6 Qualities of Healthy Stepfamilies
What science has to say about the best kinds of blended families.
Growing up, somehow, I developed this idea that no stepfamily was a good family. I guess that I just didn’t see many examples of healthy relationships and accepting kids.
Because my own family is about to become a stepfamily as my mom prepares to get married, much of my personal research has centered on how to make these families the greatest unions possible.
“Blended families are woven together by choice, strengthened by love, tested by everything and each are uniquely ours.” — Unknown
At the end of the day, it is primarily about the couple’s marriage- but you can’t forget the affected parties in the process.
The way marriages are handled between people with kids is crucial to how accepting those kids will be in the future, and how they develop into their own selves as they grow up in their family system.
There’s often a pessimistic view about stepfamilies.
For instance, take one of these quotes I found:
“If you are a stepparent, rush right out and get yourself a dog. Because it’s very nice to have someone in the house that loves you.” — Delia Ephron
Trust me when I say — it doesn’t have to be this way.
Here are six qualities that I’ve found of healthy stepfamilies from the research and personal experience:
#1: They acknowledge the awkward
Starting with my own personal story, as a college student, it’s weird to know that in a month I’ll be attending my mom’s wedding. That’s strange, and awkward, and I don’t know what to do with it sometimes — even though I love the guy she’s getting married to.
My kids one day will have more than the normal number of grandpas, and my brothers will have more than one man in the father role in their life. It’s beautiful and complicated and something we never would have expected at the end of the year.
“Blood makes you related; love makes you family.” –Unknown
Part of the way that we’ve made it through is that we’ve been very open, vulnerable, and communicative about how we’re feeling, what we’re thinking, and the strangeness of it all. At all times, us kids have been safe to express our opinion and put a stop to what’s going on at any time.
“Cooperation is the thorough conviction that nobody can get there unless everybody gets there.” — Virginia Burden
My mother understands the profound impact her choices have on our life, and has proceeded kindly, respectfully, and carefully as a result.
Now, the man she’s marrying is one that we’re happy to welcome into our family and call ours because we’ve been able to (and are still able to) wade through the difficult emotions together.
#2: Future stepparents make their intentions clear
In Brad Paisley’s song He Didn’t Have to Be, he describes how when his now stepfather asked his mother out on a date, for the first time, he got to go too.
While I don’t think future stepchildren or the children from previous partnerships need to attend any and all dates, it’s a sweet picture of what a blended family should look like.
Good future step-parents acknowledge that they’re coming to an already established life as a stranger — and do their best to wade through that slowly and at a pace the kids in their new life can grapple with. They’re playing the long game, and are willign to slow things down to make sure everyone’s okay.
“Stepfamilies are an especially common family form with distinct needs and experiences, and stepparent-child relationships can take on a variety of functions with implications for family stability and individual well-being.” — Todd M. Jensen in the Journal of Family Nursing
I’ve often heard it said that the best way for a man to love his kids (or his future step kids, in this scenario) is to love their mother. I think the same applies no matter what gender of parents we’re talking about.
I’m able to accept my future stepfather because I have come to a point of trusting him to take care of my mom.
Because I understand and trust his intentions, and because we’ve been updated on the marriage conversation for their entire relationship, we were ready to take him on when he proposed.
#3: They take advantage of extra adults
Healthy stepfamilies take advantage of the fact that the kids in the family (however widely that family extends) have numerous influences and positive role models to turn to.
They have potentially both biological parents, a stepparent, maybe another stepparent married to the other biological parent, siblings, future in-laws that will marry their siblings, family friends that feel like family, and more.
“The bond that links your true family is not one of blood, but of respect and joy in each other.” — Richard Bach
Successful stepfamilies are willing to accept the beauty and goodness of that situation, rather than categorizing it as wrong or complicated, although sometimes it feels like both.
