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Rethinking the ties that bind: Adult children's perceptions of step, ex -step, and biological parents
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Rethinking the ties that bind: Adult children's perceptions of step, ex -step, and biological parents
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RETHINKING THE TIES THAT BEND:
ADULT CHILDREN’S PERCEPTIONS
OF STEP. EX-STEP, AND BIOLOGICAL PARENTS
by
Maria Schmeeckle
A Dissertation Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
in Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
(SOCIOLOGY)
December 2001
Copyright 2001 Maria Schmeeckle
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UMI Number 3065846
Copyright 2001 by
Schmeeckle. Maria
A ll rights reserved.
_ ___ _ ( ft
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UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
T he G raduate School
U n iv ersity Park
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA 90089-1695
T his d isse rta tio n , w ritte n b y
_______Maria Schmeeckle___________________
U nder th e d ire c tio n o f Asjl.. D isserta tio n
C om m ittee, a n d a p p ro v ed b y a il its m em bers,
h as been p re se n te d to a n d a ccep ted b y The
G radu ate S ch ool, in p a r tia l fu lfillm e n t o f
req u irem en ts fo r th e d eg ree o f
D O CTO R O F PH ILOSOPH Y
___________
Dam o f Graduate Studies
DaCe Decemfcei;. IZ>-2Q Q 1
DISSER TA T iO N COM M ITTEE
Chairperson
V n I
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Maria Schmeeckle Vem L. Bengtson, Pb.D.
Roseann Giarrusso, Ph.D.
ABSTRACT
RETHINKING THE TIES THAT BIND:
ADULT CHILDREN’S PERCEPTIONS OF STEP, EX-STEP,
AND BIOLOGICAL PARENTS
This study explored the extent to which stepparents, ex-stepparents, and
biological parents were perceived as family members and parents to adult children,
and how social, legal, and biological ties helped to explain these perceptions.
I examined 1997 survey data from 1,600 adult children (ages 16 to 70), using
the USC Longitudinal Study of Generations, and interviews with a sub-sample.
The survey results showed that significant predictors of adult children’s
perceptions of stepparents (including ex-stepparents) as family members/parents
included longer co-residence, the stepparent remaining in a relationship with the
biological parent, the stepparent being legally married to the biological parent, and the
adult child having strong general feelings of family obligation. Significant predictors
of perceiving biological parents as family members/parents included longer co-
residence, biological parents staying married or divorcing later in the child’s life, and
the parent being female.
The 15 interviews focused on adult children’s relationships with current legal
stepparents, acquired in childhood after biological parents’ divorces but varying
widely in the degree to which stepparents were perceived as family members and
1
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parents. Emergent themes revealed social dynamics within stepfamilies. Family
boundaries between adult children and stepparents were sometimes permeable, and
sometimes rigid due to the resistance of either party. Some interviewees modeled their
own parenting behavior on their stepparents, or valued their stepparents’ efforts to be
full grandparents to their children. Relationships with stepparents usually became
warmer over time. Stepmothers often took the lead over biological fathers in nurturing
their stepchildren, and in “kinkeeping” behaviors-facilitating contact and inclusion
between family members.
The results revealed diverse perceptions of family membership, and the
importance of different kinds of ties-social, legal, biological-to family perceptions.
Biological ties without social ties were not enough to insure full family membership.
Strong social ties without legal and biological ties were sometimes enough to maintain
family connections. The findings challenge notions of family boundaries that are neat
and tidy, and bounded only by blood and law. They underscore the historically
changing, matrilateral-biased, voluntary, structurally complex and flexible nature of
kinship today.
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DEDICATION
For my Comiskey family members, who inspired this work, and for anyone
who has ever wondered what family they belonged to.
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Many individuals and organizations have helped me along the long road to
completing this dissertation. I’d like to begin by thanking the 1600+ survey
participants and the 15 interview participants from the USC Longitudinal Study of
Generations who gave so generously of their time to make this research possible.
I am especially grateful to my dissertation committee for their support and
direction. Dr. Roseann Giarrusso provided invaluable insights from the very
beginning, and her dedicated feedback all along the way kept me moving forward.
Her early suggestion to expand my analysis of adult children’s perceptions of
stepparents to include biological parents as well added great value to my eventual
findings. Dr. Vem Bengtson always encouraged me, while exposing me to great ideas
and pushing me to articulate the relevance of my work. He also facilitated my
connection with funding sources throughout my entire time as a graduate student. Dr.
Judith Stacey shaped my thinking initially through her writings, and then as a
committee member when she came to USC. Her savvy approach and guidance
regarding the qualitative aspects of my research have been enormously influential. Dr.
Merril Silverstein provided methodological and conceptual insights, and was a
calming influence when statistical issues became complex.
I was lucky to find a supportive haven in the USC Longitudinal Study of
Generations during my eight years as a graduate student. In addition to providing
employment and research opportunities, this project and its staff gave me collegiality,
iii
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professional socialization, and dear friendships. I’ve already mentioned three
members of this incredible team— Dr. Roseann Giarrusso, Dr. Vem Bengtson, and Dr.
Merril Silverstein. In addition, I especially want to thank Linda Hall, Danielle Zucker,
Debbie Weisberg, Elisabeth Burgess, Tonya Parrott, Karen Chicca Enyedy, Betty
Oswald, Norella Putney, Terry Mills, Tara Rose, Mar Preston, Jo Raksin. Susannah
Rousculp, Carlos Royal, Beth Mabry, Haitao Wang, and Stephanie Nawyn for making
my experience so positive.
Several classmates not mentioned above helped to enrich my life and my
exploration of sociology. My closest classmate, Cynthia Cranford, was a huge source
of support and inspiration. I also want to thank Shari Dworkin, Susan Harris, Greg
Stanczak, and Emi Avila for their valuable friendship and sociological insights.
This is a dissertation about family relationships, and I would be remiss if I did
not emphasize the impact of the large network of individuals that I consider to be my
“family.” This includes the Schmeeckles, Comiskeys, and Drakes, and extends out
from there. This loosely connected network of people come together in my heart and
have helped me to appreciate the preciousness and complexity of family connection
across time, space, separation, conflict, and ambiguity.
My godmother Pheme Perkins and her husband Ed Stevens provided support
and encouragement all along the way. Professors themselves, their advice, belief in
my potential and financial help meant a great deal to me.
iv
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Other close friends have encouraged me and given me feedback during my
graduate school days. These are Scott Miller, Renee Alexander, Eileen Mears. Amy
Hamilton-Kratzer, Jim Fritz, Peggy Firth, Gale Heilman, and Jerry Frank. I thank
each of them for their faith in me and for letting me bounce ideas around with them.
I’d also like to thank an international group of sociology Ph.D. students who
helped me to move forward in my work. Fellow participants at the International
Sociological Association Methodology Research Laboratory for Ph.D. students, held
in Onati. Spain last year, provided helpful suggestions and fresh outlooks during my
final year of analysis.
I’d like to thank the members of the Sociology and Anthropology Department
at Illinois State University, especially Dr. Susan Sprecher and Dr. Nick Maroules.
Looking forward to a faculty position in this wonderful and inviting department
spurred me on and gave me an incentive to finish my dissertation in a timely fashion.
Last, but not least. I’d like to thank the groups that funded me and my research
throughout graduate school. These include the National Institute on Aging (Grants
#R01AG07977 and #T32-AG00037), the Henry A. Murray Research Center of the
Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University, and the Haynes
Foundation.
v
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page
Dedication .........................................................................................................................ii
Acknowledgments.......................................................................................................... iii
List of Tables and Figures.......................................................................................... viii
Abstract ..........................................................................................................................xvi
Chapter I. Introduction and Background to the Research .......................................... I
Introduction........................................................................................................ I
Background ........................................................................................................ 3
Demographic T rends................................................................................3
The Social Construction of Family .........................................................6
Historical Change and the Social Construction of Family......................9
The Life Course Perspective ............................................................... 12
Findings and Gaps in Four Areas of Research.................................... 13
Gerontological Research on Families over the Life Course . 13
Stepfamily Research ............................................................... 16
Research on Gender and Family Relations ..............................21
The Social Construction of Biological Kinship........................22
Hypotheses...........................................................................................................24
Hypotheses-Stepparents ........................................................................24
Hypotheses-Ex-stepparents................................................................... 26
Hypotheses-Biologicai Parents............................................................. 26
Organization of the Dissertation ........................................................................28
Chapter 2. Quantitative Survey Methods ..................................................................... 29
Sample Description............................................................................................ 29
Analysis P la n .......................................................................................................32
Measures .............................................................................................................33
Chapter 3. Descriptive Statistics and Bivariate R esults...............................................38
Variables that reflect Social T ie s....................................................................... 44
Variables that reflect Legal Ties between the Parents...................................... 56
Variables based on Contextual F actors............................................................. 67
Control Variables................................................................................................ 80
VI
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Chapter 4. Multivariate Results ....................................................................................88
Conceptual Models and Rationale for Hierarchical Regression ......................88
Stepparent Analysis and R esults........................................................... 89
Biological Parent Results....................................................................... 99
Chapter5. Qualitative Interview M ethods............................................................... 106
A Bird’s Eye View of the Sample of Stepparents........................................ 106
Interview Sample Design and Substitution Procedures................................ 107
Interview Procedures and Q uestions............................................................. 112
Analysis Procedures........................................................................................ 113
Chapter 6. Qualitative Results .................................................................................. 115
Family Inclusiveness across Stepfamily Boundaries.................................... 115
Cultures of Inclusiveness................................................................... 115
Stepchildren’s Rejection/Resistance to Inclusive Patterns............. 119
Parent/Stepparent Conditional Inclusion.......................................... 121
Life Course Dynamics.................................................................................... 124
Factors Related to Being in a Childbearing/Child rearing Stage
In One’s L ife ................................................................................. 124
The Duration of Relationships........................................................... 128
Gender Patterns in These Stepfamilies ......................................................... 130
Traditional Gender R oles................................................................... 130
Stepmothers as Kinkeepers.................................................................. 132
Renegotiation of Relationships with Biological Fathers................. 137
Co-Residence and Stepparent Investment........................................ 140
The Child as a Symbol of Power between Spouses.......................... 145
Flexible and Voluntary Kinship..................................................................... 146
Situational Inclusion ......................................................................... 147
Conditionality/Durability......................................................................149
Chapter 7. Summary and Discussion ....................................................................... 155
Summary ........................................................................................................ 155
Discussion ...................................................................................................... 158
How do these Findings Inform our Understanding of Families? . . . 162
Policy Implications ........................................................................... 164
Why are these Findings Important?................................................... 167
Study Limitations............................................................................... 168
Major Finding and Uniqueness of this Study .................................. 169
Bibliography ............................................................................................................... 171
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LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES
Tables
Page
Table I. Hypotheses that apply to adult children’s perceptions of their
relationships with Stepparents....................................................................... 25
Table 2. Hypotheses that apply to adult children’s perceptions of their
relationships with Biological parents.............................................................27
Table 3. Characteristics of Analytical Variables pertaining to Adult Children
and their Stepparents (including Ex-Stepparents) (N = 771)........................39
Table 4. Characteristics of Analytical Variables pertaining to Adult Children
and their Biological Parents (N = 2732) .................................................... 40
Table 5. Percent, By Age Group, of Timing when Stepparents were Acquired . . . 44
Table 6. Percent, in Year Categories, of Duration of Relationships with
Stepparents......................................................................................................47
Table 7. Percent, in Year Categories, of Co-residence with Various Parent
G roups............................................................................................................ 49
Table 8. Response Rates by Sex for Youngest 3 Generations, in 1997 ................... 54
Table 9. Percent of Stepparent Groups that Cohabited versus Married the
Respondent’s P arent..................................................................................... 56
Table 10. Percent of All Stepparents Combined who fit into Current or
Ex-Stepparent Categories............................................................................. 59
Table 11. Percent of Biological Parents who fit various divorce contexts................. 61
Table 12. Mean Age of Survey Participants, by Generation ...................................... 67
Table 13. Percent of Respondents reporting Stepparents (including
ex-stepparents, by Generation....................................................................... 67
Table 14. Percent of Respondents in each level of Normative Solidarity,
by Parent Group ............................................................................................70
Table i 5. Respondents’ General Attitudes toward Step-relatives ..............................73
viii
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LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES
Tables (continued)
Page
Table 16. Percent of Stepparent Groups that were preceded by a parent’s
widowhood or divorce ..................................................................................78
Table 17. Percent of Respondents in Household Income Categories,
by Parent Group ............................................................................................ 80
Table 18. Percent of Parent Groups that are Deceased................................................82
Table 19. Standardized Multiple Regression Coefficients Predicting
the Extent that Stepparents are Considered “FAMILY”
(includes ex-stepparents)................................................................................92
Table 20. Standardized Multiple Regression Coefficients Predicting
the Extent that Stepparents are Considered a “PARENT’
(includes ex-stepparents)................................................................................95
Table 21. Support for Hypotheses that apply to adult children’s
perceptions of their relationships with Stepparents (including
Ex-Stepparents! from the Multivariate Regression Results............... 98-99
Table 22. Standardized Multiple Regression Coefficients Predicting
the Extent .................................................................................................. 102
Table 23. Support for Hypotheses that apply to adult children’s
perceptions of their relationships with Biological parents,
from Multivariate Regression Results .................................................... 106
Table 24. Frequency Distribution of how All Stepparents (including
Ex-Stepparents) were perceived, on Family and Parent
Dimensions................................................................................................ 107
Table 25. Frequency Distribution of how Current, Legally Married,
Living Stepparents, acquired in Childhood after a Parent’s
Divorce, were perceived, on Family and Parent Dimensions,
with interview selection groups highlighted............................................ 108
Table 26. Interview Sample D esign......................................................................... 110
Table 27. Interview Questions ......................................................................... 112-113
ix
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LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES
Tables (continued) Page
Table 28. Types of Ties that Apply to Biological, Step-, and Ex-Stepparents .... 159
Figures
Figure I. Overall Frequencies, Extent to Which Various Parent Groups
Are Considered “FAMILY” ......................................................................... 41
Figure 2. Overall Frequencies, Extent to Which Various Parent Groups
Are Considered “PARENTS” ..................................................................... 41
Figure 3. Overall Means, Extent to Which Various Parent Groups Are
Considered “FAMILY” ............................................................................... 43
Figure 4. Overall Means. Extent to Which Various Parent Groups Are
Considered “PARENTS” ............................................................................. 43
Figure 5. Comparison of Means, Extent to Which Stepparents and
Ex-Stepparents are considered “FAMILY” .................................................45
Figure 6. Comparison of Means, Extent to Which Stepparents and
Ex-Stepparents Are Considered a “PARENT,” by Timing
of Stepparent Acquisition ........................................................................... 46
Figure 7. Comparison of Means, Extent to Which Stepparents and
Ex-Stepparents are Considered “FAMILY,” by Duration
of Relationship..............................................................................................48
Figure 8. Comparison of Means, Extent to Which Stepparents and
Ex-Stepparents are Considered a “PARENT,” by Duration
of Relationship..............................................................................................49
Figure 9. Comparison of Means, Extent to Which Various Parent
Groups are Considered “FAMILY,” by Length of Co-Residence 51
Figure 10. Comparison of Means, Extent to Which Various Parent
Groups are Considered a “PARENT,” by Length of Co-Residence 52
x
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LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES
Figures (continued)
Page
Figure 11. Comparison of Means, Extent to Which Various Parent
Groups are Considered “FAMILY,” by Sex of Stepparent
or Biological Parent ................................................................................... 53
Figure 12. Comparison of Means, Extent to Which Various Parent
Groups are Considered a “PARENT,” by Sex of Stepparent
or Biological Parent ....................................................................................54
Figure 13. Comparison of Means, Extent to which Stepparents and
Ex-Stepparents are Considered “FAMILY,” by Sex of
Respondent..................................................................................................55
Figure 14. Comparison of Means, Extent to which Stepparents and
Ex-Stepparents are Considered a "PARENT,” by Sex of
Respondent..................................................................................................56
Figure 15. Comparison of Means, Extent to which Stepparents and
Ex-Stepparents are Considered “FAMILY,” by Marital
Status History between Parent and Stepparent.......................................... 57
Figure 16. Comparison of Means, Extent to which Stepparents and
Ex-Stepparents are Considered a “PARENT,” by Marital
Status History between Parent and Stepparent.......................................... 57
Figure 17. Comparison of Means, Extent to which Stepparents and
Ex-Stepparents are Considered “FAMILY,” Comparing
Those Whose Stepparents Stayed with the Parent with Those
Stepparents Divorced/separated from the Parent ......................................60
Figure 18. Comparison of Means, Extent to which Stepparents and
Ex-Stepparents are Considered a “PARENT,” Comparing
Those Whose Stepparents Stayed with the Parent with Those
Stepparents Divorced/separated from the Parent ...................................... 60
Figure 19. Comparison of Means, Extent to which Biological Parents
are Considered “Family,” Comparing the Divorced with
Those Who Did Not Divorce .....................................................................63
xi
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LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES
Figures (continued)
Page
Figure 20. Comparison of Means, Extent to Which Biological Parents
are Considered a “PARENT,” Comparing the Divorced with
Those Who Did Not Divorce ..................................................................... 63
Figure 21. Comparison of Means, Extent to Which Biological Parents Are
Considered “FAMILY,” Comparing Those Who Divorced by
The Time the Respondent Was 10 to Those of All Other Ever-married
Biological Parents........................................................................................64
Figure 22. Comparison of Means, Extent to which Biological Parents
are Considered a “PARENT,” Comparing Those who
divorced by the time the respondent was 10 to those of all
other ever-married biological parents.........................................................64
Figure 23. Comparison of Means. Extent to which Biological Parents
are Considered “FAMILY,” Comparing Those Who
Divorced When the Respondent Was Between the Ages of
11 and 17 with Ail Other Ever-married Biological P arents..................... 65
Figure 24. Comparison of Means, Extent to which Biological Parents
are Considered a “PARENT,” Comparing Those Who
Divorced When the Respondent Was Between the Ages of
11 and 17 with AH Other Ever-married Biological P arents......................65
Figure 25. Comparison of Means, Extent to which Biological Parents
are Considered “FAMILY,” Comparing Those Who
Divorced When the Respondent Was an Adult (over 18)
with All Other Ever-married Biological Parents........................................ 66
Figure 26. Comparison of Means, Extent to which Biological Parents
are Considered a “PARENT,” Comparing Those Who
Divorced When the Respondent Was an Adult (over 18)
with AH Other Ever-married Biological Parents........................................ 66
Figure 27. Comparison of Means, Extent to Which Stepparents and
Ex-Stepparents are Considered “FAMILY,” by Generation..................... 69
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LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES
Figures (continued)
Page
Figure 28. Comparison of Means, Extent to Which Stepparents and
Ex-Stepparents are Considered a “PARENT,” by Generation................. 69
Figure 29. Comparison of Means, Extent to which various parent groups
are considered “FAMILY,” by Respondents’ Levels of Normative
Solidarity......................................................................................................71
Figure 30. Comparison of Means, Extent to which various parent groups
are considered a “PARENT,” by Respondents’ Levels of Normative
Solidarity................................................................................................... 72
Figure 3 1. Comparison of Means, Extent to Which Stepparents and
Ex-stepparents Are considered “FAMILY,” by Level of
Agreement to the Attitude: “When a Parent Remarries,
Children out to Do All They Can to Welcome Step-relatives
Into the Family.” ....................................................................................... 75
Figure 32. Comparison of Means, Extent to Which Stepparents and
Ex-stepparents Are considered a “PARENT,” by Level of
Agreement to the Attitude: “When a Parent Remarries,
Children out to Do All They Can to Welcome Step-relatives
Into the Family.” ..........................................................................................75
Figure 33. Comparison of Means. Extent to Which Stepparents and
Ex-stepparents Are considered “FAMILY.” by Respondent’s
Level of Agreement to the Attitude: “It Is Important to
Promote Feelings of Kinship Between Step-relatives.” ............................76
Figure 34. Comparison of Means, Extent to Which Stepparents and
Ex-stepparents Are considered a “PARENT,” by Respondent’s
Level of Agreement to the Attitude: “It is Important to
Promote Feelings of Kinship Between Step-relatives.” ............................76
Figure 35. Comparison of Means, Extent to Which Stepparents and
Ex-stepparents Are considered “FAMILY,” by Respondent’s
Level of Agreement to the Attitude: “Step-Relatives are not
the Same as ’real’ family; they can never be as close as biological
relatives.” ....................................................................................................77
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LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES
Figures (continued)
Page
Figure 36. Comparison of Means, Extent to Which Stepparents and
Ex-stepparents Are considered a “PARENT,” by Respondent’s
Level of Agreement to the Attitude: “Step-Relatives are not
the Same as ‘real’ family; they can never be as close as biological
relatives.” .................................................................................................... 77
Figure 37. Comparison of Means, Extent to Which Stepparents and
Ex-stepparents Are considered “FAMILY,” by whether
stepparent entry was preceded by a parent’s divorce or
widowhood................................................................................................ 79
Figure 38. Comparison of Means, Extent to Which Stepparents and
Ex-stepparents Are considered a “PARENT,” by Whether
Stepparent Entry Was Preceded by a Parent’s Divorce or
Widowhood.................................................................................................. 79
Figure 39. Comparison of Means, Extent to Which Various Types of
Parents are Considered “FAMILY,” by Household Income
of the Respondent........................................................................................81
Figure 40. Comparison of Means, Extent to Which Various Types of
Parents are Considered a “PARENT,” by Household Income
of the Respondent........................................................................................82
Figure 41. Comparison of Means, Extent to Which Various Types of
Parents are Considered “FAMILY,” by Living Status of the
Stepparent or P a ren t....................................................................................83
Figure 42. Comparison of Means, Extent to Which Various Types of
Parents are Considered a “PARENT,” by Living Status of the
Stepparent or P a re n t....................................................................................84
Figure 43. Comparison of Means: Extent to Which Biological Parents
are Considered “FAMILY,” by Generation...............................................85
Figure 44. Comparison of Means, Extent to Which Biological Parents
are Considered a “PARENT,” by Generation............................................ 85
xiv
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LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES
Figures (continued)
Page
Figure 45. Comparison of Means, Extent to Which Biological Parents
are Considered “FAMILY,” by Sex of Respondent..................................86
Figure 46. Comparison of Means, Extent to Which Biological Parents
are Considered a "PARENT.” by Sex of Respondent ..............................86
xv
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CHAPTER 1
INTRODUCTION AND BACKGROUND TO THE RESEARCH
Introduction
In the living room of her southern California apartment, twenty-something
Caroline displays photos of her family. Within the same multi-picture photo frame,
she’s got a picture of her biological parents on their wedding day, one of her father,
stepmother, half-sister and herself, and one of her mother’s wedding with current
husband, Jon (who her mother married after cohabiting for several years). Not
pictured are any photos of Caroline’s first stepfather, Dan, and his three sons, her
former stepbrothers. Caroline reports that although her mother’s marriage to Dan
lasted only a couple of years, Dan’s sons continue to stay in touch with her mother
now that they’re grown. Caroline intends to stay in touch with her stepmother, who
may soon be getting divorced from her father after 21 years of marriage.
