The following commentary is provided by Dr Jan Pryor, an advisory board member for the Roy McKenzie Centre for the Study of Families and Adjunct Professor in the School of Psychology at Victoria University of Wellington.
Stepfamilies are increasing, as the number of couples separate and re-partner. Both married and cohabiting relationships that dissolve are the basis for stepfamilies being formed when one or both parents re-partner. Increasingly, too, stepfamilies are formed when a single mother (or father) who has not been in a partnership forms a stable relationship with someone who becomes a parenting figure to the child or children.
Our society tends to regard stepfamilies as somehow less proper, less ‘real’ than first families, and this continues to be reinforced by fairytales and modern media. Yet their sheer numbers compel us to take them seriously. At least one in ten children in New Zealand lives in a stepfamily at any one time, and nearly one in three will do so before they are sixteen.
Stepfamilies are challenging for everyone. Father’s Day is a time to think about fathers in stepfamilies. There are two kinds of dads who are involved.
First, stepdads are usually parenting children who are not theirs biologically, and they have to form relationships with children who may not always welcome them. The best advice for stepdads is to go slowly when the stepfamily first forms, concentrate on supporting your new partner, and let your relationships with the children grow slowly. Spend time with them alone if you can—take them to sport, school or music lessons, let them know that you are interested in their lives. And don’t try to replace their biological dad (unless they are very young and their father is not in their lives). Realistically, if your stepchildren are teenagers when the stepfamily forms, the best you might hope for is to be their friend.
Then there are biological dads. In 90% of stepfamilies, children live with their mothers, and dads are non-resident parents. For many fathers it is painful to see their children living with another father figure. However, your children will benefit most if you maintain a close relationship with them. Children are able to embrace more than two parents in their lives, and my research shows that if they are close to their stepdad, they will also be close to their non-resident dad. It is the behaviour of adults in their lives that determines largely how well they flourish.
All the relationships children have with their parenting figures are pivotal to their wellbeing and to that of the family as a whole. And children may have more than one stepparent; commonly, both parents after a separation re-partner, and children spend time in both households. Children, too, are likely to acquire stepbrothers and sisters, and half brothers and sisters. All of these relationships need patience and time to establish and to become positive.
In the United States, some fathers and stepfathers are joining forces as ‘father allies’ to support and parent children. They are able to set aside potential rivalries for children’s affections and to work together for the wellbeing of the children. In many African American communities, a ‘pedifocal’ perspective is taken in which the child is the centre of all considerations, and all adults who are important to a child are involved in parenting arrangements.
Being a father ally, and taking a primary focus on children, calls for maturity and understanding—it is not easy to cooperate with the other adults involved with your children. Another finding from research, though, shows that parents who criticise the other parent to children end up, when their children have grown up, with young adults who are angry with them.
Despite the risks and difficulties, many stepfamilies thrive and so do the children in them. Stepfamilies need support and information, both of which are scarce in New Zealand. Adults forming stepfamilies need advice that is based on knowledge and research about stepfamilies, not about first families. The dynamics are different, and readily available information based on evidence can help parents to create nurturing households for everyone.
Adults need to put aside their anger and jealousies, and to put their children in the centre of their decisions about living arrangements. This is hard; encouraging another parenting figure’s involvement with their children takes courage and selflessness. To the extent that they can put the children’s interests first, both they and their children are likely to have strong relationships with each other in the future, and children will benefit from the love and care of more than two parents.
Dr Pryor was the inaugural Director of the Roy McKenzie Centre and a former Chief Commissioner at the Families Commission.