#4: They intentionally create shared history
The biggest difficulty in a stepfamily is that the new stepparent and potential stepsiblings are complete strangers to the family in the home they’re moving into. The Dennis Quaid movie Yours, Mine, and Ours comes to mine. In this hysterical remake of an older film with the same storyline, a man with eight kids and a woman with ten kids get married.
(When I first watched this movie with my boyfriend, the first words out of his mouth while the opening credits rolled were “they’re going to fall in love, aren’t they?”
“Stepfamilies are also unique in that the parent-child relationships predates the romantic partnership, meaning that the parent-child dyad has more shared history. (Papernow, 1987)” — Family Relations: Effective parenting in stepfamilies: Empirical evidence of what works
They certainly do fall in love — and then face the tremendous difficulty of merging their two families together in a giant lighthouse on the coast. It’s quickly apparent that the fact that none of them know each other, or their new stepparent, is going to cause some issues.
It’s not until the end of the film, when the kids bond over their efforts to split their parents up, that they realize they’ve become a family and don’t want to separate like they originally wished. The shared history, teamwork, and effort is what brings them together, forging something new out of their former lives apart from one another.
#5: Biological parents maintain close relationships with bio kids
One of the biggest predictors of what researchers call “youth flourishing” in a stepfamily situation is the closeness they have to their biological parent.
(While I didn’t find research to directly demonstrate this, I imagine the same could be said of adopted children who are close with the adoptive parent they’ve known longer than the stepparent.)
Closeness with their parent they’ve known their whole life serves as a beautiful protective factor for kids going through a blended family transition.
“If the family were a boat, it would be a canoe that makes no progress unless everyone paddles.” –Letty Cottin Pogrebin
This close relationship makes a new person (or new people) in the house a little less scary, and makes the transition more seamless, comfortable, and exciting because of the safe relationship they have with their resident parent.
This close relationship, I imagine, also makes it easier for them to be happy for their parent — seeing how happy the new partner makes their parent feel, causing them to want to open up to the possibility of something new as well.
“…once parents remarry, they often decrease or maintain low levels of contact with their children. Fathers appear to be the worst perpetrators: On average, dads drop their visits to their children by half within the first year of remarriage. The less a parent visits, the more a child is likely to feel abandoned. Parents should reconnect by developing special activities that involve only the children and parent.” — American Psychological Association
#6: Loyalty binds are avoided
In healthy and strong stepfamilies, stepparents aren’t seen as replacements — whether that be for a parent who has passed away, an absent parent, or one that simply isn’t married to their other biological parent for whatever reason.
Stepparents, rather, are seen as their own person with their own role, personality, and additions to the family.
In healthy stepfamilies, stepparents enter the family as their own person, making it easier for children to see them as a unique individual rather than someone they have to choose between, comparing the stepparent and their biological parent of the same gender.
“Golish (2003) identified continual contact with nonresidential biological parents as one of the characteristics that distinguished strong stepfamilies from stepfamilies having difficulties — 71% of strong stepfamilies reported that children had frequent contact with non residential parents, compared to 44% of stepfamilies experiencing more problems.” — Family Relations: Effective parenting in stepfamilies: Empirical evidence of what works
In healthy stepfamilies, formerly single parents also acknowledge that while they want the health and happiness of their kids, they can be happy too. With this hopeful perspective in mind, they’re able to see their own happiness and their family’s growth as a result of their remarriage.
Healthy stepfamilies do all that they need to do to avoid “taking sides”, making anyone feel like less apart of the family, and acknowledge the difficult emotions that come from bringing families together into a stepfamily.
Stepfamilies can and should be a beautiful thing.
It’s incredible when a family is able to open itself up to more members and grow in love and size all at once as a result of two people falling in love.
“We aren’t step, we aren’t half, we’re just family.” — A cute meme I saw on the internet
With a little bit of intention, respect for all parties involved, and some pushing through the awkward moments, these families can thrive — and exceed expectations on all fronts.
I hope these recommendations have been helpful and that you feel a little more inspired today to pull your family close — and grow it some more if you need to, whatever that looks like for you.