This description of one of my interview participants illustrates some of the
structurally complicated family relationships that have become common with
American trends in divorce, remarriage, and cohabitation. Individuals have varied
perceptions of family boundaries when considering those related by biology, law,
and/or cohabitation. There are not clear norms around some of these
relationships-step-relatives, ex-step-relatives, and cohabiting partners of relatives.
Empirical research on subjective perceptions of kinship is underdeveloped, especially
with regard to family relationships across the life course.
I
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In this study, I spotlight the diverse relationships adult children have with
stepparents (including heterosexual cohabiting partners of parents), ex-stepparents,
and biological parents. There are other types of relationships with “parents” that
would be interesting to explore, but are beyond the scope of this study. Examples of
these are relationships with in-laws, adoptive parents, gay/lesbian co-parents, and
foster parents. My intent is not to debate whether one family form is better, stronger,
or healthier than others. It is well documented that many family forms exist, and that
family life in America is characterized by structural pluralism. In this project,
pluralism is taken as a given.
Two broad research questions shape my study, as follows:
1. To what extent are stepparents, ex-stepparents, and biological parents
perceived as family members and/or parents to adult children?
2. Taking contextual factors into account, how do social, legal, and biological
ties help to explain these perceptions?
I explore these questions using survey and interview data from the USC
Longitudinal Study of Generations. Survey data was collected at USC in 1997/1998.
Questionnaires were sent to three generations of (mostly white, mostly Southern
Californian) adult children who were part of this ongoing longitudinal study. In 1998
and 1999,1 conducted interviews with a sub-sample of participants who returned
questionnaires. In those interviews, I explored adult children’s relationships with
stepparents and biological parents in much more detail than was possible in the
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surveys. With, this brief introduction, I now turn to the background literature that
informs this work.
Background
Demographic Trends
In recent decades, American society has seen a decrease in the proportion of
marriages that result in lifelong relationships. People are more likely to marry later,
have fewer children, have children outside of marriage, cohabit outside of marriage,
divorce, belong to step- and blended families, live in non-family households, and are
less likely to remarry after divorce than they were a few decades ago (Stacey, 1996;
Tucker & Mitchell-Keman, 1995). These trends are generally evident throughout the
Western World, despite some variations across different racial and social class groups,
and different age groups (Stacey, 1996; Tucker & Mitchell-Keman, 1995).
Remarriage was common in 17th and 18th century America because death of a
spouse at a relatively young age was common. These days, remarriage is common
primarily because of divorce. Due to increases in divorce since I960, by 1980 about
90% of all persons who remarried had been previously divorced (Ihinger-Tallman &
Pasley, 1987). One in two marriages in the U.S. is now expected to end in divorce
(Cherlin, 1992).
Cohabitation has become much more common in the U.S., and has increased
dramatically since the 1970s (Bumpass, Sweet, & Cherlin, 1991; Fields, 2001).
Among the formerly married, declining rates o f remarriage are more than offset when
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those who are cohabiting rather than remarrying are factored in (Cherlin &
Furstenberg, 1994). In addition, some individuals cohabit as a precursor to marriage.
Compared to 8% of heterosexual couples cohabiting before marriage in the 1960s,
49% of couples cohabited before marriage in the 1980s (Bumpass, 1990). Researchers
indicate that about 90 percent of cohabiting relationships at any age result in marriage
or break up within five years (Cherlin, 1992). For the remaining 10%, long term
cohabitation may be due to ideological beliefs, financial necessity, or legal inability to
marry due to laws against same-sex marriages.
Following divorce or separation, mothers make up the vast majority o f physical
custodians of minor-age children. Data show that most children whose parents have
divorced see little of their fathers. This situation is even more dramatic for children
whose parents have never married (Seltzer, 1991). Since physical custody o f children
following parental divorce or separation is so skewed toward mothers, it follows that
when parents remarry or cohabit with someone new, co-residential stepparenting is
also skewed. 86% of minor-age stepchildren live predominantly with their mothers
and stepfathers. Stepmothers of minor age children, on the other hand, are primarily
non-residential stepparents (Mason, 1998).
These trends have led to the creation of a variety of stepfamily relationships.
One can acquire a legal stepparent in the following three ways: First, a parent can
remarry after becoming divorced- Second, a parent can remarry after becoming
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widowed. Third, a parent can marry who has not been previously married (Beer,
1992).
Some stepfamily researchers consider unmarried cohabiting partners of parents
to be stepparents, and include them with legally married stepparents in their analyses
(Marsiglio, 1992). A significant minority (25%) of children bom out of wedlock are
bom into two-parent (cohabiting) unmarried families, and almost half of cohabiting
couples live with children (Bumpass, 1990).
Estimates of stepfamily trends predicted that over half of young persons would
become stepchildren by the year 2000 (Glick, 1989). This estimate didn’t even
include the many children whose parents remarry or cohabit after the children are
grown. When we also take into account the dramatic increase in shared years of life
between parents and children that has occurred across the 20th century (Watkins.
Menken & Bongaarts, 1987), it becomes even more clear that a significant proportion
of children of all ages do and will experience themselves as “some sort” of stepchild.
With the above trends and resulting diversity of family forms, it has become
important to grapple with social and legal definitions of “family.” Societal definitions
of family have enormous implications-for insurance coverage eligibility, tax bracket
status, pension levels and distribution, child custody decisions, parental interactions
with schools, college financial aid awards, probate outcomes, discharge from treatment
centers, decisions about medical intervention, immigration options, human service
provisions, and interpersonal perceptions.
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The Social Construction o f Family
A number of scholars have applied social constructionist concepts to
understanding family life. Gubrium and Holstein (1990) use a social constructionist
approach in their book What is Family? Rather than focusing on legal or biological
definitions, they examine ordinary ways of thinking and talking about family, and how
these emerge out of interaction.
A similar approach is taken by Cheal (1991) in his book, Family and the State
of Theory. Rather than considering "the family” to be a reality that is taken for
granted, he suggests displacement of that notion. In its place, he suggests focusing on
ways in which lay people use the idea of “family” to describe their enduring intimate
relations.
A singular definition of family is actually quite difficult to come by. Gillis
(1996) points out that our culture privileges the blood tie as the “primary symbol of
permanence and connection” (p. 177). Official agencies such as the census define
“family” as being “made up of two or more people living together who are related by
blood, marriage, or adoption, one of whom is the householder” (Bryson & Casper,
1997). This is problematic in that it excludes many who would consider themselves
“family” (like cohabiting couples with children, or biological parents and children who
don’t live together) and includes some that may not consider themselves “family” (like
some stepparents and stepchildren).
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Family sociologist David Popenoe attempts to define family as “a relatively
small domestic group of kin (or people in a kin-like relationship) consisting of at least
one adult and one dependent person” (1993, p. 529). This offers some improvement
from the census definition, since it doesn’t require the members to be related by blood,
marriage, or adoption. On the other hand, it excludes non-residential parents and
children, like married couples with adult children (unless of course, you assume that
one of the spouses is “dependent”).
Stacey (1993) critiques Popenoe for viewing the family as a singular, empirical
institution, amenable to a structural-functionalist definition. She argues that “the
family” is not a social institution, but an ideological, symbolic construct that has a
history and a politics. “Family” is a locus not of residence but of meaning and
relationships (Stacey, 1991). Stacey (1991) uses the term “postmodern family” to
refer to the contested, ambivalent, and undecided nature of contemporary gender and
kinship arrangements. She describes contemporary family arrangements as being
“diverse, fluid and unresolved” (Stacey, 1991).
Bourdieu (1996) argues that “family” is an idea that is socially constructed,
and that the state is a major agent in its official social construction. Through
codification, economic and social effects, the state favors certain kinds of family
organization, and strengthens those who conform to such organization. We can see
these constructions at work in local, regional and country levels of government. To
make this point further, I offer a few illustrative examples.
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In the California city of Sierra Madre four years ago, city council members
sparked controversy by limiting the meaning of “family” in the zoning codes to only
those related by blood, marriage or adoption (Hong, 1997). Many citizens reacted
strongly to the ordinance, despite the fact that this particular zoning code would not
have an effect on anyone’s living arrangements.
At the state level, the Supreme Court of California privileged marriage over
biology in a 1998 parental rights case. The case involved a man who fathered a child
with a woman who was married to someone else. The man was denied all parental
rights, since state law presumes a husband to be the father of his wife's children
(Dolan, 1998).
The social construction of family is also evident when comparisons are made
between policies of different countries. In Canada, the legal definition of “family” has
evolved beyond one centered on heterosexual marriage and biologically related
children to one that emphasizes pluralism and functionality. Stepparents and those
considered to be “psychological parents” have gained legal ground in recent years.
Same-sex partners, unmarried heterosexual cohabitors and unwed fathers are
increasingly recognized legally in Canada (Bala, 1994). In England, the Children Act
of 1989 allows stepparents who are married to biological parents for at least 2 years to
apply for a “residence order” for their stepchildren. This allows for three adults to
claim parental responsibility, and does not eliminate the non-custodial parent’s
responsibilities toward that child (Mason, 1998). In contrast with Canada and
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England, U.S. stepparents have few if any legal obligations toward stepchildren, and
virtually no rights of custody or visitation following the divorce or death of a spouse
(Mason, 1998).
I have approached this study in the same spirit as the social constructionist
scholars discussed above-Gubrium, Holstein. Cheal, Stacey, Bourdieu. I have
examined, with survey and interview data, how people assign terms such as “family”
and “parent.” I have viewed these concepts along a continuum, with gray area in the
middle, rather than in either/or, black and white terms. I have explored what patterns
emerge out of the everyday lived realities of people.
In the following pages, I show how scholars have examined and illuminated
various aspects of the social construction of family life. Their findings provide the
basis for my hypotheses, which will be presented altogether at the end of the chapter.
Historical Change and the Social Construction of Family
Historical information about families shows how economic and political
transformations are linked to family forms and ideas about family. “It seems that the
fragmentation, instability and discontinuity that we feel so keenly today has been part
of the European experience of family life since at least the Middle Ages.” So declares
historian John Gillis (1996, p. 7) in his book, A World of Their Own Making: Mvth.
Ritual and the Quest for Family Values. Gillis’ research reveals that in previous
centuries, giving both birth and nurture to children was impossible for many due to
high rates of fertility, maternal mortality, and economic uncertainty. As a result, it
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was common to entrust children to strangers, wet-nurse someone else’s child, and
informally adopt a relative’s child. Parenthood and childhood were socially defined
statuses, rather than biologically defined ones. Common-law marriage and folk
customs of divorce were also common in Europe, as late as the 19th century.
Notions of parenthood can also be linked to historic changes in economic
patterns. With regard to fathering, the societal norm in 17th and IS"1 century Europe
and America was for men to take their fatherly duties very seriously. Fathers were
emotionally close to and heavily involved in the upbringing of their children. The
Industrial Revolution changed the nature of work for most people, and removed men’s
work from their homes to factories and offices, leading to a division of labor sharply
defined by gender. In addition to physical separation, the Industrial Revolution
detached men symbolically from their homes and families. Mothers came to
symbolize “home.” and by the I9lh century, child care had become almost exclusively
the domain of mothers (Gillis. 1996). With this background, it is useful to view
gendered practices of parenting as a historically changing state of affairs, as the
following quote from Gillis shows:
The meanings of motherhood and fatherhood are never stable or
transparent but forever contested and changing. Whatever may be
universal about the biology of conception, pregnancy, and birth,
maternity has no predetermined relationship to motherhood, and
paternity no fixed relationship to fatherhood; both vary enormously
across cultures and over time. (Gillis, 1996, p. 153)
With production separated from households by the 1850s, people became less
interdependent across households and mutual aid societies, and less bound together by
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common beliefs. As individualism grew, so did the distinct idea of family
Parenthood became more showy, surnames became more significant, attachment to
household objects and homes increased, photos of relatives were displayed more,
correspondence picked up, gifts were exchanged among households rather than
between them, family reunions became common, and extended relatives increasingly
gathered at weddings and funerals. Rather than the earlier focus on community and
common religious practices, modem families became like small symbolic universes,
and were less stable than the earlier broader networks. People experienced more
pressure to conform to idealized images of family roles (Gillis, 1996).
Due to declines in mortality, white U.S. family patterns throughout the 19th and
20lh centuries became more predictable, homogeneous, and normative. By the middle
of this century, sociologists predicted a globalization of the modem nuclear family
(Stacey, 1996). Instead, widespread family upheaval occurred in the wake of
economic restructuring, and declines in industrial and union employment. The last
few decades in particular have seen a massive reworking of work, class and gender
relationships, turning family life into a contested terrain (Stacey, 1996).
These points about family history illustrate: (1) that it would be a mistake to
falsely idealize the past, (2) that family forms and norms change constantly across
historical time and across cultures, and (3) that family life is inextricably linked to
large-scale economic transformations. Historical change is an integral concern of the
life course perspective, discussed next
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The Life Course Perspective
This analytical framework focuses on the occurrence and timing of events in
the lives of individuals, and the influence of these events on families within particular
historical contexts. It links three metrics of time: individual lifetime, social (family)
time, and historical time (Aldous, 1990; Bengtson & Allen, 1993; Klein & White.
1996). It suggests dimensions that may be important to how individuals construct
family. I have used the life course perspective to shape aspects of this study’s survey
design.
The first metric of time, individual lifetime, suggests dimensions at the
individual psychological level that shape behavior and process, such as an individual's
maturation level. The second, social or generational (family) time, suggests group or
family events that shape interactions. Examples of events at this metric would include
marriage, divorce, and giving birth. If we combine the two metrics, we might explore
how an individual is affected by family events that occur at various ages in his/her life.
The third metric, historical time, suggests issues of the larger social context and their
effect on people’s lives.
We have already seen how historical contexts have shaped family life across
several centuries. For the purpose of this dissertation, a shorter historical context
shaping the lives of three adult generations will be used. In particular, the societal
context surrounding divorce, remarriage, and cohabitation has changed quite a bit in
the last 50 years. We might therefore expect to see a loosening of the social sanctions
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surrounding these trends, and an increase in favorable attitudes toward step-relatives
across historical time.
Also drawing from the life course perspective, I expect that early timing of
stepparent acquisition, and longer duration of relationships with stepparents will
increase the level of family and parent perceptions toward those stepparents.
Findings and Gaps in Four Areas of Research
There are four empirical areas of research I focus on in this dissertation. These
are: (1) gerontological research on families across the life course, (2) stepfamily
research. (3) research on gender and family relations, and (4) research that highlights
the social construction of biological family relations. In each of these empirical areas.
I have sought out insights about the social construction of family in parent-child
relationships.
Gerontological Research on Families Across the Life Course
A number of gerontological scholars have recently begun to note the
importance of developing more knowledge about diverse family structures (Bengtson.
Rosenthal, & Burton, 1990; Bengtson & Silverstein, 1993; Riley & Riley, 1993;
Uhlenberg, 1993). Riley and Riley (1993) have even coined a term, the “latent matrix
of kinship” to incorporate a wide array of relationships formed after divorce,
remarriage, or cohabitation.
While this acknowledgment is a good first step, empirical gerontological
research in this area is quite undeveloped. Articles on families across the life course
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usually tend to portray parent-child relations in a way that disconnects them from the
family structure contexts in which they are embedded. For example, there is little
recognition that there are many types of “parents” who share relationship histories
with adult children.
The lack of recognition of family structure complexity is evident in volumes
that combine aging and family topics (Blieszner & Hilkevitch Bedford, 1995:
Brubaker, 1990). In these volumes, the implications of divorce, remarriage, and
cohabitation trends are given only cursory attention.
A few gerontologists have taken the lead in exploring the tremendous variation
in individuals’ views of kinship, following divorce or remarriage among family
members. This gerontological research can be divided into three themes.
First, the kinship networks of older people are diverse and can be quite
complicated. Johnson (1988) and Barer (Johnson & Barer, 1987) studied the changing
kinship networks of grandmothers. They identified several ways that grandmothers’
networks might expand, following an adult child’s divorce or remarriage: (I) when
relationships with relatives of a child’s divorce are retained, while new relatives are
added with a child’s remarriage; (2) when the divorces and remarriages of multiple
children created several subsets of relatives; (3) when the divorces and remarriages of
the grandparents added another set of step and in-law relations; and (4) when they
retained relationships with former children-in-Iaw after these children remarried.
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Johnson and Barer (1987) found that 48% of their sample of 50 grandmothers
experienced kinship expansion fitting the above criteria, during the three years
following a child’s marital separation. Often the expansion included former
daughters-in-law who had custody of a paternal grandmother’s grandchildren.
Another sizeable subset (38%) had severed relations with former in-laws after their
child divorced, and thus experienced a temporary contraction in the kinship system.
This kinship system expanded again if the child remarried.
This research is very important because it highlights the diverse, voluntary, and
matrilateral bias in contemporary kinship, extending across relatives of both divorce
and remarriage.
A second theme in gerontological research on families emphasizes the possible
isolation of older biological fathers, who have not maintained close ties with their
children following divorce (Bomat, Dimmock, & Peace, 1997; Solomou, Ely, Brayne,
& Huppert, 1999). Non-custodial fathers were found to experience much lower levels
of supportive contact from adult children, compared to men who had lived with their
minor-age children following divorce (Solomou, Ely, Brayne, & Huppert, 1999).
Some researchers observe that many divorced men have difficulty maintaining or
strengthening ties with their adult children (Vinick, 1997).
A third theme in gerontological research that sheds light on kinship networks
following divorce and remarriage is the observation that women act as “kinkeepers.”
A number of gerontologists have observed the skill with which women facilitate,
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maintain, and nurture relationships with their children and extended relatives,
including stepchildren (Bomat, Dimmock, & Peace, 1997; Hagestad, 1986; Johnson,
1988; Vinick, 1997).
The above findings suggest that adult children’s relationships with stepparents,
ex-stepparents, and biological parents will be diverse and matrilateral-biased.
Stepfamily Research
It may be helpful to begin here with a list of how stepfamilies are structurally
and psychologically different from nuclear families, drawing from Crosbie-Bumett.
Skyles, & Becker-Haven, 1988, p. 302):
1. The stepparent and stepchild begin their relationship when the child
is partly grown.
2. The stepparent is a newcomer to an ongoing family group.
3. Stepparents and stepchildren often have primary bonds to children
and parents, respectively, outside of the household.
4. There is no role definition for the relationship between a stepparent
and stepchild when both of the child’s biological parents are coparenting.
5. There are less clear incest taboos for relationships between
stepparents and stepchildren and between stepsiblings.
While the above distinctions may not apply to all stepfamilies. they
nonetheless illustrate much of the complexity that surrounds many contemporary
stepfamily situations. Stepparents may be seen in varying degrees as family members
and parents. Further, just because a stepparent is perceived as a family member does
not mean he or she is seen as a parent, or that family/parent perceptions of stepparents
are socially desirable.
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One national study of stepfathers with minor children living at home revealed
diverse perceptions of stepparenting. The stepfathers who were most likely to have
"fatherlike” perceptions were those who (a) lived with both step- and biological
children in the same household, (b) became a father figure to younger children, and (c)
were happy with their marital or cohabiting partner (Marsiglio, 1992).
