that same-sex couples have a constitutional right to marriage. The decision means that all 50 states must perform and recognize gay marriage.
Transracial Adoptions: Asian and Native American children have been adopted by White parents for more than six decades. About 50 years ago, some White couples began adopting African American children. Transracial adoptions were found to be as satisfying as inracial adoptions. In addition, transracial adoptive children were found to have been accepted by relatives, friends, neighbors, and the general community following placement. The transracial adoptive parents reported that substantially fewer problems had arisen due to the race of the child than even they anticipated before the adoption. They also indicated that they had parental feelings that the child was really their own.
Comarital Sex: The term comarital sex refers to mate swapping and other organized extramarital relations in which both spouses agree to participate. Comarital sex is distinctly different from a traditional extramarital affair, which is usually clandestine, with the straying spouse trying to hide the relationship.
Single Parenthood: Although in many people's minds marriage and parenthood go together, single parenthood is emerging as a prominent form in our society. In many states, it is possible for unmarried people to adopt a child. In addition, an unmarried pregnant woman can refuse to marry and yet keep her child after it is born. Some unmarried fathers have been successful in obtaining custody of their children.
Blended Families: Many terms have been used to describe two families joined by the marriage of one parent to another: stepfamilies, blended families, reconstituted families, and nontraditional families.
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