A few studies have examined stepmothers’ or minor-age stepchildren’s
subjective perceptions of family membership in post-divorce and remarried contexts.
These exploratory qualitative studies have established that perceptions of family
membership in stepfamilies are quite diverse. Family perceptions seem to be
enhanced by co-residential status of stepparents or stepchildren, although co-residence
does not automatically insure a perception of family ties. Blood and/or legal ties
sometimes influence the subjective perceptions of family membership. Emotional
closeness was also seen to be an important factor in predicting kinship ties. A
significant minority of interview participants held expansive views of their families,
which extended to non-residential and non-biological kin, even sometimes including
cohabiting partners of parents in addition to legal stepparents (Church. 1999; Gross,
1987; Klee, Schmidt, & Johnson, 1989).
The above studies suggest that adult children’s perceptions of stepparents will
in fact be quite diverse, and play out along a number of dimensions. Another
dimension that may be important is the sex of the stepchild. Several studies have
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shown that stepmother-stepdaughter relationships tend to be the most problematic of
step-relationships (Gross, 1986; Pasley, Ihinger-Tallman. & Lofquist, 1994).
Other research has explored the ambiguity that surrounds stepfamily relations,
from the biological parents’ and stepparents’ points of view. The concept of
“boundary ambiguity” gets at the lack of clarity family members can feel about who is
in or out of a family system at any given time (Boss & Greenburg, 1984). Legally-
related relatives may be recognized as physically present but considered
psychologically absent, or defined as psychologically present even though they are
physically absent. In both cases, the family boundaries are ambiguous, contributing to
confusion about what to expect from relationships. A lack of consensus may prevail
between family members about these issues, and ambiguous situations can persist
across time (Boss & Greenburg, 1984). In one study, Pasley and Ihinger-Tallman
(1989) asked husbands and wives in remarriages to list who they considered to be
family members. Individuals most frequently omitted from family lists were
husbands' non-residential children. A significant minority of both husbands and wives
did not include these children on their lists. Similar findings were found in another
study with a national sample (Stewart, 2001). This suggests the importance of co
residence to perceptions of biological and step-relatives as family.
Evidence of boundary ambiguity in families suggests a need to discover just
how individuals make sense of their connections (or lack of connections) with step-
relatives. Stepfamilies differ from first-marriage families in that legal and spatial
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boundaries are much less clear. Consequently, boundaries are likely to be determined
more subjectively in remarried families, given multiple surnames and households,
fluctuating living arrangements, and the absence of social norms governing behavior
in stepfamilies (Pasley, 1987).
Stepfamily researchers have not yet compared divorce-preceded stepfamilies to
widowhood-preceded ones, or legally married stepparents to cohabiting partners of
parents. There is also little known about how individuals with highly familistic
attitudes might compare to those with lower levels of familistic attitudes in their
perceptions of stepfamily membership. I am including these dimensions in my
analysis, and present the following rationale for them.
I expect that biological parents’ marital history will set a context affecting an
adult child’s view of new parents in the system. Due to several decades of high
divorce rates, divorce-preceded stepfamilies have become more common than
widowhood-preceded stepfamilies. Divorce-preceded stepfamilies are more
complicated structurally than widowhood-preceded stepfamilies, since often the parent
of the same sex as the stepparent is alive. This creates a very different context from
the family structure formed when a parent has died, and the other parent remarries. I
expect that adult children will be more open to stepfamilies following a parent’s
widowhood than following a parent’s divorce.
Biological parents’ marital history may also affect their current relationship
structure with a new spouse. For instance, they may be hesitant to remarry after a
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divorce and prefer to cohabit for a time with a new mate. I expect that the relationship
structure will have an effect on the adult child’s perception, since the level of legal
commitment shown by the parent may impact how seriously the adult child considers
the stepparent.
I have found no empirical research on former (ex-) stepparent relationships
with children. It makes sense, though, that the end of a relationship between one’s
parent and a stepparent will have repercussions for one’s relationship with that
stepparent. As mentioned earlier, in this country ex-stepparents have few (if any)
rights of visitation or legal obligations toward their ex-stepchildren. My analysis can
distinguish between current and ex-stepparents.
Finally, while there doesn't seem to be a body of work connecting general
family attitudes with perceptions of real-life stepparents, it makes sense that those with
greater feelings of obligation toward family in general would be more open to
including stepparents as family members and parents.
While stepfamily research does a good job of addressing family structure
differences, studies have mostly focused on the stepparenting o f co-residential minor-
age children (Everett, 1995; Pasley & Ihinger-Tallman, 1994). I have focused on a
number of exceptions to this tendency in this review. It is time to broaden our views
of stepfamily relationships and explore the experiences of children (not just parents),
adult children (not just minor-age children), non-residential stepchildren (not just
residential ones), and stepchild-stepparent relations that begin when children are
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already adults, (not just minor stepchild-stepparent relations). It is important to realize
that kinship linkages with various types of “parents” may change multiple times across
individual lives.
Research on Gender and Family Relations
Gender scholars have led the way in revealing the social constructions of
family relationships. Some of their insights have already been discussed in this
document (see references to Gillis, 1996; Stacey, 1991). Feminist researchers have
challenged social science and political arguments that the nuclear family is the only
legitimate family form. They have highlighted groups that historically have been
denied access to autonomy, family formation, and marriage (Collins. 1991; Glenn,
1986; Jones, 1982; Stacey, 1996; Thome. 1992; Weston, 1991). These groups include
women, non-whites, the poor, and homosexuals. By looking at access to power,
gender scholars have broadened notions of family to include “chosen families”
(Weston, 1991), “flctive kin” (Chatters & Jayakody, 1995), “othermothers” (Collins,
1991), "postmodern families” and “divorce-extended families” (Stacey, 1991, 1996).
They have shown that certain structural conditions have led to highly fluid family
boundaries in some groups.
This research has contributed a great deal to sociological understanding of
family life. I mentioned earlier that residential custody of children following divorce
is heavily slanted toward biological mothers. This brings up the issue of the social
construction of gendered custody. Instead of perceiving mother custody as “natural”
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and emerging from a simple biological dichotomy, we can recognize it as a gender
distinction that arises out of social practice (Connell, 1987). This notion of practice
allows for differentiation between men and between women. It allows for change
across historical time, and internal contradiction.
Applied to this dissertation, the practice of mother-custody of minors in
divorce/separation situations is likely to be relevant to children’s relationships with
stepmothers and stepfathers. In addition, strong ideology about appropriate mothering
and fathering practices may shape the relationships with stepparents that the
respondents are reporting about.
Based on this rationale, and the suggestion in the stepfamily literature that
residential stepfathers sometimes ‘‘replace” non-residential biological fathers (Klee.
Schmidt. & Johnson. 1989), I examine whether perceptions of stepparents vary
according to the sex of the stepparent.
While research on gender relations is generally excellent at exposing the social
construction of family life, gender scholars have not yet explored stepfamily relations
extensively.
The Social Construction of Biological Kinship
It is generally taken for granted that biological relatives are considered family
to each other, but there are some exceptions that I will discuss here. First, the
literature on divorce suggests that there may be long-term negative consequences for
fathers who do not maintain ties with their children following a break up with the
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children's mother. This has already been discussed in the section on gerontological
research, and informs some of my hypotheses regarding biological parents.
Second, advances in reproductive technology are raising new questions about
the relationship between genetic and social parenting (Edwards. 1991; Eichler, 1997;
Macklin. 1991). A sperm donor, for example, often has no obligatory social
relationship with his genetic offspring that result from the donation. In some countries
(like Sweden and Switzerland), however, individuals have won the legal right to know
the identity o f their previously anonymous, sperm-donating, genetic fathers (Bainham,
1999). Where they go from there is a fascinating question to ponder.
Third, adoption has long provided an uneasy juxtaposition between social/legal
relationship and biological relationship (Modell, 1994). The literature on adoption
helps to expose the fact that active kinship with blood relatives cannot be assumed.
Fourth, increased levels of cohabitation and remarriage have raised sticky
issues in the arena of family law. As mentioned earlier, Canada and England have
moved toward increased legal recognition of residential stepparents (Bala, 1994).
These expansive policies have not pleased everyone, however. As British professor of
law Andrew Bainham (1999) puts it, “What makes the legal situation so complex is
that genetic parentage, legal parenthood, and parental responsibility may be split
between different individuals or institutions in relation to a particular child” (p. 31).
The arena of law may in fact be on the cutting edge of these dilemmas, since
individual challenges to the legal system can put these issues into the media spotlight.
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Fifth, research with gay and lesbian individuals about their family lives reveals
that blood ties do not on their own cement family relationships. The issue of sexuality
calls into question the assumption of the unconditionality of biological family ties, and
reveals the choice involved in maintaining family ties with biological relatives
(Weston, 1991).
These areas of inquiry in which biological kinship ties are questioned,
challenged, or not activated demonstrate that subjective perceptions of kinship with
biological relatives should not be taken for granted. More research into the factors that
might produce a rupture in perceptions of family ties between biological parents and
children would be illuminating. This dissertation takes a step toward filling that gap.
Hypotheses
Hvpotheses-Stepparents
Prior research has shown the importance of considering family processes along
with family structure factors (Acock & Demo, 1994). This study will get at a similar
comparison by distinguishing between social, legal, and biological ties that connect
adult children and various types of parents. The literatures presented up to this point
suggest numerous factors that may affect these connections. Here I will present those
factors again, organized into social, legal, and contextual (background) factors. These
will then be tested separately by parent-type: stepparents, ex-stepparents, and
biological parents.
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Table 1
Hypotheses that apply to adult children’s perceptions o f their relationships with
Stepparents
Hypotheses based o d Social Ties
Timing of Stepparent Acquisition: Hypothesis: The earlier the acquisition o f a stepparent, the
more likely an adult child will perceive that stepparent as a member of the family and as a parent.
Duration of Relationship: Hypothesis: The longer the duration of parents ’ marriages/partnerships
with stepparents, the more likely that adult children will perceive those stepparents as members of
the family and as parents.
Length of Co-residence with Stepparents: Hypothesis: The longer the co-residence between
children and stepparents, the greater the perception of those stepparents as members of the family
and parents.
Sex of Stepparent: Hypothesis: Stepfathers are more likely to be considered family members and
parents than stepmothers.
Sex of Respondent: Hypothesis: Males are more likely to perceive stepparents as family members
and parents than females.
Hypotheses based on Legal Ties between the Parents
Institutionalized marriage vs. Cohabitation: Hypothesis: Adult children are more likely to perceive
legally related stepparents as family members and as parents than they are to view cohabiting
partners of parents as such.
Current vs Ex-Stepparent Status: Hypothesis: Adult children are more likely to view stepparents as
family members and parents when these relationships have not been severed/compromised by a
parent's divorce or separation from the stepparent.
Hypotheses based on Contextual Factors
Historical Change - Generation: Hypothesis: Younger generations will be more likely to consider
stepparents as family members and parents than older generations.
Normative Solidarity: Hypothesis: Adult children who have high levels of agreement with familistic
attitudes will be more likely to consider stepparents as family members and parents than those who
have lower levels of agreement with familistic attitudes.
Attitudes toward Stenrelatives: Hypothesis: Adult children who agree with inclusive attitudes
toward stepfamilies in general will be more likely to consider stepparents as family members and
parents than those who disagree with inclusive attitudes toward stepfamilies.
Widowhood vs. Divorce: Hypothesis: Stepparents whose relations with a child’ s parent began after
that parent was widowed are more likely to be viewed as family members and as parents than
stepparents whose relations with a child’ s parent began after that parent’ s divorce.
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Hypotheses— Ex-Stepparents
The main focus of this study is upon adult children’s relationships with current
stepparents. Ex-stepparents (that is, former spouses/partners of biological parents)
offer a fascinating comparison to current stepparents. The key difference between the
two groups is the status of the stepparents’ relationships to the biological parents. For
stepparents, the relationships to the biological parents remain current, or were current
at the time of the stepparents’ deaths. For ex-stepparents, the relationship to the
biological parent has ended due to divorce or ceasing to live together. This may or
may not result in the ex-stepparent becoming more remote to the adult child, assuming
that there was a relationship there to begin with. For the purpose of simplicity. 1 will
refer to these as ex-stepparents, regardless of whether their relationship with their
stepchildren has lessened with the divorce/separation. I will test the same hypotheses
for ex-stepparents as I will for the stepparents. It is likely, though, that certain factors
will need to be stronger for ex-stepparent relationships, in order to compensate for the
discontinued relationship between the ex-stepparent and the biological parent. I
anticipate that length of co-residence may be such a factor.
Hvpotheses-Biological Parents
This study is strengthened by an analysis of biological parents as well.
Biological parent relationships offer another fascinating comparison to stepparents,
and cause us to wonder just what “standard” stepparents are being compared to,
anyway? The juxtaposition of the three groups of parents-stepparents, ex-stepparents,
26
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and biological parents allows for a more thorough examination of the relative
importance of social, legal, and biological ties.
Since these are biological relationships, a different set of social rmd legal
factors apply than what applied to stepparents and ex-stepparents. The following table
shows my hypotheses pertaining to adult children’s relationships with biological
parents.
Table 2
Hypotheses that apply to adult children’s perceptions o f their relationships with Biological
parents
Hypotheses based on Social Ties
Length of Co-Residence with Parents: Hypothesis: T he longer the co-residence between children
and biological parents, the greater the perception of those biological parents as members of the
family and parents.
Sex of Parent: Hypothesis: Biological mothers are more likely to be considered family members
and parents than biologicalfathers.
Hypotheses based on Legal Ties between the Parents
Divorce vs Never Divorced: Hypothesis: Of those adult children whose biological parents had
married, those whose parents had never divorced are more likely to view biological parents as
family members and parents than those whose parents had divorced
Later Divorce vs Earlier Divorce: Hypothesis: Of those adult children whose biological parents
had divorced those whose parents divorced later in the child's life are more likely to consider their
biological parents to be family members and parents than those whose parents divorced earlier in
the child's life.
Hypothesis based on Contextual Factors
Normative Solidarity: Hypothesis: Adult children who have high levels ofagreement with familistic
attitudes will be more likely to consider biological parents as family members and parents than
those who have lower levels ofagreement with familistic attitudes.
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Organization of the Dissertation
The organization of this dissertation is as follows: Chapter 2 describes the
survey methodology. It includes information about the sample, the analysis plan, and
the measures used in the analysis. Chapter 3 presents descriptive statistics and
bivariate survey results. Chapter 4 presents the multivariate conceptual models to be
tested, and the survey analyses for stepparents (with ex-stepparents) and biological
parents. There I summarize the support for the hypotheses, based on the final
equations. Chapter 5 describes the interview methods. It includes information about
sample selection, substitution procedures, interview questions, interview procedures,
and analysis procedures. Chapter 6 presents themes and results from the interview
analysis. Chapter 7 summarizes the findings and discusses them in light of the
literature on subjective perceptions of family.
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CHAPTER 2
QUANTITATIVE SURVEY METHODS
In this chapter, I begin by describing the sample. Next, I present the
analysis plan. I follow that with a description of each of the quantitative measures
to be used in this dissertation.
Sample Description
I’m using the 1997 (Time-6) wave o f the USC Longitudinal Study of
Generations (LSOG). The LSOG is a study of linked three- and four-generation
family members, drawn from a random sample of grandfathers who were
members at a southern California health maintenance organization (HMO) in
1971. Over 2000 participants from over 300 three-generation family linkages
have been followed throughout the LSOG’s history, participating by self-
administered questionnaires in 1971, 1985. 1988, 1991, 1994, 1997. and 2000.
Fourth-generation family members who were at least 16 years old have been
continuously added since 1991.
The HMO from which the sample was drawn was organized after World
War II to serve steelworkers and their families. As a result, the LSOG sample is
predominantly white, and the first-generation members were mostly from working
class origins. Although the sample is not nationally representative, study findings
on attitudes, contact, cohesion, and occupational distributions have been found to
be similar to those of national probability samples (Bengtson, 1996).
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While some dimensions from the LSOG may be comparable to national
data sets, it is important to mention the areas in which the sample is probably not
comparable. The sample selection in 1971 required the first (oldest) generation to
be married. The second generation may have also been required to have been
married. Although records to that effect are not available, we can state with
confidence that the members of the first two generations are disproportionately
married and heterosexual. Although a few of these individuals were in second or
third marriages, it is likely that the marriage requirement skewed the sample
toward nuclear family patterns among the first two generations. Some of these
people have since divorced, cohabited, and/or remarried, which became evident in
subsequent waves of data collection. The third and fourth generation family
members were not required to be married, and as a result these generations will be
closer to national percentages in their rates of cohabitation, divorce, etc.
Another area in which the LSOG is not comparable to national data sets is
in the race of its participants. Since the sample is predominantly white, we can
expect that the kind of diversity that is common across race will be absent. It is
important to note that major differences in family structure patterns exist across
racial groups in the U.S. (Baca Zinn, 1990; Staples & Mirande, 1980; Tucker &
Mitchell-Keman, 1995; Wilkinson, 1987).
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A third bias in the sample that may be important is a regional one. Since
the sample was originally drawn from a group of California residents, there may
be ways in which it reflects regional idiosyncracies.
The LSOG has examined a broad range of constructs, including
intergenerational solidarity, conflict, caregiving, sociopolitical attitudes, values,
psychological well-being, physical health, socioeconomic status, and life events
(Bengtson,l996).
The principal investigators of the LSOG worked with me to create
questions for the 1997 wave of data collection. They facilitated the process of
including a new two-page section of questions for this study. The two-page
section was included in the second, third, and fourth generation family surveys.
These questions allow me to do an empirical investigation of the views of 3
generations of (mostly white) adult children, ranging in age from teenage years to
70. A total of 1603 respondents returned questionnaires from the younger three
generations. These adult children were asked about their parents’ marital and
cohabiting histories, how old they were when parents remarried/cohabited/
divorced/separated from various partners, who they had lived with and during
what period of time. They were asked the extent to which they considered
“parents” (including biological parents, stepparents, cohabiting partners of
parents, etc.) to be part of their “family,” and to what degree.
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Analysis Plan
First, I calculate the direct effects of each of the independent variables on
the dependent variables, separately for stepparents, ex-stepparents, and biological
parents. I do this using a comparison of means, generated from an analysis of
variance (anova) test. These results are presented in Chapter 3, Descriptive
Statistics and Bivariate Results. There, I summarize the support for each o f the
hypotheses at the bivariate level.
In Chapter 4, Multivariate Results, I present a conceptual model that is
tested with stepparents and ex-stepparents combined. This is because the
hypotheses for stepparents and ex-stepparents are the same, and combining the
two groups enables me to include '“ current versus ex-step status” as a variable. I
also include an interaction term in the last equation, testing whether length of co
residence needs to be longer to offset the dampening effect of going from a
current stepparent to an ex-stepparent. The conceptual model indicates that I
expect some factors to be mediated by other factors. To account for this, I will
use hierarchical logistic regression, and introduce variables in stages. I will
present four equations, ending with an equation that includes all the independent
variables together.
Next, I present a conceptual model that applies to biological parents. This
model, like the one for stepparents, indicates that I expect some factors to be
mediated by other factors. I will use hierarchical logistic regression, and
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introduce variables in stages. I will present three equations, ending with an
equation that includes all the independent variables together.
Measures
Dependent variables
Subjective perceptions of parents and stepparents were measured using
two questions. The first asked, 'T o what extent do you consider this person
‘FAMILY’? (If deceased, answer about when alive.)” The second asked, ‘T o
what extent do you consider this person a ‘PARENT’? (If deceased, answer about
when alive.)” Answers to each of these questions were coded as follows: (I) not
at all, (2) a little. (3) quite a bit, and (4) fully.
Independent variables
Generation indicates the lineage number of the survey participant, and can
be either 2. 3, or 4. Timing of stepparent acquisition is the age that the adult child
was when the stepparent either married or began living with the parent. It ranges
from 0 to 64. For the bivariate analyses, I have divided this variable into three
categories: acquired the stepparent during ages 0-10, acquired the stepparent at
ages 11-17, and acquired the stepparent at ages 18+.
Duration of relationship represents the number of years that the stepparent
has been in a relationship with the respondent’s biological parent. It is created in
different ways to account for whether a stepparent was still living or not, and
whether the stepparent was a current or ex-stepparent. For living current
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stepparents, duration was created by subtracting the age of stepparent acquisition
from the respondent’s current age. For stepparents who had died while still
married or cohabiting with the parent, duration was created by subtracting the age
of stepparent acquisition from the respondent’s age when the stepparent died. If
the stepparent had been divorced or separated from the parent (thus becoming an
ex-stepparent), duration was created by subtracting the age of stepparent
acquisition from the respondent’s age when the stepparent and parent
divorced/separated.
Sex of respondent is either male or female. Sex of stepparent and sex of
parent are also either male or female.
Length of co-residence is the number of years that the respondent co-
resided full-time or part-time with the parent or stepparent in question. Marital
status-Parent and Stepparent is a dichotomized variable in which “cohabited
only” is juxtaposed against "ever married.” Those who cohabited first and later
married are put into the married group, since for my purposes I am interested in
comparing the legal status of “not married” to that of “married.” Parent-Prior
Divorce or Widowhood refers to whether the respondents’ biological parents were
divorced from each other or widowed, prior to the entry of the stepparent.
Stepparent-Current or Ex-step indicates whether the stepparent is still or was until
death still married or cohabiting with the parent, or became divorced from the
parent. Divorce Context of Biological Parents (used in the analysis for biological
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parents only) is measured using 3 dummy variables: Parents divorced when age
0-10. parents divorced when age 11-17, and parents divorced when age 18+. The
reference group is having parents who never divorced.
Normative solidarity is a composite variable that includes eight items that
get at the respondent’s attitudes about family obligation in general. The eight
statements are as follows:
1. A person should talk over important life decisions (such as marriage,
employment, and residence) with family members before taking action.
2. As many activities as possible should be shared by married children
and their parents.
3. Family members should give more weight to each others’ opinions than
to the opinions of outsiders.
4. Marriage should be regarded as extending established families, not just
creating new ones.
5. If a person finds that the lifestyle he/she has chosen runs so against
his/her family’s values that conflict develops, he/she should change.
6. Children owe it to parents to place family objectives above personal
aspirations.
7. It is the responsibility of adult children to be with their parents in time
of serious illness even if the children have moved some distance away from their
parents.
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8. Children, of elderly parents have as much responsibility for the welfare
of their parents as they have for the welfare of their own children.
Each item was coded as follows: I (strongly disagree), 2 (disagree), 3
(agree), and 4 (strongly agree). The Cronbach’s alpha for this scale was .58 for
the sample answering about biological parents, .64 for the sample answering
about ex-stepparents, and .66 for the sample answering about current stepparents.
Given these acceptable factor loadings, these single items were combined into an
8 item composite variable for normative solidarity. The composite variable was
coded from low (I) to high (4).
There were three stepfamilv attitude items that were used in the analysis.
They did not hang together in a scale, so I used them as single items. Since the
frequencies on these variables were so skewed, I converted the four response
codes into two, resulting in 0 (disagree) or I (agree). The three statements are as
follows:
1. When a parent remarries, children ought to do all they can to welcome
steprelatives into the family.
2. It is important to promote feelings of kinship between step-relatives.
3. Step-relatives are not the same as “real” family; they can never be as
close as biological relatives.
The first control variable was the household income of the respondent.
This was coded in sixteen groupings, using increments of $10,000. The highest
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category included all incomes over $150,000. The second control variable was
whether the stepparent or biological parent was alive. This was coded as 0 (no) or
I (yes). There are also two control variables that apply to the biological parent
analysis only. One is generation, indicating the lineage number of the survey
participant, and can be either 2,3, or 4. The other is the sex of respondent, which
is either male or female.
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CHAPTER 3
DESCRIPTIVE STATISTICS AND BIVARIATE RESULTS
In this chapter, I present descriptive information about my dependent and
independent variables. I show in chart form how each independent variable connects
to the dependent variables. For the most part, results are charted separately for
stepparents, ex-stepparents, and biological parents. Each analysis is the result of a
bivariate anova (analysis of variance) which tests whether the means on the dependent
variable for each category of the independent variable are significantly different or
could have occurred by chance. The charts reflect a significance level of p less them
.05. When a bivariate relationship is significant, but specific categories of the
independent variable are not significantly different from each other, I indicate this in a
note below the chart. I will re-visit each hypothesis from Chapter I. and discuss
whether there is support for it at the bivariate level.
It is helpful to begin with a descriptive look at the variables of interest. Table
3 shows characteristics of analytic variables that pertain to adult children’s subjective
perceptions of stepparents.
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Table 3
Characteristics o f Analytical Variables pertaining to Adult Children and their Stepparents
(including Ex-Stepparents) (N = 771)
Mean SD Coding Scheme
Variables that reflect Social Ties
Timing of Stepparent Acquisition 17.64 11.26 (Age) 0 -6 4
Duration of Relationship 12.64 1 1 JO (Years) 0 -6 0
Length of Co-residence 2.50 4.20 (Years) 0 - 22
Sex of Stepparent .48 .50 0 (male), I (female)
Sex of Respondent .57 .49 0 (male), 1 (female)
Variables that reflect Legal Ties between
the Parents
Marital Status-Parent & Stepparent .88 .32 0 (Cohabited). 1 (Married)
Stepparent-Current or Ex-step .72 .45 0 (Ex-step), I (Current Step)
Variables that reflect Contextual Factors
Generation 2.96 .76 2 to 4
Normative Solidarity 2.80 .44 I (low) to 4 (high)
Stepfamily Attitude #1-"Welcome” .89 .31 0 (disagree), 1 (agree)
Stepfamily Attitude ?*2-“Promote” .90 JO 0 (disagree), I (agree)
Stepfamily Attitude #3-"Real family” .15 .36 0 (disagree). 1 (agree)
Parent-Prior Divorce or Widowhood .13 .34 0 (Divorce), I (Widowhood)
Control Variables
Household Income of Respondent 6.48 4.20 1 (low) to 16 (high)
Stepparent Alive .79 .41 0 (no), 1 (yes)
Dependent Variables
Extent Stepparent is Considered
"Family”
236 1.17 I (not at all) to 4 (fully)
Extent Stepparent is Considered a
"Parent”
1.83 1.10 I (not at all) to 4 (fully)
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Next, I show characteristics of analytic variables that pertain to adult children’s
subjective perceptions of biological parents.
Table 4
Characteristics o f Analytical Variables pertaining to Adult Children and their Biological
Parents (N = 2732)
Mean SD Coding Scheme
Variables that reflect Social Ties
Length of Co-residence 17.96 5.18 (Years) 0 - 45
Sex of Biological Parent .50 .50 0 (male), 1 (female)
Variables that reflect Legal Ties between
the Parents
Parents Divorced when Age 0-10 .14 .35 0 (no), 1 (yes)
Parents Divorced when Age 11-17 .07 .26 0 (no), I (yes)
Parents Divorced when Age 1 8 + - .07 .25 0 (no), I (yes)
Variables that reflect Contextual Factors
Normative Solidarity 2.80 .44 I (low) to 4 (high)
Control Variables
Generation 2.97 .76 2 to 4
Sex of Respondent .56 .50 0 (male), I (female)
Household Income of Respondent 6.49 4.23 I (low) to 16 (high)
Parent Alive .67 .47 0 (no), I (yes)
Dependent Variables
Extent Parent is Considered “Family” 3.83 .59 I (not at all) to 4 (fully)
Extent Parent is Considered a “Parent” 3.73 .71 I (not at all) to 4 (fully)
Turning to the dependent variables. Figures t and 2 show overall frequencies
of subjective perceptions of stepparents, ex-stepparents, and biological parents as
family members and parents.
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Figure 1: Overall Frequencies, Extent to Which
Various Parent Groups are Considered
“FA M IL Y "
g Stepparents, Living and Dead (N = 563)
□ Ex-Stepparents, Living and Dead (N = 210)
gBiological Parents. Living and Dead (N =2794)
100%
80%
60%
40%
20%
0%
31%
64%
2 4 < y 21% 21°/i
MU ■
2%
Fully Quite a Bit A Little Not at All
Figure 2: Overall Frequencies, Extent to Which
Various Parent Groups are Considered
"PARENTS"
g Stepparents, Liung and Dead (N = 562)
q Ex-Stepparents. Living and Dead (N = 210)
g Biological Parents, Livng and Dead (N = 2794)'
100%
80%
60%
40%
20%
0%
Fully Quite a Bit A Little Not at All
5634----------------------------------------------------- 5D% “
49%
16%
6% 5% _ V ^ B % ■ (4 %
” — ^ ' m m 1
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These frequencies reveal that a significant minority do not perceive their
biological parents to be fully family members and parents. In contrast, a significant
minority do see their ex-stepparents as family members and parents on some level.
These are very compelling examples of how family is a social construct, not one based
merely on biology or law. Further, for all types of parents, it is evident that “family”
is an easier category to get into than “parent.” from the point of view of adult children.
This is evident by comparing the frequencies in Figure I with those in Figure 2. It is
also quite obvious that perceptions of biological parents and ex-stepparents are quite
skewed. Respondents were likely to rate their biological parents quite highly on
“family” and “parent,” while ex-stepparents are skewed toward the “not at all” end of
the scale. Current stepparents fall into a middle range, with only a slightly positive
skew on “family” and a more negative skew on “parent.” There is great diversity in
the subjective perceptions of stepparents, as we would expect.
Each parent group includes parents who are both living and dead. As will be
clear later, answers mostly did not differ according to whether the parent was alive or
not. Each stepparent group also includes cohabiting partners of parents, along with
married spouses of parents. I will differentiate these stepparents later as well
(cohabitation versus marriage is one of the independent variables). Biological parents
had to have been married to each other at one time to be included in these analyses.
The reason for this is that in this sample, only a very minute proportion of biological
parents were described as not being married to each other at some point.
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Figures 3 and 4 show the average (mean) for each of the three parent groups on
'‘family” and “parent.” Subsequent figures in this chapter will show the means of each
dependent variable by the categories of the independent variables. Means fall between
I (representing “not at all”) to 4 (representing “fully”).
Figure 3: Overall Means, Extent to Which
Various Parent Groups are Considered
"FA M IL Y "
3.83
2.66
1.58
Stepparents Ex-Stepparents Biological Parents
Figure 4: Overall Means, Extent to Which
Various Parent Groups are Considered
"PA R EN TS"
3.74
4 --------------------------------------------------------------------------
Stepparents Ex-Stepparents Biological Parents
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Variables That Reflect Social Ties
Timing. "Timing” refers to the age of the respondent when the stepparent
married and/or began living with the parent. In the following table, I show the percent
of respondents who fit into each of three timing groups:
Table 5
Percent. Bv Age Group, o f Timing when Stepparents were Acquired
Stepparents Ex-Stepparents
Age 0-10 23 47
Age 11-17 27 30
Age 18+ 51 24
As we might expect, ex-stepparents tended to be acquired earlier than the
current stepparents, allowing for more time for the transition to ex-step status.
Approximately half of the regular stepparents were acquired in childhood, and half in
adulthood.
Figures 5 and 6 show the bivariate results of subjective perceptions of
stepparents by the timing of stepparent acquisition. The results are significant for
stepparents, in the direction I expected. The two childhood-timing groups are not
significantly different from each other on " ‘ 'family.” The key distinction here seems to
be childhood versus adulthood timing. Later-acquired stepparents are not viewed as
highly on either family or parent than earlier-acquired stepparents. On the parent
dimension, though, later childhood is significantly different from early childhood.
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For ex-stepparents, timing was not significantly associated with perceptions of
■ ‘family,” but was for perceptions of “parent.” Here, as above, the key distinction
seems to be childhood-acquired versus adulthood-acquired former stepparents.
Returning to my hypothesis, I summarize results for Timing:
Hypothesis: The earlier the acquisition of a stepparent, the more likely an
adult child will perceive that stepparent as a member of the family and as a
parent.
For Stepparents, on “Family”: Supported
For Stepparents, on “Parent”: Supported
For Ex-Stepparents, on “Family”: Not Supported
For Ex-Stepparents, on “Parent”: Supported
Figure 5: Comparison of Means, Extent to
Which Stepparents and Ex-Stepparents are
Considered "FAM ILY," by Timing of Stepparent
Acquisition
□Age 0-10 pA ge 11-17 gA ge 18+
4
3
2
1
Note. For stepparents, the first two age groups are not significantly different from
one another, but both are significantly different from the third age group.
* £ < .05.
45
2.97
2.52
t o
Stepparents*
1.67 1.64
1.43
Ex-Stepparents (NS)
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Figure 6: Comparison of Means, Extent to Which
Stepparents and Ex-Stepparents are
Considered a "PA R EN T," By Timing of
Stepparent Acquisition
□ Age 0-10 gAge 11-17 ^ Age 18+
4
3
2.77
2.28
2
I 1-63 1-46 1.38
,_______ 1-07
1
i ---------
Stepparents* Ex-Stepparents*
Note. For stepparents, each age group is significantly different from each other. For
ex-stepparents, the first two age groups are not significantly different from each
other, but both are significantly different from the third age group.
* 2 < .05.
Duration of Relationship
The duration variable was created in different ways to account for whether a
stepparent was still living or not, and whether the stepparent was a current or ex
stepparent. For living current stepparents, duration was created by subtracting the age
of stepparent acquisition from the respondent’s current age. For stepparents who had
died while still married or cohabiting with the parent, duration was created by
subtracting the age of stepparent acquisition from the respondent’s age when the
stepparent died. If the stepparent had been divorced or separated from the parent (thus
becoming an ex-stepparent), duration was created by subtracting the age of stepparent
acquisition from the respondent’s age when the stepparent and parent
46
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divorced/separated. Table 6 shows the percent of stepparents that fall into various
year groupings on the duration of relationships.
Table 6
Percent, in Year Categories, o f Duration o f Relationships with Stepparents
Stepparents Ex-Stepparents
0-5 Years 26 0-5 Years 50
6-15 Years 32 6-15 Years 39
16-25 Years 26 16-30 Years 11
26-60 Years 16 N/A N/A
Not surprisingly, the duration of relationships with ex-stepparents (at least the
duration of that stepparent’s relationship with the respondent’s parent) tend to be
shorter than the duration of relationships with "current” stepparents.
Figures 7 and 8 show the bivariate results of subjective perceptions of parent
groups by duration of relationships. The results are significant for stepparents as
expected, but the only category that is different from the others is the first one (0-5
years). That is. relationships of short duration were significantly different on "family”
and "parent” than relationships of any longer time. This significant association did not
apply to ex-stepparents. Returning to my hypothesis, I summarize results for duration
o f relationships:
Hypothesis: The longer the duration of parents’ marriages/partnerships
with stepparents, the more likely that adult children will perceive those
stepparents as members of the family and as parents.
47
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For Stepparents, on '‘Family”: Supported
For Stepparents, on "Parent”: Supported
For Ex-Stepparents, on "Family”: Not Supported
For Ex-Stepparents, on "Parent”: Not Supported
Figure 7: Comparison of Means, Extent to Which
Stepparents and Ex-Stepparents are
Considered "FAM ILY,” by Duration of
Relationship
>0-5 Years >6-15 Years >16-25 Years >26-60 Years
4
3
2
1
Note. For Stepparents, the first category is significantly different from all of
the other categories, which are not significantly different from each other.
For ex-stepparents, duration categories were formed differently due to
duration tending to be shorter. The third category for ex-stepparents actually
goes up to age 30.
* E < .05.
48
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Figure 8: Comparison of Means, Extent to Which
Stepparents and Ex-Stepparents are
Considered a "PARENT," by Duration of
Relationship
g 0-5 Years g 6-15 Years g 16-25 Years g 26-60 Years
4
Stepparents* Ex-Stepparents (NS)
Note. For Stepparents, the first category is significantly different from all of
the other categories, which are not significantly different from each other.
For ex-stepparents, duration categories were formed differently due to
duration tending to be shorter. The third category for ex-stepparents actually
goes up to age 30.
* p < .05.)
Length of Co-residence
Table 7 shows the percent (in year categories) of co-residence with stepparents,
ex-stepparents, and biological parents.
Table 7
Percent, in Year Categories, o f Co-residence with Various Parent Groups
Stepparents Ex-Stepparents Biological Parents
Never Co-resided 59 39
2
Co-resided 1-5 Years 24 42 3
Co-resided 6+ Years 17 19 95
49
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Here we can see that over half of the respondents have never lived with current
stepparents, reflecting most likely a significant proportion of stepparents acquired in
adulthood. The ex-stepparent group exhibits the greatest diversity of co-residence,
using these year categories. Respondents were more likely to have co-resided with ex
stepparents than with current stepparents. The great majority of respondents lived
with biological parents for at least 6 years.
Figures 9 and 10 show the bivariate results of subjective perceptions of parent
groups by length of co-residence. The results are significant as expected, for every
parent group, on both family and parent dimensions. For each group, as the length of
co-residence goes up, the extent that the stepparents/ex-stepparents/biological parents
are seen as family members and parents go up. Interestingly, for ex-stepparents on
both “family” and “parent.” never co-residing was not significantly different from co-
residing 1-5 years. Yet both categories are significantly different from co-residing 6+
years. This suggests that a greater length of past co-residence is needed to overcome
the negative effect of becoming an ex-stepparent. This issue will surface again in the
multivariate analyses, where I introduce an interaction term: length of co-residence by
current or ex-stepparent status.
Returning to my hypotheses, I summarize results for length of co-residence:
Current and Ex-Stepparent Hypothesis: The longer the co-residence
between children and stepparents, the greater the perception of those
stepparents as members of the family and parents.
50
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For stepparents on “Family”: Supported
For stepparents on “Parent”: Supported
For ex-stepparents on “Family”: Supported
For ex-stepparents on “Parent”: Supported
Biological Parent Hypothesis: The longer the co-residence between
children and biological parents, the greater the perception of those
biological parents as members of the family and parents.
For biological parents on “Family”: Supported
For biological parents on “Parent”: Supported
Figure 9: Comparison of Means, Extent to
Which Various Parent Groups are Considered
"FA M ILY ," by Length of Co-Residence
gNever p 1-5 Years jj6+ Years
3.89
Stepparents* Ex-Stepparents* Biological Parents*
Note. For stepparents, each category is significantly different from the others. For
ex-stepparents, the first two categories are not significantly different from each other,
but both are significantly different from the third category. For biological parents,
each category is significantly different from the others.
* E < .05.
51
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Figure 10: Comparison of Means, Extent to
Which Various Parent Groups are Considered a
"PARENT,” by Length of Co-Residence
4
3
2
1
Note. For stepparents, each category is significantly different from the
others. For ex-stepparents, the first two categories are not significantly
different from each other, but both are significantly different from the third
category. For biological parents, each category is significantly different
from the others.
* g < .05.
Sex of Stepparent or Biological Parent
Figures 11 and 12 show the bivariate results of subjective perceptions of parent
groups by sex of parent. As expected, stepfathers were more likely to be considered
family members and parents than stepmothers. For ex-stepparents, the sex of
stepparent was not significant on either “family” or “parent.” Biological mothers were
more likely to be considered family members and parents than biological fathers.
Returning to my hypotheses, I summarize results for sex of stepparent/biological
parent:
Hypothesis: Stepfathers are more likely to be considered family
members and parents than stepmothers.
52
gj Never □ 1-5 Years g6+ Years
3.8
3.06
2.36
1.55
1.82
1.311
Stepparents* Ex-Stepparents* Biological Parents*
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
For Stepparents, on “Family”: Supported
For Stepparents, on “Parent”: Supported
For Ex-Stepparents, on “Family”: Not Supported
For Ex-Stepparents, on “Parent”: Not Supported
Hypothesis: Biological Parent Hypothesis: Mothers are more likely to
be considered family members and parents than fathers.
For Biological Parents on “Family”: Supported
For Biological Parents on “Parent”: Supported
Figure 11: Comparison of Means, Extent to
which Various Parent Groups are Considered
"FA M ILY ," by Sex of Stepparent or Biological
Parent
gMale g Female
■ » 7R 3.9
Stepparents* Ex-Stepparents Biological Parents'
(NS)
* £ < .05.
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Figure 12: Comparison of Means, Extent to
which Various Parent Groups are Considered a
"PARENT,” by Sex of Stepparent or Biological
Parent
gMale gFemale
4
2
3
1
2.23
1.82
135 1.3
Stepparents* Ex-Stepparents Biological Parents*
(NS)
* E > < 05.
Sex of Respondent
The Longitudinal Study of Generations has somewhat higher participation
rates for females. Table 8 shows the percent of males and females in the youngest
three generations of the sample in 1997:
Table 8
Response Rates bv Sex for Youngest 3 Generations, in 1997
Male 43%
Female 57%
Figures 13 and 14 show the bivariate results of subjective perceptions of
stepparent groups by sex of respondent. Sex of respondent turns out not to be
significantly associated with perceptions of stepparents and ex-stepparents as family
and parent. We can see that the child’s sex has much less explanatory power than the
54
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sex of the stepparent or biological parent. Returning to my hypothesis, I summarize
results for sex of respondent:
Hypothesis: Males are more likely to perceive stepparents as family
members and parents than females.
For Stepparents, on “Family”: Not Supported
For Stepparents, on “Parent”: Not Supported
For Ex-Stepparents, on “Family”: Not Supported
For Ex-Stepparents, on “Parent”: Not Supported
Figure 13: Comparison of Means, Extent to
Which Stepparents and Ex-Stepparents are
Considered "Family," by Sex of Respondent
I Male n Female
4
3
2
1
* 2 < .05.
2.63 2.68
Stepparents (NS) Ex-Stepparents (NS)
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Figure 14: Comparison of Means, Extent to
Which Stepparents and Ex-Stepparents are
Considered a "Parent," by Sex of Respondent
■ Male ■ Female
4
3
2
1
2.08
1.98
Stepparents (NS) Ex-Stepparents (NS)
* e < .05.)
Variables that Reflect Legal Ties between the Parents
Marital Status History
For this variable, I dichotomized the stepparents into “cohabited only” or
“married.” The “married” category includes those stepparents who cohabited with the
parent before marrying as well as those who married without cohabiting first. Table 9
shows the percent of stepparents and ex-stepparents who fit into each group:
Table 9
Percent o f Stepparent Groups that Cohabited versus Married the Respondent’s Parent
Stepparents Ex-Stepparents
Cohabited Only 1 1 13
Married 89 87
56
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Here we see that only a small percent of stepparents and ex-stepparents
"cohabited only” with the parent-the great majority o f them married the parent (at
least eventually). Figures 15 and 16 show the bivariate results of subjective
Figure 15: Comparison of Means, Extent to
Which Stepparents and Ex-Stepparents are
Considered "Family," by Marital Status History
between Parent and Stepparent
B Cohabited only □ Mamed
4
2
1
Stepparents* Ex-Stepparents (NS)
* E < 05.
Figure 16: Comparison of Means, Extent to
Which Stepparents and Ex-Stepparents are
Considered a "Parent," by Marital Status History
between Parent and Stepparent
B Cohabited only □ Mamed
4
3
2
1
* E < -05.
2.12
1.3 1-36
Stepparents* Ex-Stepparents (NS)
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perceptions of stepparent groups by marital status history between the parent and
stepparent. The results are significant as expected for current stepparents. That is,
stepparents who married the parent were more likely to be seen as family members and
parents than those who cohabited only. This significant relationship does not hold for
ex-stepparents. Returning to my hypothesis, I summarize the bivariate results for
marital status history between the stepparent and parent:
Hypothesis: Adult children are more likely to perceive legally related
stepparents as family members and as parents than they are to view
cohabiting partners of parents as such.
For Stepparents on "Family'’: Supported
For Stepparents on "Parent”: Supported
For Ex-stepparents on "Family”: Not Supported
For Ex-stepparents on "Parent”: Not Supported
Current Versus Ex-stepparent Status
For this variable, I combined the current and ex-stepparents into one group and
created a variable that indicated whether a stepparent was a current or an ex-stepparent.
Table 10 shows the percent of all stepparents combined who fit into current or ex-step
categories.
58
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Table 10
Percent o f AH Stepparents Combined who fit into Current or Ex-Stepparent Categories
AH Stepparents, Current and Ex Combined
Current Stepparents 72
Ex-Stepparents 28
Do adult children view current stepparents and ex-stepparents differently on
family and parent dimensions? The frequencies and means seen thus far would suggest
that they do. When we combine the two groups into one large pool of all stepparents,
current status becomes a variable we can test statistically. Figures 17 and 18 show the
bivariate results of subjective perceptions of all stepparents by current or former-step
status. The results show that this variable is significant. That is, stepparents who
stayed together with biological parents are more likely to be considered family
members and parents than those who did not stay together with biological parents.
Returning to my hypothesis, I summarize the bivariate results for current versus ex
stepparent status:
Hypothesis: Adult children are more likely to view stepparents as
family members and parents when these relationships have not been
severed/compromised by a parent’s divorce or separation from the
stepparent.
For all stepparents (current and ex-) on Family: Supported
For all stepparents (current and ex-) on Parent: Supported
59
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Figure 17: Comparison of Means, Extent to
Which Stepparents are Considered "FA M ILY ,"
Comparing Those Whose Stepparents Stayed
with the Parent with Those Whose Stepparents
Divorced/separated from the Parent
g Stayed together cjDid not stay together
Figure 18: Comparison of Means, Extent to
Which Stepparents are Considered a "PARENT,"
Comparing Those Whose Stepparents Stayed
with the Parent with Those Whose Stepparents
Divorced/separated from the Parent
g Stayed together pDid not stay together
4
3
2.66
2
1
1.58
All Stepparents, including ex-stepparents*
* j j < .05.
4
3
2.02
2
1.34
1
All Stepparents, including ex-stepparents*
E < .05.
60
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Biological Parents-Divorce Contexts
The next set of variables apply to biological parents only. I created several
dummy variables to distinguish between those whose biological parents never
divorced, divorced when the respondent was a young child, divorced when the
respondent was an older child, or divorced when the respondent was an adult. Table 11
shows the percent of biological parents who fit into each category:
Table 1 1
Percent o f Biological Parents who fit various divorce contexts
Never Divorced 69
Divorced when Respondent was Age 0-10 14
Divorced when Respondent was Age 11-17 7
Divorced when Respondent was Age 18+ 7
Divorced. No age given 3
As was discussed earlier, the divorce rates of biological parents were much
higher for younger generations than they were for older generations. Viewed
altogether here, the divorce rates of parents may seem a bit low. This is because of
both the lower rates of divorce among the older generations, and the initial sampling
frame of the Longitudinal Study of Generations, which required the oldest and possibly
the second generation to be married at the 1s t wave of data collection in 1971. The
oldest two generations represent the parents of the G2s and the G3s, both groups that
are in my analyses.
Since the categories in Table 11 cannot be ranked (specifically, “never
divorced” cannot be ranked next to the other categories), I created dummy variables for
61
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each category except “divorce, no age given.” The means for each of these dummy
variables can be seen in Figures 19-26. Each category is tested against “everyone else”
(other) and tested for significance against that “other” group. Figures 19-26 show the
bivariate results o f subjective perceptions of biological parents by divorce context. The
results show that each divorce context is significantly different from the “other” catch
all group. I summarize the bivariate results for biological parents-divorce context:
Hypothesis: Of those adult children whose biological parents had
married, those whose parents had never divorced are more likely to
view biological parents as family members and parents than those
whose parents had divorced.
For biological parents, on “Family”: Supported
For biological parents, on “Parent”: Supported
Hypothesis: Of those adult children whose biological parents had
divorced, those whose parents divorced later in the child’s life are more
likely to consider their biological parents to be family members and
parents than those whose parents divorced earlier in the child’s life.
For biological parents, on “Family”: Supported
For biological parents, on “Parent”: Supported
6 2
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Figure 19: Comparison of Means, Extent to
Which Biological Parents are Considered
"FA M IL Y ," Comparing the Divorced with Those
Who Did Not Divorce
□ Divorced g Did not Divorce
3.57 3.95
Biological Parents*
* E < .05.
Figure 20: Comparison of Means, Extent to
Which Biological Parents are Considered a
"PA R EN T," Comparing the Divorced with Those
Who Did Not Divorce
□ Divorced (^Did not Dtorce
_ _
4
3
2
1
* B < .05.
T3F
Biological Parents*
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Figure 21: Comparison of Means, Extent to
Which Biological Parents are considered
"FA M ILY ," Comparing Those who Divorced by
the Time the Respondent was 10 to Those of All
Other Ever-married Biological Parents
a Divorced by Age 10 pother
Biological Parents*
* B < .05.
Figure 22: Comparison of Means, Extent to
Which Biological Parents are Considered a
"PARENT," Comparing Those who Divorced by
the Time the Respondent was 10 with Those of
All Other Ever-married Biological Parents
□ Divorced by Age 10 g Other
Biological Parents'
* f > < .05.
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Figure 23: Comparison of Means, Extent to
Which Biological Parents are Considered
" F A M IL Y ,'* Comparing Those Who Divorced
When the Respondent was Between the Ages of
11 and 17 with Ail Other Ever-married Biological
Parents
B Divorced between ages 11-17 g Other
3.61
3.85
Biological Parents*
* g < .05.
Figure 24: Comparison of Means, Extent to
Which Biological Parents are Considered a
PARENT," Comparing Those Who Divorced
When the Respondent was Between the Ages
of 11 and 17 with All Other Ever-married
Biological Parents
g Divorced between ages 11-17 g Other
3.3a
3.77
Biological Parents*
* E < .05.
65
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Figure 25: Comparison of Means, Extent to
Which Biological Parents are Considered
“FAM ILY," Comparing Those Who Divorced
When the Respondent was an Adult (over 18)
with All Other Ever-married Biological Parents
_ Divorced when over age 18 g Other
Biological Parents'
* E < .05.
Figure 26: Comparison of Means, Extent to
Which Biological Parents are Considered a
"PARENT," Comparing Those Who Divorced
When the Respondent was an Adult (over 18)
with Those of A ll Other Ever-married Biological
Parents
H Divorced when over age 18 ■ Other
Biological Parents*
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Variables based on Contextual Factors
Generation
The generation variable is my proxy for historical change. Each generation
differs from the next by an average of 23 years. Table 12 shows the mean age of survey
participants, by generation:
Table 12
Mean Age o f Survey Participants, bv Generation (N = 1603)
Generation 2 (G2)
Generation 3 (G3)
Generation 4 (G4)
In looking at responses from three generations of adult children, there are
increases in rates of parents divorcing, cohabiting, remarrying, and re-divorcing with
each subsequent generation (not shown). Given the higher rates of parents’ serial
monogamy reported by the younger generations, it is not surprising that the percent of
respondents with stepparents goes up with each subsequent generation. Table 13
shows the percent of respondents reporting stepparents, by generation:
Table 13
Percent o f Respondents reporting Stepparents (including ex-stepparents, bv Generation
G2 28%
G3 30%
G4 50%
These percentages may be somewhat different from the national averages for
these age groups, as this is not a nationally representative sample. The general trend
67
69
45
22
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applies, however-higher rates of divorce and re-coupling among the younger
generations. In all, a total of 557 respondents (35% of the three generations) reported a
total of 983 stepparents. These stepparents included (living and deceased) stepparents,
former (ex-) stepparents, cohabiting partners of parents, ex-cohabiting partners of
parents, and adoptive stepparents. All the above are included in the analyses, except
adoptive stepparents. This is because respondents were told to answer differently if
they had been adopted. As a result, we do not have all the independent variables of
interest for adoptive stepparents. Fifty-one adoptive stepparents were thus excluded
from these analyses.
Figures 27 and 28 show the bivariate results of subjective perceptions of parent
groups by generation. The results are significant for stepparents, in the general
direction I anticipated. Younger generations reported perceiving stepparents more
highly on family and parent dimensions, when compared with older generations. This
pattern did not hold toward ex-stepparents. (Note that very few independent variables
were significant for ex-stepparents, as there were fewer of them reported and the
dependent variables were highly skewed.)
Returning to my hypothesis, then, I summarize results for generation:
Hypothesis: Younger generations will be more likely to view
stepparents as family members and parents than older generations.
For Stepparents, on “Family”: Supported
For Stepparents, on “Parent”: Supported
68
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For Ex-Stepparents, on " ‘Family”: Not Supported
For Ex-Stepparents, on “Parent”: Not Supported
Figure 27: Comparison of Means, Extent to
Which Stepparents and Ex-Stepparents are
Considered "FA M ILY ," by Generation
pG 2 |jG 3 g G 4
4
3
2
1
Note. For stepparents. G3s are not significantly different from G2s or G4s. but G2s
and G4s are significantly different from each other.
* 2 < .05.
Figure 28: Comparison of Means, Extent to
Which Stepparents and Ex-Stepparents are
Considered a "PARENT," by Generation
■ G2 gjG3 g] G4
Stepparents* Ex-Stepparents (NS)
Note. For stepparents, G2s and G3s are not significantly different from each other,
but both are significantly different from G4s.
* 2 < .05.
Stepparents'
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Normative Solidarity. This is a composite variable, created from 8 attitude
items and condensed into “’ low” and “high” levels of general obligation toward family
members. (See Chapter 2, Measures Section, for specifics on the creation of this
variable.) Table 14 shows the percent of respondents who fit into each category.
Table 14
Percent o f Respondents in each level o f Normative Solidarity, bv Parent Group
Biological Parents Stepparents Ex-Stepparents
Low 22 22 22
High 78 78 78
Here we see that respondents tend to have high levels o f normative solidarity.
Further, we can see that there is virtually no difference on aggregate level of normative
solidarity among respondents answering about various types of parents. Normative
solidarity seems to play out in different ways with different parents, however. Figures
29 and 30 show the bivariate results of subjective perceptions of parent groups by level
of normative solidarity. The results show that this variable is significant for
stepparents, on both “family” and “parent” dimensions. It is not significant on either
dimension for ex-stepparents. It is significant for biological parents, but only on the
“parent” dimension. I summarize the bivariate results for level of normative solidarity:
Hypothesis: Adult children who express high levels of obligatory
attitudes toward family will be more likely to consider stepparents and
parents as family members and parents than those who express lower
levels of obligatory attitudes toward family.
70
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For Stepparents on “Family”: Supported
For Stepparents on “Parent”: Supported
For Ex-Stepparents on “Family”: Not Supported
For Ex-Stepparents on “Parent”: Not Supported
For Biological Parents on “Family”: Not Supported
For Biological Parents on “Parent”: Supported
Figure 29: Comparison of Means, Extent to
Which Various Parent Groups are Considered
"FA M ILY ," by Respondents' Levels of Normative
Solidarity
m Low □ High
a 79 3.84
Stepparents* Ex-Stepparents Biological Parents
(NS) (NS)
*2 < .05.
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Figure 30: Comparison of Means, Extent to
Which Various Parent Groups are Considered a
"PA R EN T,” by Respondents' Levels of Normative
Solidarity
B Low s High
4 3.68 3.75
3
2
1
Stepparents* Ex-Stepparents Biological Parents*
(NS)
* e < .05.
Attitudes Toward Step-relatives
There were three variables that were included at the 1997 wave of data
collection that dealt with the respondent’s general attitudes toward steprelatives. These
did not hang together in a scale, so were included in the analyses as single items. As is
obvious in Table 15, responses to these attitude questions were skewed. Respondents
were quite “inclusive” in their general attitudes toward step-relatives.
72
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Table 15
Respondents’ General Attitudes Toward Step-relatives
Attitude Items
Percent o f Respondents
with stepDarents who
agree
Percent o f Respondents
with ex-stepDarents
who agree
When a parent remarries, children
ought to do all they can to welcome
step-relatives into the family. 84 81
It is important to promote feelings of
kinship between step-relatives. 85 81
Step-relatives are not the same as
“real” family; they can never be as
close as biological relatives.
15 16
Figures 31-36 show the bivariate results of subjective perceptions of stepparent
groups by responses to each of these attitude questions. In general, the results show
significant association with “family” and “parent” dimensions among those with
stepparents. None of the attitude variables was significant on family and parent
dimensions toward ex-step-relatives. I summarize the bivariate results for stepfamily
attitudes:
Hypothesis: Adult children who express high levels of obligatory
attitudes toward stepfamilies in general will be more likely to consider
stepparents as family members and parents than those who express
lower levels of obligatory attitudes toward stepfamilies.
Attitude I : When a parent remarries, children ought to do all they can
to welcome step-relatives into the family.
For Stepparents on “Family”: Supported
73
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For Stepparents on " ‘Parent”: Not Supported
For Ex-stepparents on “Family”: Not Supported
For Ex-stepparents on “Parent”: Not Supported
Attitude 2: It is important to promote feelings of kinship between step-
relatives.
For Stepparents on “Family”: Supported
For Stepparents on “Parent”: Supported
For Ex-stepparents on “Family”: Not Supported
For Ex-stepparents on “Parent”: Not Supported
Attitude 3: Step-relatives are not the same as “real” family; they can
never be as close as biological relatives.
For Stepparents on “Family”: Supported
For Stepparents on “Parent”: Supported
For Ex-stepparents on “Family”: Not Supported
For Ex-stepparents on “Parent”: Not Supported
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Figure 31: Comparison of Means, Extent to
Which Stepparents and Ex-Stepparents are
Considered "FA M ILY ," by Level of Agreement to
the Attitude: "When a parent remarries, children
ought to do all they can to welcome step-
relatives into the family."
B Agree g Disagree
Stepparents* Ex-Stepparents (NS)
* B < .05.
Figure 32: Comparison of Means, Extent to
Which Stepparents and Ex-Stepparents are
Considered a "PA R EN T," by Level of Agreement
to the Attitude: "When a parent remarries,
children ought to do all they can to welcome
steprelatives into the family."
B Agree B Disagree
Stepparents (NS) Ex-Stepparents (NS)
* B< -05.
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Figure 33: Comparison of Means, Extent to
Which Stepparents and Ex-Stepparents are
Considered "FAMILY," by Respondent's Level of
Agreement to the Attitude: "It is important to
promote feelings of kinship between step-
relatives."
BAgree □Disagree
Stepparents* Ex-Stepparents (NS)
* E < .05.
Figure 34: Comparison of Means, Extent to
Which Stepparents and Ex-Stepparents are
Considered a "PARENT," by Respondent's Level
of Agreement to the Attitude: "It is important to
promote feelings of kinship between step-
relatives."
B Agree p Disagree
3
2
1
2.07
1.69
Stepparents*
1.33 1-35
Ex-Stepparents (NS)
* E < .05.
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Figure 35: Comparison of Means, Extent to
Which Stepparents and Ex-Stepparents are
considered "FAMILY," by Level of Agreement to
the Attitude: "Step-relatives are not the same as
'real* family; they can never be as close as
biological relatives."
BAgree □Disagree
4
3
2
1
* B < .05.
Figure 36: Comparison of Means, Extent to
Which Stepparents and Ex-Stepparents are
Considered a "PARENT," by Level of Agreement
to the Attitude: "Step-relatives are not the same
as ’real* family; they can never be as close as
biological relatives.”
B Agree q Disagree
4
3
2
1
* a < .05.
1.68
2.07
1.15
1.36
Stepparents* Ex-Stepparents (NS)
2.23
2.73
1.38
1.62
Stepparents* Ex-Stepparents (NS)
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Divorce or Widowhood Context
This variable distinguishes between a divorce or widowhood context that
preceded a stepparent’s entry. This is established by determining whether the original
biological parents were widowed or divorced from each other. Table 16 shows the
percent of stepparent groups who fit into each context:
Table 16
Percent o f Stepparent Groups that were preceded bv a parent’s widowhood or divorce
Stepparents Ex-Stepparents
Widowed 14 9
Divorced 86 91
This table shows that the great majority of stepparents came into the
respondent’s lives after the divorce of the respondent’s biological parents. Figures 37
and 38 show the bivariate results of subjective perceptions of stepparent groups by
divorce or widowhood context. The results show that this variable is not significant for
stepparents or ex-stepparents, on either “family” or “parent.” I summarize the bivariate
results for divorce or widowhood context:
Hypothesis: Stepparents whose relations with a child’s parent began
after that parent was widowed are more likely to be viewed as family
members and as parents than stepparents whose relations with a child’s
parent began after that parent’s divorce.
For Stepparents on "Family”: Not Supported
For Stepparents on “Parent”: Not Supported
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For Ex-stepparents on “Family”: Not Supported
For Ex-stepparents on “Parent”: Not Supported
Figure 37: Comparison of Means, Extent to
Which Stepparents and Ex-Stepparents are
Considered "FAM ILY,” by Whether Stepparent
Entry was Preceded by a Parent's Divorce or
Widowhood
□ Divorced g Widowed
4
3
2
1
* £ < .05.
Figure 38: Comparison of Means, Extent to
Which Stepparents and Ex-Stepparents are
Considered a "PARENT,” by Whether Stepparent
Entry was Preceded by a Parent's Divorce or
Widowhood
□ Dtorced g Widowed
4
3
2
1
Stepparents (NS) Ex-Stepparents (NS)
* £ < .05.
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2-69 2.59
Stepparents (NS) Ex-Stepparents (NS)
Control Variables
Respondent’s Household Income
Inclusion of this variable is an attempt to control for social class on some level.
This variable is problematic because it includes the older generation (G2s), who are
mostly retired and thus may have lower incomes than during their working years. It
also includes the youngest generation (G4s), some of whom still live with their parents
or are in school full-time. Since the age range of respondents is so broad, life course
issues regarding retirement and dependence are at play here. It might be hypothetically
more appropriate to include past household income during the time when respondents
were young children. But that would raise a number of sticky issues-use household
income from before the biological parents’ divorce? After the divorce? After the
parent remarried? Which parent? That said, those variables aren’t available, even if I
could determine which one to use. I have no specific hypothesis regarding
respondent’s household income. In Table 17,1 present the percent of respondents in
each income category, by parent group.
Table 17
Percent o f Respondents in Household Income Categories, bv Parent Group
Stepparents Ex-Stepparents Biological Parents
$0 - 19.999 22 20 16
$ 2 0 K -49.999 34 14 33
S50K - 89,999 27 39 19
S90K.+ 17 27 31
N 516 199 2491
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I’m not sure why these income distributions vary so much across parent groups.
It could be that this data reflects generational differences in family structure. Also note
that the same respondents could be in all three groups-the groups are not mutually
exclusive.
Figures 39 and 40 show the bivariate results of subjective perceptions of parent
groups by respondents’ household income level. Household income is not significant
for either stepparents or ex- stepparents, on “family” or “parent.” It is significant for
biological parents, however. Those in the higher two household income categories are
likely to rate their biological parents higher on “family” and “parent.”
Figure 39: Comparison of Means: Extent to
Which Various Types of Parents are Considered
"FA M ILY ," by Household Income of the
Respondent
□0-19,999 a 20K-49.999 □50K-89.999 H90K+"
. 3.78 3.78 3 88 3.86
4
3
2
1
Note. For biological parents, the lowest two groups are significantly different from
the highest two groups.
* E < .05.
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2.6 2.62 2-71 2.71
1
1.45 1.46 I- 38 168
Stepparents (NS) Ex-Stepparents Biological Parents*
(NS)
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Figure 40: Comparison of Means: Extent to
Which Various Types of Parents are Considered
a "PA R EN T," by Household Income of
Respondent
□ 0-19,999 n 20K-49.999 a 50K-89,999 H90K+
4 3.64 3.67 3 8 3 8 1
3
2
1
Note. For biological parents, the lowest two groups are significantly
different from the highest two groups.
* e < .05.
Parent/Stepparent Living
Since respondents were answering about both living and deceased parents and
stepparents, it seemed important to check whether answers about deceased stepparents
or biological parents differed in any significant way from living parents. In Table 18.1
show the percent of each parent group that is no longer living.
Table 18
Percent of Parent Groups that are Deceased
Stepparents Ex-stepparents Biological Parents
23 15 33
Figures 41 and 42 show the bivariate results of subjective perceptions of parent
groups by whether the parent is living. Living stepparents and ex-stepparents are not
perceived significantly differently from, those who have died. This justifies my
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2.19
2.04 1.98 ! gg
1.15
1.35 148 1.29
1
Stepparents (NS) Ex-Stepparents Biological Parents*
(NS)
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including the dead stepparents in the overall analyses. To remove the dead stepparents
would mean losing a good deal of the diversity across generational lines, since it is
mainly the parents and stepparents of the G2s who are deceased. For biological
parents, deceased parents are more likely to be rated higher on “parent” than living
parents. This significant association does not hold for biological parents on the family
dimension. Parent’s living status is controlled for once again in the multivariate
analyses.
Figure 41: Comparison of Means: Extent to
Which Various Types of Parents are Considered
"FA M ILY ,” by Living Status of the Stepparent or
Parent
gAlive gNot Alive
3.83 3.83
Stepparents (NS) Ex-Stepparents Biological Parents
(NS) (NS)
* E < .05.
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Figure 42: Comparison of Means: Extent to
Which Various Types of Parents are Considered
a "PA R EN T," by Living Status of the Stepparent
or Parent
g Alive gNot Alive
4 3.71 3.79
3
2
1
Stepparents (NS) Ex-Stepparents Biological Parents*
(NS)
* e < .os.
Biological Parents-Generation
Figures 43 and 44 show the bivariate results of subjective perceptions of
biological parents by generation. We see that younger generations were likely to rate
biological parents lower on family and parent dimensions when compared with older
generations.
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Figure 43: Comparison of Means: Extent to
Which Biological Parents are Considered
"FA M ILY ," by Generation
■ G2 B G3 q G4
3.85 3.86 3.76
3
2
1
Biological Parents*
Note. G2s and G3s are not significantly different from each other, but both
are significantly different from G4s.
* E < .05.
Figure 44: Comparison of Means: Extent to
Which Biological Parents are Considered a
"PA R EN T," by Generation
gG 2 gjG3 q G4
3.84 3.76 3.6
4
3
2
1
0
Biological Parents*
Note. Each generation is significantly different from the other.
* B < -05.
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Biological Parents-Sex of Respondent
Figures 45 and 46 show that while there was no difference on the family
dimension, males were more likely to consider their biological parents “parents” than
females were. 1 do not have a ready explanation for this association.
Figure 45: Comparison of Means: Extent to
Which Biological Parents are Considered
"FA M ILY ," by Sex of Respondent
□Male q Female
3.85 3.82
Biological Parents (NS)
* 2 < .05.
Figure 46: Comparison of Means, Extent to
which Biological Parents are considered a
"PARENT", by Sex of Respondent
□Male gjFemale
3.78
Biological Parents*
* 2 < .05.
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Education
I did some preliminary analyses of the association between education and
perceptions of parents as family members and parents. I did this in the spirit of
controlling for social class status. I have not shown the results here because they were
for the most part not significant and the variable is problematic for the fourth generation
respondents. G4s have the highest rates of stepparents and ex-stepparents among the
generations. Yet, approximately half of them are under the age of 23. Thus, they
cannot have had time to complete their educations, assuming that a decent proportion of
them are attending college. G4s are as young as 16, so the young ones would not have
even had a chance to finish high school yet. Given these complications of age, I have
decided not to show bivariate results of education or to use education as a control
variable in the multivariate analyses.
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CHAPTER 4
MULTIVARIATE RESULTS
In this chapter, I present multivariate findings predicting adult children’s
perceptions of stepparents and biological parents as “family” and “parents.” This
analysis does not assume that family perceptions will align themselves by blood or
law, although for many people that may in fact be the outcome. I am more interested
in showing the social, legal, and contextual factors that contribute to emergent
identifications of who are viewed as “family” and “parent” among stepparents and
biological parents.
Conceptual Models & Rationale for Hierarchical Regression
As is evident from the literature review and hypotheses, there are a number of
explanatory factors that I expect to be related to adult children’s subjective perceptions
of parents. I have also developed conceptual models that show how each factor fits in
with the other factors. In Figure 4 7 ,1 present a conceptual model of adult children’s
family definitions with stepparents, ex-stepparents, and cohabiting partners of parents.
In Figure 4 8 ,1 present a conceptual model of adult children’s family definitions with
biological parents. These models look similar to path analysis diagrams. They are not
meant to be used that way, though. I am not interested in calculating coefficients for
all the mediating variables. Rather, I am primarily interested in determining what
factors predict subjective perceptions of family ties, controlling for other factors.
According to the literature as well as logic, some of the independent variables are a
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driving force preceding some of the other independent variables. As a result, for each
conceptual model, I am using hierarchical logistic regression to introduce the
independent variables in three groupings. The initial equation will establish the
significance o f several demographic factors. Each subsequent equation will reveal
what factors drop out or continue to be significant. Factors that start out as significant
and then drop out in a later equation should be explainable by the new factors just
introduced.
The rationale for the conceptual models should be fairly clear, given the
literature review and hypotheses presented in the previous chapter. I will give a short
overview here as well.
Stepparent Analysis and Results
In Figure 4 7 ,1 show linkages between the sex of the stepparent, the age when
acquired the stepparent, and the length of co-residence with the stepparent. Due to the
fact that biological mothers are more likely to have residential custody following
divorce, stepfathers will be more likely to co-reside with stepchildren than
stepmothers. That is, as long as the stepparent comes into the picture when the child is
young. The impact of these dynamics on perceptions of “family” and “parent” may
play out more heavily through the length of co-residence variable than on their own.
Historical change (measured using generation) is likely to play a role in
increases in parents' cohabitation and divorce rates. It may also play a role in general
attitudes about family obligation (normative solidarity).
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Parents’ marital status histories are expected to affect the duration of
relationships with various types of stepparents. General familistic attitudes are likely
related to more specific obligatory attitudes toward stepfamily relatives. '"Stepparent
alive” and “household income” are control variables only.
These basic ideas inform the conceptual model, which will be tested in 4
equations. The first equation includes the first column, the second includes the first
two columns, and the third includes the independent variables from all three columns.
A fourth equation adds an interaction term, current or ex-stepparent status by length of
co-residence. I have added this interaction term into the last stepparent equation to
account for differences in magnitude on certain variables. I expected that the length of
co-residence would need to be higher for ex-stepparents in order to overcome the
dampening effect of becoming an ex-stepparent.
In the analysis for stepparents, I have combined the current stepparents and ex
stepparents into the same equations. The rationale for this is that the conceptual model
predicting perceptions of stepparents is basically the same for both groups.
Combining the current and ex-stepparents into the same equations has the added
benefit that I can test the significance of current (versus ex-stepparent) status in the
analysis. This would not be possible if I kept the two groups separate.
I show standardized regression coefficients for the hierarchical multiple
regression equations predicting the extent that stepparents are considered family
members in Table 19. Equation I shows the effects of the variables from the Is t
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column of the conceptual model. None of these are significant predictors of family.
The significant bivariate relationships between (I) generation and family perception,
and (2) sex of stepparent and family perception are no longer significant Sex of
respondent, living status o f the stepparent and household income are not significant
predictors of adult children’s perceptions of stepparents as family members.
For Equation 2 ,1 have added in the variables from the second column in the
model. We see that sex of stepparent is once again significant. Stepfathers are more
likely to be considered family members than stepmothers. This makes sense in light
o f the fact that I’m now controlling for the age of stepparent entry. Since I’m not yet
controlling for co-residence, we may be seeing the effect of stepchildren who lived
with their stepfathers when they were younger. Other factors are also significantly
associated with perceptions of stepparents as family members-being legally married to
the parent, being a current stepparent, and having higher levels of normative solidarity.
Variables that were not significant included respondent’s sex. generation, stepparent
being alive, household income, age of stepparent entry, and divorce versus widowhood
context.
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Table 19
Standardized Multiple Regression Coefficients Predicting the Extent that Stepparents are
Considered "FAMILY” (includes ex-stepparents^ N = 771
Equation 1 Equation 2 Equation 3 Equation 4
Stepparent Female -0.039 -0.089* -0.000 0.005
Respondent Female 0.04 0.011 0.022 0.023
Generation -0.01 -0.025 -0.034 -0.037
Stepparent Alive -0.02 0.077 -0.005 -0.015
Household Income 0.01 0.018 0.041 0.042
Age of Stepparent Entry -0.087 0.077 0.072
Cohabited or Married 0.123** 0.136*** 0.137***
Divorce or Widowhood 0.007 -0.029 -0.027
Ex-Stepparent (0) or Current
Stepparent (I) 0.465*** 0.420*** 0.484***
Normative Solidarity 0.125** 0.109** 0.108**
Length of Co-residence 0.346*** 0.572***
Duration of Relationship 0.043 0.039
“Welcome” attitude 0.048 0.048
“Promote” attitude 0.065 0.075
“Real” anitude -0.118** -0.115**
Current/Ex x Length of Co-
Residence -0.255*
R 2 .003 .23***
39***
.40***
* £ > < .05. **fi <.01. ***e < .001.
For Equation 3 ,1 have added the variables from the 3rd column of the
conceptual model. We see that the stepparent being in a current relationship with the
parent is the variable with the greatest amount of explanatory power in the model,
followed by the length of co-residence. In addition, we see that sex of the stepparent
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is no longer a significant predictor. This suggests that what matters more than the
gender of the stepparent is whether the child lived with the stepparent. Being married
to the parent and having a high level of normative solidarity remain significant
predictors of considering the stepparent “family” as well. In addition, one stepfamily
attitude is significant-disagreeing with the attitude "step-relatives are not the same as
'real’ family-they can never be as close as biological relatives” is a significant
predictor of viewing the stepparent as “family.”
In Equation 4 ,1 introduce the interaction term “current stepparent status by
length o f co-residence.” The results are similar to Equation 3, but the variable with the
greatest amount of explanatory power shifts to the length of co-residence (from current
stepparent status). The interaction is significant and negative, implying that ex
stepparents derive a greater boost in family perception than current stepparents do
from longer co-residence with their stepchildren. Variables that were not significant
include the newly introduced “duration of relationship,” two of the stepfamily attitude
variables, divorce versus widowhood context, respondent’s sex, generation, stepparent
living, and household income.
Now we turn to Table 20, showing multivariate results for perceptions of
stepparents as parents. Equation I contains two significant predictors: generation and
whether the stepparent is alive. Adult children are more likely to view stepparents as
parents when they are from a younger generation and when the stepparent is deceased.
Perhaps we are seeing a “halo effect” toward deceased stepparents here? The
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significant bivariate relationship between sex of stepparent and perception of
stepparent as "parent” is no longer significant. As with the bivariate results, the sex of
respondent and household income are not significant predictors.
In Equation 2, stepparents were more likely to be considered "parents” if they
were male, married to the parent, a current stepparent, and the adult stepchild was high
on normative solidarity. An additional variable that was not significant for the family
dimension but was significant for "parent” was the age of stepparent entry-earlier
acquired stepparents were more likely to be viewed as parents than later-acquired
ones. This makes sense, in that the idea of "parent” is likely more heavily associated
with childhood than the idea of “family.” Generation and the stepparent being alive
are no longer significant predictors of stepparents as parents, as they were in the 1s t
equation. The dropping out of generation is understandable, since variables associated
with generation have now been brought in. Also, the "halo effect” of perceiving dead
stepparents more highly on “parent” has disappeared. Divorce or widowhood context
was also not significant. This is not surprising at this point, as this variable was not
significant at the bivariate level.
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Table 20
Standardized Multiple Regression Coefficients Predicting the Extent that Stepparents are
Considered a “PARENT" (includes ex-stepparents).
N = 769
Equation 1 Equation 2 Equation 3 Equation 4
Stepparent Female -0.070 -0.112** 0.005 0.005
Respondent Female -0.006 -0.023 -0.030 -0.029
Generation 0.114* -0.048 -0.047 -0.047
Stepparent Alive -0. 120* 0.044 -0.041 -0.043
Household Income -0.026 -0.009 -0.006 -0.005
Age of Stepparent Entry -0327*** -0.111 -0.113
Cohabited or Married 0.125** 0.II2** 0.112**
Divorce or Widowhood 0.052 0.011 0.011
Ex-Stepparent (0) or Current
Stepparent (I) 0.387*** 0.304*** 0.316***
Normative Solidarity 0.133*** 0.128** 0.128**
Length of Co-residence 0.400*** 0.442***
Duration of Relationship 0.035 0.034
“Welcome” attitude -0.013 -0.013
“Promote” attitude 0.033 0.034
“Real” attitude -0.103* -0.102
Current/Ex x Length of Co-
Residence -0.048
R2 .02* 34*** .36*** 36***
*p < 05. **£ < .01. ***£ < .001.
In Equation 3, length of co-residence is significant and has the highest
magnitude of all the independent variables. This is different from Equation 3 on
family in which current stepparent status has the highest magnitude. The sex of the
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stepparent is no longer significant. As in Equation 3 on family, the dropping off o f
stepparent’s sex as a significant factor is likely associated with the introduction of the
co-residence variable in this equation. Being married to the parent, being a current
stepparent, and having a high level of normative solidarity are all significant predictors
as well. One stepfamily attitude is significant: disagreeing with the attitude “step-
relatives are not the same as 'real’ family-they can never be as close as biological
relatives” is associated with higher ratings of stepparents as ’‘parents.” Age of
stepparent acquisition is not significant, as it was for parent perception in the 2n d
equation. Other variables that are not significant include the duration of relationship,
two of the stepfamily attitude variables, divorce versus widowhood context,
respondent’s sex, generation, stepparent living, and household income.
It is interesting that sex of stepparent and the age of stepparent entry drop out
as predictors of perceptions of stepparents in the third equation. 1 suspect it has to do
with the fact that length of co-residence was added into Equation 3. In results not
shown, sex of stepparent and age when stepparent was acquired played a significant
role in predicting the length of co-residence with stepparent. That is, adult children
were more likely to have co-resided with stepfathers than stepmothers. They were
also more likely to co-reside with a stepparent as minor-age children than as adult
children.
In Equation 4 ,1 introduce the interaction term “current stepparent status by
length of co-residence.” The interaction between current stepparent status and length
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of co-residence is not a significant predictor of parent perception, as it was for family
perception in Equation 4. This may have something to do with the fact that the
dependent variable for “parent” is more skewed than the dependent variable for
“family.” As with the final equation predicting family perception, this final equation
predicting parent perception shows that length of co-residence has the highest
magnitude of all of the independent variables. The stepfamily attitude that was
significant in Equation 3 on parent is no longer significant here. Thus, the significant
variables in the end for parent turn out to be the length of co-residence, being a current
stepparent, having a high level of normative solidarity, and the stepparent being
married to the parent.
With quite similar results and the same model of prediction for both
perceptions of stepparents as “family” and “parent,” one might wonder if these two
dependent variables are highly co-related. Indeed, they are co-related at a level of .77.
Although this co-relation is very high, we can see from the results that there are a few
differences in what independent variables are significant as well as differences in the
magnitude of the standardized coefficients.
Based on the final equations for family and parent perceptions of stepparents, I
now return to the hypotheses and indicate whether the data supports them.
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Table 21
Support for Hypotheses that apply to adult children’s perceptions o f their relationships
with Stepparents (including Ex-Stepparents), from the Multivariate Regression Results
Hypotheses based on Social Ties:
Timing of Stepparent Acquisition: Hypothesis: The earlier the acquisition of a stepparent, the
more likely an adult child will perceive that stepparent as a member o f the family and as a parent.
Extent Considered “Family”: Not Supported.
Extent Considered a “Parent”: Not Supported.
Duration of Relationship: Hypothesis: The longer the duration of parents ’ marriages/partnerships
with stepparents, the more likely that adult children will perceive those stepparents as members of
the family and as parents.
Extent Considered “Family”: Not Supported.
Extent Considered a “Parent”: Not Supported.
Length of Co-residence with Stepparents: Hypothesis: The longer the co-residence between
children and stepparents, the greater the perception of those stepparents as members of the family
and parents.
Extent Considered “Family”: Supported.
Extent Considered a "Parent”: Supported.
Sex of Stepparent: Hypothesis: Stepfathers are more likely to be considered family members and
parents than stepmothers.
Extent Considered “Family”: Not Supported.
Extent Considered a “Parent”: Not Supported.
Sex of Respondent: Hypothesis: Males are more likely to perceive stepparents as family members
and parents than females.
Extent Considered “Family”: Not Supported.
Extent Considered a “Parent”: Not Supported.
Hypotheses based on Legal Ties between the Parents:
Institutionalized marriage vs. Cohabitation: Hypothesis: Adult children are more likely to perceive
legally related stepparents as family members and as parents than they are to view cohabiting
partners of parents as such.
Extent Considered “Family”: Supported.
Extent Considered a “Parent”: Supported.
Current vs Ex-Stepparent Status: Hypothesis: Adult children are more likely to view stepparents as
family members and parents when these relationships have not been severed/compromised by a
parent s divorce or separation from the stepparent.
Extent Considered “Family^: Supported.
Extent Considered a “Parent”: Supported.
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Table 21
Support for Hypotheses that apply to adult children’s perceptions o f their relationships with
Stepparents ('including Ex-Stepparents’ ), from the Multivariate Regression Results
(continued)
Hypotheses based on Contextual Factors:
Historical Change - Generation: Hypothesis: Younger generations will be more likely to consider
stepparents as family members and parents than older generations.
Extent Considered “Family”: Not Supported.
Extent Considered a “Parent”: Not Supported.
Normative Solidarity: Hypothesis: Adult children who have high levels of agreement with Jamilistic
attitudes will be more likely to consider stepparents as family members and parents than those who
have lower levels of agreement with familistic attitudes.
Extent Considered “Family”: Supported.
Extent Considered a “Parent”: Supported.
Attitudes toward Steprelatives: Hypothesis: Adult children who agree with inclusive attitudes
toward stepfamilies in general will be more likely to consider stepparents as family members and
parents than those who disagree with inclusive attitudes toward stepfamilies.
Stepfamily Attitude#I (“Welcome”):
Extent Considered “Family”: Not Supported.
Extent Considered a “Parent”: Not Supported.
Stepfamily Attitude #2 (“Promote”):
Extent Considered “Family”: Not Supported.
Extent Considered a “Parent”: Not Supported.
Stepfamily Attitude #3 (“Real”):
Extent Considered “Family”: Supported.
Extent Considered a “Parent”: Not Supported.
Widowhood vs. Divorce: Hypothesis: Stepparents whose relations with a child's parent began after
that parent way widowed are more likely to be viewed as family members and as parents than
stepparents whose relations with a child’ s parent began after that parent’ s divorce
Extent Considered “Family”: Not Supported.
Extent Considered a “Parent”: Not Supported.
Biological Parent Results
Turning back to Figure 48, we see once again that I expect some relationship
between the sex of the parent, the timing of the parents’ divorce, and the length of co-
residence with biological parents. Since biological mothers are more likely to have
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residential custody of children following divorce, their levels of co-residence with
children will likely be higher than biological fathers, provided that the divorce
occurred in childhood. If co-residence is a major factor, the sex of parent and timing
of divorce may play into it.
Like the previous model, this model shows a relationship between generation
and (1) the likelihood of having divorced parents, and (2) general attitudes about
family obligation. The sex of respondent may play into normative solidarity as well,
in that females may have higher levels than males. Other studies have shown that
attitudes of family obligation differ by gender (Silverstein, Parrott, & Bengtson. 1995).
“Parent alive” and “household income” are control variables only. “Generation” and
“sex of respondent” are also control variables here.
These are the basic ideas behind the model, which will be tested in three
equations. The first equation includes the first column of variables, the second
includes the first two columns, and the third includes all the independent variables in
the model.
Next, I discuss the regression results for perceptions of biological parents as
family members and parents. As with the stepparent analysis, I used hierarchical
multiple regression to test the hypotheses. I regressed perceptions of biological
parents as family members and parents on variables that get at social, legal, and
contextual factors. I have added the variables in three groupings, according to the
model.
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I show standardized regression coefficients for the hierarchical multiple
regression equations predicting the extent that biological parents are considered family
members and parents in Table 22. Equation I shows the effects of the variables from
the Is t column of the conceptual model. Several of these emerge as significant
predictors of family: parent being female, generation being older, and household
income being higher. Respondent’s sex and biological parent being alive were not
significant predictors of biological parents being seen as family members.
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Table 22
Standardized Multiple Regression Coefficients Predicting the Extent that Biological
Parents are Considered “FAMILY” and “PARENT”. N = 2732
Equation 1 Equation 2 Equation 3
Family Parent Family Parent Family
Parent
Female
Respondent
Female 0.029
0.084*** Generation
Parent Alive 0.039
0.046*
Household
Income
Normative
Solidarity
Parents
Divorced
when aged 0-
10
Parents
Divorced
when aged
11-17
Parents
Divorced
when an
Adult (18+)
Length o f
Co-
Residence
R1 .02* * *
Parent
0.117*** 0.139*** 0.116*** 0.140*** 0.044*
-0.064**
0.137***
0.016
0.066***
.05***
- 0.010
0.026
0.033
0.016
0.019
-0.042*
- 0.012
0.002
0.032
0.034
-0.023
0.058*
0.014
0.027
0.017
0.070***
-0.055**
0.027
-0.016
0.037
0.041*
0.294*** 0.321*** 0.128*** 0.148***
0.153*** 0.186*** 0.087*** 0.136***
0.145*** 0.154*** 0.156*** 0.162***
0350*** 0356***
.12*** .16*** 31*** 36***
Note. * £ < .05. **fi < .01. *** a < .001.
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Equation I predicting perception of biological parents as parents shows similar
results. Mothers, older generations, and those with higher incomes were more likely
to be rated highly on the parent dimension. Respondent’s sex was also
significant-males were more likely to see biological parents as parents than females
were. Unlike the bivariate results, the biological parent being alive was not a
significant predictor of perception of biological parent as “parent.”
In Equation 2 ,1 add in normative solidarity, and a series of dummy variables
that get at the divorce context that applies to the biological parents. Starting with the
perception of biological parent as family, we see that a couple of the variables that
were significant in Equation I have dropped out. Generation is no longer significant.
This makes sense because it’s likely that the higher incidence of divorce is what’s
driving generational differences. Household income is no longer significant. As I had
no specific hypothesis for this variable anyway, this finding merely confirms that it is
not a crucial variable to consider. Mothers continue to be significantly more highly
rated on “family” than fathers, and respondent’s sex continues to be not significant.
Normative solidarity is not significant, nor is parent’s alive status. Each of the divorce
contexts are significant. Using as a comparison group those biological parents who
never divorced, each group of parents who were divorced are significantly different
from the comparison group and from each other. When we look at the magnitude of
the standardized coefficients, we can see that the earlier in children’s lives that the
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biological parents divorced, the greater the explanatory power in terms of lowering the
perception of a parent as a “family” member.
The results in Equation 2 for perceptions of biological parents as parents are
similar but not exactly the same as the results for “family.” Generation and household
income are no longer significant, as above. Mothers continue to be rated significantly
higher on family than fathers, and males were more likely to consider their biological
parents as parents than females were. Normative solidarity is not significant, nor is
parent’s living status. Each of the divorce contexts are significant. Compared with
biological parents who never divorced, respondents with divorced parents reported
significantly lower levels of biological parents being “parents.” Divorces that
occurred earlier in children’s lives were distinct from those that occurred later, and had
a greater negative effect on perceptions of biological parents as parents.
Equation 3 adds one additional variable-the length of co-residence. This turns
out to be a significant predictor of both family and parent perceptions, and also has the
most explanatory power of all of the independent variables. In the equation on family.
variables that were significant in Equation 2 remain significant. In addition,
generation re-emerges as significant. Note that controlling for length of co-residence
and divorce context, younger generations are more likely to consider biological
parents as family members than older generations. This is quite an interesting switch
from Equation I, in which older generations were significantly more likely to consider
biological parents family members. Another interesting thing to note here is that the
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magnitude of sex of parent drops considerably from Equation 2 to Equation 3. This is
obviously a result of adding length of co-residence into the equation. Sex of parent
continues to be a significant variable here, unlike in the analysis of stepparents where
it dropped out completely when co-residence was introduced. The magnitude of
childhood divorce contexts also decreases when co-residence is introduced. Since co-
residence with biological parents is less of an issue among children who are adults
when their parents divorce, it makes sense that the magnitude of the adulthood divorce
variable does not drop the way the childhood divorce variables do.
In Equation 3 on parent, variables that were significant in Equation 2 also
remain significant. In addition, normative solidarity is also significant here for the
first time. This indicates that when we control for the length of co-residence, those
with higher levels of normative solidarity are more likely to consider biological
parents as parents than those with lower levels of normative solidarity. We see similar
patterns to Equation 3 on “family” with regards to decreased magnitudes of sex of
parent and childhood divorce contexts. Length of co-residence emerges as the variable
with the greatest explanatory power.
Based on the final equations for family and parent perceptions of biological
parents, I now return to the hypotheses and indicate whether the data supports them.
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Table 23
Support for Hypotheses that apply to adult children’s perceptions o f their relationships
with Biological parents, from Multivariate Regression Results
Hypotheses based on Social Ties:
Length of Co-Residence with Parents: Hypothesis: The longer the co-residence between children
and biological parents, the greater the perception o f those biological parents as members o f the
family and parents.
Extent Considered “ ‘Family”: Supported.
Extent Considered a “Parent”: Supported.
Sex of Parent: Hypothesis: Biological mothers are more likely to be considered family members
and parents than biological fathers.
Extent Considered “Family”: Supported.
Extent Considered a “Parent”: Supported.
Hypotheses based on Legal Ties between the Parents:
Divorce vs Never Divorced: Hypothesis: Of those adult children whose biological parents had
married, those whose parents had never divorced are more likely to view biological parents as
family members and parents than those whose parents had divorced
Extent Considered “Family”: Supported.
Extent Considered a “Parent”: Supported.
Later Divorce vs Earlier Divorce: Hypothesis: Of those adult children whose biological parents
had divorced, those whose parents divorced later in the child’ s life are more likely to consider their
biological parents to be family members and parents than those whose parents divorced earlier in
the child's life.
Extent Considered “Family”: Supported.
Extent Considered a “Parent”: Supported.
Hypothesis based on Contextual Factors:
Normative Solidarity: Hypothesis: Adult children who have high levels of agreement with familistic
attitudes will be more likely to consider biological parents as family members and parents than
those who have lower levels ofagreement with familistic attitudes.
Extent Considered “Family”: Not Supported.
Extent Considered a “Parent”: Supported.
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CHAPTER 5
QUALITATIVE INTERVIEW METHODS
Survey analysis yields a certain amount of insight- With a topic as complicated
as this, however, survey results are limited in their ability to reveal complicated family
dynamics and practices. The goal of this part of the dissertation was to explore the
range of adult children’s perceptions of stepparents in more detail. Semi-structured
interviews allowed me to ask participants questions about what was behind their
diverse perceptions of stepparents, and enabled me to ask about the feelings and
behaviors that went along with the cognitive assessments of parents revealed in the
surveys.
In this chapter. I begin by describing the interview sample design and
substitution procedures. I then present interview procedures and questions. Last, I
describe the analysis procedures I used.
A Bird’s Eye View of the Sample of Stepparents
To understand my interview sample, it is first necessary to look at the structure
of the sample of stepparents as a whole. This will illustrate how adult children’s
perceptions of stepparents as family members and parents played out together. The
following table shows a cross-tabulation of how all the stepparents in the sample
(including ex-stepparents, and stepparents acquired in adulthood) were perceived on
the dimensions of family and parent.
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Table 24
Frequency Distribution o f how Ait Stepparents (including Ex-Stepparents’ ) were perceived.
on Family and Parent Dimensions
Extent Perceived as a “PARENT’
Not at
all
A Little Quite a
Bit
Fully Total Row
Percent
Extent
Perceived
Not at all
A Little
248
129
2
45
1
2
0
0
251
176
33%
23%
As
“FAMILY”
Quite a
Bit 48 54 53 3 158 20%
Fully 19 18 48 102 187 24%
Total 444 119 104 105 772 100%
Column
Percent 58% 15% 13% 14% 100%
This table shows that stepparents were likely to be considered more highly on
the family dimension than on the parent dimension. Respondents were unlikely to
rate their stepparents highly on the parent dimension if they rated them on the low end
of the family membership scale. It also shows that over half of the sample of
stepparents are not considered family members and parents at all. There is quite a bit
of diversity in the responses.
Interview Sample Design and Substitution Procedures
Because of the tremendous variety of types of stepparents, I sought to narrow
the scope of stepparents I was inquiring about. I decided to focus on stepparents from
divorced families, since that is the most common type. Further, I required that
stepparents enter into the adult child’s life sometime during childhood. This allowed
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me to focus on longer-term stepparents, who I assumed adult children would have
more to say about than short-term stepparents. The stepparents had to have eventually
married the adult child’s parent, be living and still married to the parent at the time of
the survey. Table 25 shows the shows a cross-tabulation of how the stepparents in
this sub-sample were perceived on the dimensions of family and parent. The interview
selection groups are highlighted.
Table 25
Frequency Distribution o f how Current. Legally Married. Living Stepparents, acquired in
Childhood after a Parent’s Divorce, were perceived, on Family and Parent Dimensions,
with interview selection groups highlighted.
Extent Perceived as a “PARENT”
Not at all A Little Quite a
Bit
Fully Total Row
Percent
Extent Not at all
20 0 0 0 20 13%
Seen
A Little 16 8 0 0 24 15%
As
"FAMILY”
Quite a
Bit 5 22 22 0 49 31%
Fully
1 3
4 17 41 65 41%
Total 44 34 39 41 158 100%
Column
Percent 28% 22% 25% 26% 100%
With the above criteria as a starting point, I narrowed the sample further using
a statistically non-representative stratified sample design (Trost, 1986). I further
required that the relationship between the biological parent and stepparent be of a
duration of at least 5 years. I also required that the interviewees be in the third or
fourth generations. This put interviewees in the age range between 20-50. I came up
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with four categories that reflected the diversity of responses in the surveys. Four types
of interviewees were selected: (1) those who viewed the stepparent as fiillv family and
fullv a parent; (2) those who viewed the stepparent as fiillv family but not at all a
parent; (3) those who viewed the stepparent as quite a bit or a little for both family and
parent; and (4) those who viewed the stepparent as not at all family and not at all a
parent. Rather than focusing on central tendencies, this design enables me to
understand more about the dynamics of stepfamily relationships across the range of
the sub-sample. For each of four interview groups, I stratified the sample by both the
sex of the stepparent and the sex of the respondent. This design allows comparison
across perception groups, gender of participants, and gender of stepparents. It would
have yielded 16 respondents as long as there were respondents to fit each of the
criteria. See Table 26 for a summary of the interview selection criteria.
Using the above design, I set out to determine which survey participants fit into
the categories. Using a computer generated list of participants that met the basic
criteria, I made a list of the survey participants that qualified for each of my 16 slots.
Two of the categories turned out to be more common and two were less common. The
more common categories included the fiillv familv/fullv a parent group and the quite a
bit/a little on both family/parent group. The less common categories included the fullv
familv/not at all a parent group and the not at all familv/not at all a parent group.
There was at least one survey participant for each slot except one-a female
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Table 26
Interview Sam ple D esign
Baseline Interview Criteria: ( I) Biological parents divorced. (2) A stepparent came into the picture during the participant’s childhood.
(3) The stepparent and the parent legally married, and were still married at the time o f the survey. (4) The stepparent and parent have
been in a relationship for at least five years. (5) Participants are from the 3'd and 4th generations. (6) The stepparent was still living at the
time o f the survey.
Stepparent viewed as “fully” family
and as “ fully” a parent
Stepparent viewed as “not at all”
family and as “not at all” a parent
Male Interviewee Female
Interviewee
Male
Interviewee
Female
Interviewee
C u rre n t
S tep p aren t
(still married
to the parent)
Male Stepparent
1 1 1 1
Female
Stepparent 1 1 1 1
Stepparent viewed as “ fully” family
but as “not at all” a parent
Stepparent viewed as “quite a bit” or
“a little” for both family and parent
Male Interviewee Female
Interviewee
Male Interviewee Female
Interviewee
C u rre n t
S tepparent
(still married
to the parent)
Male Stepparent
1 1 1 1
Female
Stepparent 1 1 1 1
o
interviewee who viewed a male stepparent as fullv family but not at all a parent. This
brought my sample down to 15 interviewees, rather than the 16 reflected in the design.
When more than one survey participant qualified for the interview sample, I
used a systematic procedure to narrow the group. I established preference in the
following order: (1) Third generation participant who was local (within two hours
drive of USC), (2) Fourth generation participant who was local, (3) Third generation
participant who was not local, and (4) Fourth generation participant who was not local.
If there was more than one local person in a category, I chose the one that was
geographically closer. If the geographic distance was about equal, I chose the
participant who was older. I did not request an interview for more than one person in
a family. (“Family” here refers to the sample design of the Longitudinal Study of
Generations, which contains 300+ three- and four-generational family lines.)
Using the above procedure, I selected the first group of 15 and sent them a
letter requesting an in-person interview (if they were local) or a phone interview (if
they were geographically more than 2 hours away). I then followed up with a phone
call a couple of weeks later. Ten of the 15 accepted and set up either an in-person or
phone interview with me. For the remaining 5 slots, I could not reach 4 of the people,
and received one refusal. Using my above criteria, I selected alternates and procured 3
additional agreements to an interview. For the remaining 2 members of the sample. I
could not reach the 1st alternate but did receive an acceptance from the 2n d alternate.
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The final sample consisted of 6 G3s and 9 G4s. I did 8 in-person interviews and 7
phone interviews.
Interview Procedures and Questions
I began each interview by constructing a family genogram that depicted the
participant’s parents’ marital history and parent-child relationship structure.
Interviews were tape recorded so that they could be listened to and transcribed later.
All interviewees agreed to be tape recorded. The following table shows the questions I
asked in each interview:
Table 27
Interview Questions
1. What makes a family, in your opinion? Who’s in your family? How have your views on these
changed over time?
2. What makes a parent, in your opinion? Who are your parents? How have your views on these
changed over time?
3. Describe your relationship with your biological parents. What do these relationships mean to you
at this particular time?
4. Describe your relationship with [the stepparent].
Do you have a relationship [with stepparent] that is independent of your relationship with
your biological parent?
5. Describe the history of your feelings toward this person.
(Probe: love, anger, disappointment, pride, judgements...)
6. How do you think this person feels about you now, and felt about you in the past? (Probe as
above.)
7. If you were to introduce someone to [the stepparent], how would you introduce him/her? How
would [the stepparent] introduce you? How has this changed over time?
8. What do you call [the stepparent]? How did this develop?
9. You indicated on your survey that you [did or did not] consider this person to be part of your
family. Would you elaborate about why you answered as you did?
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Table 27
Interview Questions (continued)
10. Compare [the stepparent’s] investment in you and his/her investment in his/her biological
children (if applicable).
11. What do you talk about with this person? Are there any topics of conversation that you avoid?
How about in the past? What kind of activities do you share with this person? How often?
Visits? Phone calls, letters? Celebrating holidays, birthdays?
Gift exchange? Help and support? What kinds?
12. Do you display photos somewhere? If so. is this person displayed in them?
13. How available do you think [the stepparent] would be if you needed some kind of help?
14. How available do you think you would be if [the stepparent] needed some kind of help?
15. If biological parent is still living with/married to stepparent:
If your [biological parent and stepparent] were to divorce, do you think you’d continue a
relationship with [stepparent]? If so, why? If not. why not?
16. What would you have changed about the relationship if you could have changed anything?
17. Are you included as often as you want to be in family gatherings that involve this person?
Describe the last family event you attended.
Describe the last family event you attended that involved the stepparent’s extended family.
Do you feel ties with these people?
18. What advice would you give to others who are becoming stepchildren? To those becoming
stepparents?
19. Were there any custody or legal issues in your family’s situation? If so, what advice would you
give to policymakers?
20. What have I missed? Is there anything about your experience with [stepparent] that you’d like
to tell me?
Analysis Procedures
My approach to analyzing the finished interviews involved several procedures.
I reflected upon and wrote reaction notes immediately following each interview. I
listened extensively to the recordings, identifying interesting or prevalent or surprising
themes. I did not limit my analysis to information about the focal stepparent; if the
interview participant had other stepparents, I incorporated information about them as
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well. I condensed each interview into what I felt were the most important details. I
created lists of what I felt were the most significant categories and grouped them into
broader thematic areas. Finally, I created an interpretation that linked each theme to
one of four sociological dimensions: family inclusiveness across stepfamily
boundaries, life course dynamics, gender dynamics, and flexible/voluntary kinship.
The ideas that guided the qualitative analysis came primarily from Kvale (1996) and
ongoing communication with committee member Judith Stacey. Each theme is
developed in the following chapter, where I report the results.
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CHAPTER 6
QUALITATIVE RESULTS
In this section, I present themes that emerged from the qualitative interviews. I
focus on social factors that facilitated or inhibited stepparents being seen as family
members and parents by their adult stepchildren. I have organized this material into
four broad subject areas: (1) Family Inclusiveness across Stepfamily Boundaries, (2)
Life Course Dynamics, (3) Gender Patterns, and (4) Flexible and Voluntary Kinship.
Family Indusiveness across Stepfamily Boundaries
Colleen Johnson, in her book Ex-Familiaf 1988. p. 15), gives an excellent
definition of the concept of “boundary”:
the concept here refers to sociological dimensions such as the
degree of separateness or connectedness between social units, whether
they be households or individuals performing social roles or conducting
relationships. Boundaries between units may be flexible, open, and
loose permitting freedom and change, or they may be tightly structured
and impermeable, resulting in a unit characterized by stability and
immunity from outside influences.
This concept is precisely what I am trying to get at with this theme of
inclusiveness across stepfamily boundaries. I will highlight 3 sub-themes that
emerged from the analysis: (I) Cultures of Inclusiveness, (2) Stepchild Rejection and
Resistance to Inclusive Patterns, and (3) Parent/Stepparent Conditional Inclusion.
Cultures of Indusiveness
This is where permeable boundaries of family are taken for granted. Inclusion
is not defined strictly by biology or law.
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One way that this type of culture was evident was in Randy’s family. His
stepmother had been a stepchild herself, and was used to being enveloped into a large,
inclusive, extended stepfamily. The vacation home of one of her step-relatives
provided an ongoing meeting place where many relatives could interact. Randy and
his sister became accustomed to this culture through visits with their father and
stepmother.
When my dad married Janice they have kind of the same situation.
Janice’s parents, they both were previously married, they both had kids
and then they came together and it was like the Brady Bunch you know,
they had six or seven kids in their household. Then that extends out
like you know, unbelievable and so they’re all over the country and I
think it just kinda evolves you know. I think there was a point in time
where I stopped and said “wow, you know, my vision of family has
changed.”
In sharing details with their mother and stepfather of these visits, this
atmosphere of inclusiveness seems to have become infectious. An appealing idea that
was powerful, this is evidence that intergenerational transmission can go both ways
(parent to child, and child to parent).
W h**n I think about it, you know, my sister and I would go down with
my dad and Janice to Redondo and spend the week down there and then
we’d come back and talk about whatever we did, and I think that my
mom and stepdad and whoever else we told would be kinda like, wow
But then eventually, they began to accept it, that hey, you know
what, that’s just an extended family down there.
Randy reports how his stepfather adopted inclusive behavior as well:
I think a big thing is he always took us, my mom and him, every
summer we went on a vacation for like two weeks somewhere, and that
was cool and we still talk about that I think that’s a big part, taking
your family out and not necessarily spending thousands of dollars.
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Like we’d take a six-wheel trailer and go to Montana and Colorado and
drive around for like two weeks and go fishing and do whatever.
When I asked him who would go on these trips, he replied:
All of us, my stepsisters and me and my sister and my stepdad and
mom. So we’d all go. We’re all pretty close.
Another way that a culture of inclusiveness was evident was in Jane’s family.
In her case, numerous o f her biological parents and grandparents had divorced and
remarried. The step-relatives were fully integrated into family life, and sometimes
were experienced more keenly as family members than biological family members
were.
Steps in my family get a lot of respect. My [stepjgrandpa Bill’s
father-he was my grandpa Paul and grandma Mary— they were really
good grandparents, too, and I see them as total grandparents. Where,
blood relatives sometimes just don’t measure up. They just, hang back.
And the stepparents just jump in there with all force and just give you
all the love, the attention, and the affection that you need.
Jane takes her own inclusion in stepfamily gatherings for granted. She even
experienced the parents of her step-grandparents to be '‘real” grandparents to her.
From her perspective, strong relationships with step-relatives can take precedence over
weaker relationships with biological relatives.
I always thought it was really strange that-my dad’s side of the family
was all divorced . . . but yet we are still a family. But it’s just so funny,
we think o f my grandma Mary-she’s my step-great grandmother.
And I would rather invite her to my wedding than my Aunt Cloe who is
actually my blood relative. You know, or I miss Grandpa Bill like, like
nobody else. And he was a step, but yet he was there, and he gave so
much more than any real blood relative could ever give, or even parent.
Grandpa Bill was more of a grandparent than my grandma Christa still
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is. I mean, she still doesn’t measure up to how good he was . . . and she
was blood, and he wasn’t!
A different example of this culture of inclusiveness is evident in Joseph’s
family. Joseph had almost no contact with his father after his parents divorced when
he was very young. He actually spent many of his younger years with his maternal
grandparents. He had not even known that his father had remarried and had additional
children until he was in his later teens. Upon turning 18, Joseph initiated contact with
his father. He found that for years, his stepmother had been fostering an inclusive
atmosphere about him among his half-siblings.
She’s a very family oriented person and she knows that she has, with
Jack, they have three children and I happen to be . . . over here. I think
she would love it if we were all together. I think that she’s had, there’s
been times where she’s mentioned to me that they would’ve preferred
as I was growing up and I was very little, it would’ve been nice had I
been with their three children and we were growing up as a family__
even my brother and sisters had brought it up that they had talked about
it... before I even knew them.
We see here that the inclusive attitude of the stepmother had sown the seeds for
his inclusion, though this was not activated until he became an adult. This inclusive
approach pertained to him specifically.
Sometimes evidence of a culture of inclusiveness can be seen even after a
stepparent’s death. Jeremy’s stepfather died, and left his estate equally to his
biological children and stepchildren (four of each) in a trust fund that would activate
once his wife (Jeremy’s mother) died. This particular stepfather, while alive, had
“■claimed” his stepchildren as his own:
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Yeah he made me feel definitely part of his family, he told me that too
He told us all that, yeah— he didn’t have a problem expressing
emotion at all.
Another example in Jeremy’s family involves maintaining close ties with ex-
children-in-Iaw. Jeremy’s maternal grandparents maintain close relations with
Jeremy’s father, years after he and their daughter had divorced.
My mom’s parents, my grandma and grandpa that lived across the
street, even after my mom and dad got divorced they’ve had a long
term relationship with my dad and Carlie. Which I thought was great,
you know, cause my grandpa and dad were firemen, had a lot in
common and they helped each other build our houses, but my mom
kind of resented it a little bit. My grandpa and my dad had a
relationship you know for years before, it wasn’t like it just ended—
which I thought was cool.
Stepchildren’s Reiection/Resistance to Inclusive Patterns
Children can also resist or reject a high level of inclusiveness coming from
their stepfamilies. Several interviewees reported that they were included more often
than they preferred to be in family gatherings that involved the extended relatives o f
the stepparent.
Oh, I felt real comfortable. Yeah, very comfortable, I mean, I was
family and I ... liked her family . . . I probably would’ve rather be
other places but, you know, with family obligations. (Victoria)
I have always been very welcomed in the family, I never felt
unwelcomed at all. It wasn’t, they always welcomed me with open
arms in anything we were going to do. So as far as the ties are
concerned, yes. However, I don’t think very well of these people or
very highly of them on a regular basis. They tend to make very poor
life choices. They don’t value education very much. They tend to
enjoy making many babies at a very young age before they’re willing
to, before they’re even able to support them. Strange. They tend to
pick fights. And I don’t understand that I don’t understand why
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(laughs) anyone in life enjoys fighting so much. So yes, I feel very
included, but more included than I would like to be. (Percy)
It’s possible in these families that an inclusive family culture was introduced
too late to take hold as a powerful aspect of these children’s family lives. It’s also
possible that personality factors are relevant here. It’s further possible that we see the
"intergenerational stake” at play here-the idea that children are interested in
establishing separate identities for themselves from their parents, while parents are
interested in affirming the closeness o f their ties with children and stepchildren (see
Giarrusso, Stallings, & Bengtson, 1995, for a thorough discussion of the
intergenerational stake hypothesis). Randy’s description o f his situation seems to fit
this pattern.
I’m like twenty-five, I’m in my heyday and I don't think so (laughs),
I’m not gonna come over, my life’s got other plans and that’s
evolved also, so you go from twenty-five and then I got married . . .
now. I’ve got a family and like we’re gonna spend the Fourth of July at
the house in Crystal Bay with them and all these people. So, it kinda
goes through stages.
The previous example suggests that life stage may play into a child’s level of
enthusiasm about engaging in activities with a stepparent’s extended family. As the
child passes from one stage to another, his or her openness to stepfamily inclusion
may change.
Regardless of the specific reasons, it seems important to note that children are
not always receptive to an inclusive culture coming from the stepfamily, and that they
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may be largely responsible for a relatively weak extension of family feelings toward
the stepparent and extended stepkin.
Parent/Stepparent Conditional Inclusion
Sometimes inclusion “rules” are seen by the adult child as dysfunctional or
unfair. A couple of the interviewees had broken the rules o f inclusion, and
experienced estrangement toward the parent and stepparent as a result.
Catherine would once have considered her stepmother to be fully “family” and
hilly a “parent.” Abandoned by her biological mother when she was a teenager.
Catherine and her brother were absorbed into the household of her father, stepmother
and stepsisters. For many years thereafter, her stepmother promoted the notion that
her children and her husband’s children were “all the same.” Catherine wanted very
much to be loved and accepted and says that for many years she allowed her
stepmother to control her emotionally. As the stepmother was the most active parent
in the situation, Catherine wanted to believe that she was as much a part of the family
as her stepmother’s biological children. Throughout her adult years, however,
Catherine began to notice that despite the rhetoric of all the kids being equal, that very
unequal effort and contact was taking place.
And I was tired of the fact that what came out of her mouth was never
equal to . . . the treatment. And one day I was up visiting and her and
Penny had gone shopping and, Ralph and I had been back in Idaho
Falls for about a year and a half, and I said to her, I said, “How come
you and Penny never invite me to go shopping?” And she turned and
she said to me, and to me it just summed up exactly where I stood with
her, was she said, “Oh, I guess we forget you still live here.”
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This realization contributed to Catherine’ s becoming depressed, and she sought
therapy to alleviate this. Through her therapy, she realized a number of things-
And in the course of my therapy, I was in therapy for about a year and a
half, I came to the realization that I was a stepchild. I had always been
a stepchild. There was no way that Jessica loved me like she did Penny
and Natasha and that it was okay It was okay for her not to feel
for me like she did for her own kids. But what was unacceptable to me
was I was tired of the rhetoric out of her mouth, that I was the same as
them. And that any time that my behavior didn’t meet her standards as
far as my position in the family, she’d pick up the phone and tell me
what a bad person I was. And through therapy I came to the realization
that I allowed her to manipulate me and to make me feel bad about
myself and that, that was a lot of the basis for my depression.
Abruptly, she stopped making effort toward her stepmother and father, which
prompted a confrontation from the stepmother. (The therapy was significant here in
that Catherine had not been as aware of the kinship rules in the family until she had
explored these issues with her therapist.)
We went to a neutral ground. And she told me that she thought I was
seriously ill, emotionally, and that I needed to be on medication. And I
just looked at her with absolutely no feeling and no emotions in my
face. And she, it clicked with her that she no longer had control over
me anymore. She could no longer sway me in any way. She could no
longer make me jump . .. . And she picked up on it and she started
hyperventilating . . . once we got inside the car, she just started ranting
and raving and told me that she thought that I was a self-centered little
prima donna and a snotty little bitch that she wanted nothing more to do
with. Those were basically her exact words.
At the time of the interview, Catherine described herself as “persona non grata”
to her stepmother. (Persona non grata is a latin term meaning “unwelcome”.) She saw
her current estrangement from her stepmother being a result of the fact that she was no
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longer willing to abide by the unwritten rules of the situation that required her to make
all the effort of kinship.
Another example illustrates a similar dynamic of an adult child breaking the
rules of inclusion and therefore becoming estranged from the stepmother and father.
Mitch reported a rocky history with his father who drank excessively and physically
beat Mitch throughout his childhood. As an adult, Mitch had worked to establish a
positive relationship with his father, as well as his stepmother and half-sister. This
relationship healing seemed to be working, until Mitch and his wife violated unspoken
rules of family inclusion by answering Mitch’s half-sister’s questions about what
things were like with her father before she was bom. (Prior to this incident, Mitch had
been comfortable with this unspoken condition of kinship.) The sister went home and
asked her parents about this, prompting a complete breakdown of family ties toward
Mitch. His stepmother threatened him with legal action, then (along with Mitch’s
father and half-sister) moved away and did not let Mitch know where they were living.
They have had nothing to do with him since, and Mitch does not expect he’ll see his
father or stepmother again before they die. This story, along with Catherine's, shows
the fragility and conditionality of some long-term relationships with parents and
stepparents, and the ensuing rifts that can occur when unwritten rules of family
inclusion are broken.
In this section, I have tried to show that a culture of inclusion can be passed
down across multiple generations and from one parent/stepparent to another through
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children. Both (step)parents and children are active agents in creating or inhibiting
inclusive ties across stepfamily lines. Sometimes kinship inclusion is experienced as
conditional upon certain behaviors of the child, which may or may not be seen as
acceptable over time. Intergenerational transmission of inclusiveness across
stepfamily lines may or may not be far-reaching.
Life Course Dynamics
As previously discussed in Chapter 1, the life course perspective highlights the
fact that lives are linked from the micro level of individual and family to the macro
level of society and history. As young and middle aged adults, several of my
interview participants were very focused on the raising of their own children. For the
most part embedded in multigenerational family networks, their comments revealed
the impact that this endeavor had on their relationships with their stepparents.
This section highlights two broad themes-fl) factors related to being in a
childbearing/childrearing stage in one’s life, and (2) the importance of the duration of
relationships.
Factors Related to Being in a Childbearing/child-rearing Stage in One’s Life
Some of the interview participants mentioned modeling their own parenting or
stepparenting on the parenting style of the stepparent- A couple of them were
expecting a child at the time of the interview. In anticipating becoming a parent, these
individuals found themselves becoming aware that their stepparent of the same sex
was a significant role model for their own upcoming parenting.
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The first example of this is Percy. The realization that he planned to pattern
his parenting on his stepfather’s example prompted him to re-write his definition of his
stepfather to acknowledge that he had been more of a parent-like figure than Percy had
previously realized.
The process of becoming a father is very exciting and scares me to
death all at the same time. So I was especially concerned when I
thought of myself as not having a father figure . . . what kind of father I
would make, and what kind of role model I would be to my child. . . .
I recognize that. . . if I’m going to be patterning my fatherhood
personality handling situations after him, that means he must have been
a father figure to me in some form.
Also expecting a child, Mindy told me that she appreciates her stepmother as
an example of different values and behaviors than her biological mother has. She sees
her stepmother as another example and role model that she can learn from, especially
in terms of raising her child.
Because I’m pregnant and so I call her and talk to her about that. I
mean, she’s had two girls and she raised them more traditionally than
my mother has, so, I’ll call her and ask her about things like budgeting
for dinners and stuff because when its just the two of us, we just go out
a lot. But if there’s gonna be somebody else, I may need to know about
things like that.
Stepparents can also provide a positive example on which to model one’s own
stepparentine. Mitch was an example of this. He viewed his stepfather as transmitting
a style of stepparenting that worked, and emulated this with his own residential
stepchildren. His stepfather had given him two rules when he was a teenager, which
he repeated with his stepchildren: (I) make your bed in the morning, and (2) if you’re
out drinking, don’t drive-call home for a ride. Also like his stepfather, he approached
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his stepchildren with friendship first, and let that be the avenue to more of a family
feeling between them. This seems to have worked out really well.
We see here how interaction or anticipated interaction with their own children
could serve as an opportunity to reflect upon and appreciate the “parenting” or
“stepparenting” that a stepparent had offered over the years.
A second aspect related to being in a child-rearing stage in one’s life pertains
to how the stepparent is seen as a full grandparent to the adult child’s children. For
Jeremy, his stepparents’ involvement with his children is a key reason why he views
them highly as parents to himself. His focus is on raising his kids, and he appreciates
his stepparents’ efforts to play a positive role in the life of his children. This came out
when I asked him to elaborate on why he had indicated on his survey that his
stepparents were fully parents to him. when verbally he had only mentioned his
biological parents as his parents. Here’s what he had to say:
Well my parents, my father’s seed and my mother’s egg-that’s what I
consider my parents. I consider the family deal since it’s the extended
family, the others are considered parents because they’re part of that
extended family-and yeah it wasn’t like it was an exclusive thing
when— it was my dad I wouldn’t just be with my dad, I would be with
my dad and Carlie. If it was my mom I wouldn’t just be with my mom,
I would be with my mom and Ben. And, I think cornin’ down to them
both being parents is because they’re my kids’ grandparents, you know.
And that definitely makes them parents there somehow, right? That’s
how I get that rationale.
When I asked Jeremy if he would answer differently if he didn’t have kids, he
said he thought he would. So here we see that the grandparent role that his stepparents
play is the kev reason why he considers them fully as parents.
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Although none of the others linked their survey answers so explicitly to their
stepparents’ grandparenting of their children, several others mentioned this as a
significant factor in their relationships:
She’s treated me just like one of her children. And I couldn’t have
asked for anything more than that. And she’s treated my children just
like her own grandkids. And she’s their step-grandmother obviously.
(Joseph)
“He loves my kids and he treats them like they’re his own grandkids.”
(Randy)
Loyalty to the stepparent based on his/her care and concern for step-
grandchildren can also play out when the adult child isn’t the actual parent to the
children. Natalie describes how her stepfather’s acceptance and love toward her
sister’s children (bom out of wedlock) helped her to feel a closer bond to him as well.
She left home at 18 and had her kids and even though she had kids
without being married-that was one thing too that kind of solidified her
relationship with Harold-because he was never judgmental ever and
totally accepted her children as his grandchildren without any question
or doubt at all and her kids all-1 mean there’s just-this is grandpa and
that’s all there is to it.
It’s probably significant that in each of the above situations, the step-
grandparent had been around for the entire life of each of the grandchildren. This can
be attributed to my sampling design, in which only adult children with long-term
stepparents acquired in childhood were selected. Dynamics may be different when a
step-grandparent gets introduced to an older child who has already developed a sense
of family membership.
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Another common pattern here is that the adult child will call the stepparent by
his or her first name, whereas the norm is that the minor-age children of the adult child
call the step-grandparent by “grandma,” “'grandpa,” or something equivalent. An
example of this is Jeremy:
All my kids and all my brothers’ and sisters’ kids, all the kids called
him grandpa and grandma and the same with Carlie and Tom are
grandma and grandpa. So they have that title as far as the grandma &
grandpa are concemed-and he would always introduce my children as
their grand-kids.
So we see that the adult stepchild’s observance of kinship behavior in a
multigenerational context contributes to his or her own sense of direct kinship. An
indirect reiationship-that between one’s stepparent and one’s minor-age
child-becomes the basis of subjective kinship felt on a direct level between oneself
and one’s stepparent. On the other hand, when relations are not good to begin with
between the adult child and the stepparent, the opportunity does not arise for the step-
grandparent to be involved in the child’s life at all. So, perhaps we should not
overstate the indirectness of the relationship too much. Suffice it to say that when
relations are positive between an adult child and his/her stepparent, that stepparent’s
active involvement as a grandparent to the stepchild’s child can help to solidify and
cement the relationship with the adult stepchild as well.
The Duration of Relationships
Many of the interviewees described an initial reluctance or resistance on their
part toward an inclusive relationship with their stepparents. They explained this by
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focusing on several issues-associating the stepparent with the unraveling of their
former life, feeling that the stepparent “tried too hard,” and disliking when the
stepparent quickly took on a disciplinary or directing role toward them. In about half
of the interviews, it became clear that the development of kinship feelings toward the
stepparent had taken some time. Many of these relationships had started out
tentatively, and had warmed and solidified over the years. These adult children
described how over time a friendship feeling had evolved into more of a family
feeling, or how stepparents had weathered tough times in the family and remained
committed, or how their own notions o f family boundaries had become more lenient.
This observation supports the idea, tested in the quantitative analysis, that a
longer duration of relationship contributes to family ties with stepparents. Recall that
duration was associated with family and parent perceptions of current stepparents but
not ex-stepparents. This significant bivariate relationship seems to have been
overshadowed in the multivariate analyses by the length of co-residence. But length
of co-residence in its own way seems to be getting at a particular type of duration as
well. The fact that duration has emerged as a theme in the interviews adds credence to
the hypothesis that this is indeed an important factor in these relationships. With the
exception of the four relationships in the “not at all family/not at all a parent”
category, the trend described was definitely toward warmer and more inclusive
relationship perceptions toward stepparents across time. This even applied to the
interviewees in the “not at all” group, but toward non-focal stepparents.
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Gender Patterns in These Stepfamilies
As gender was a key organizing principle of my sampling design for the
interviews, I had ample opportunity to notice gender patterns in these families. Like
the quantitative analyses, the sex (and corresponding gendered behavior) of the parents
and stepparents had much more explanatory power than the sex of the studv
participant. In this section, I highlight five main themes: (I) the persistence of
traditional gender roles in the care of minor-age children, (2) stepmothers as
"kinkeepers,” (3) the renegotiation of relationships with biological fathers, once
children reached adulthood, (4) gendered co-residence patterns as an explanation for
differential investment toward biological children and stepchildren, and (5) the
gatekeeping prerogative that mothers can use to limit a stepfather’s authority over the
child.
Traditional Gender Roles
Women’s leadership and labor in the realm of child care has been well
documented in research (Hochschild, 1989). As is customary these days, the great
majority of the adult stepchildren I interviewed lived with their mothers while they
were growing up. A few lived for some period of their childhoods with relatives on
the maternal side, and four of the 15 lived Mi-time with biological fathers and
stepmothers during some part of their later teen years. That said, the bulk of
residential custody and care was carried out by biological mothers. In this section,
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however, I want to focus on the gendered aspects of child care that stepmothers
engaged in, when these stepchildren visited or were living full-time with them.
One might think that in a visitation or co-residential situation with biological
fathers and stepmothers, the fathers would take leadership in the guiding and care of
their children. This did appear to be the case for Victoria, who moved in with her
father and stepmother when she was 16. Aside from this one case, however, the
general picture that emerges is that stepmothers were the lead actors in the monitoring
and directing of activities, and the nurturing and disciplining of these children. This
was somewhat surprising to me, given that these children’s longer-term primary ties
were to their biological fathers. The following examples show how the gender
imbalance in the guidance and daily care of children tended to persist despite
biological fathers’ longer term relationships and biological ties with their children that
their wives did not have.
She was such a traditional disciplinarian, she would be the one who say
go wash your hands, stop chewing gum in the house, put your sweater
on, put your socks. Then it was a matter o f... if I do this what’s gonna
happen If I’m good and I obey all the rules, is she still gonna be
nice or is she just gonna put more rules on m e ? I found that she
liked me. (Mindy)
Well, she was one of the one’s that was the director, you know. When
we were with them— she was the authoritarian figure Always did
what you were told-didn’t you? (Jeremy)
But I considered Hannah my mom, you know, not my real mom,
but you know, she was around long enough and she was a
disciplinarian and a comfort and guidance and everything when I was
young... almost more so than my dad. My dad’s the quiet type and
he didn’t do a lot of disciplining or guidance or whatever when I
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was there. But Hannah did a lot more of that actually. You know, for
that... I just really love her, she’s like my second mom. (Caroline)
My stepmother was always telling me do’s and don’t’s. Don’t do this,
do that, act like this. I didn’t like that— it was bad enough that my
grandmother was telling me to “stand up straight”. And she would say,
“Don’t flush the toilet like this; flush like this-flush it with your foot so
you don’t have to touch it.” I remember this and oh, I remember we
went out to Farrell’s and dinner had just come over and we ate and the
check came by and I had picked it up, and she goes, “A lady never
picks up the check.” So I was just ooooo go away! (Jane)
My relationship with my father has always been through a woman.
When my parents were first separated and divorced, when my father
would ever come pick us up to take us and spend time with us he was
never by himself. He always had a woman with him He, to this
day, I don’t really believe that my father is capable of having a
relationship with a female other than his wife. . . . And so, my
relationship with my stepmother was one in which obviously, we
moved into her home and then she became sort of responsible for every
aspect of our lives. And then my father was working six days a week,
he was home every other night. So we were basically her responsibility
along with her own two children. (Catherine)
Stepmothers as Kinkeepers
Sociologists and anthropologists who study gender relations have often noted
that women tend to do the "kinkeeping” in our society (di Leonardo, 1992; Hagestad.
1986; Johnson, 1988). A strong theme that emerged from my interviews was that of
stepmothers as kinkeepers. Often these women were very instrumental in facilitating
contact and inclusion between themselves, their husbands, his children, and her
children (if any). Actions included arranging the details of visits, initiating contact,
facilitating inclusion in larger family gatherings, remembering birthday and holiday
greetings and gifts, discussing emotional and personal life, giving affection and
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nurture, and providing various types of support. If we contrast the behavior of the
stepmothers and fathers with that of biological mothers and stepfathers, it becomes
clear that the women in each situation are usually the ones who take the lead in
kinkeeping behaviors.
In the following, I show how stepmothers sometimes are seen as being too
involved as parents, how over time they can become more primary than the biological
father in the life of the adult child, and how men also perform kinkeeping functions.
Stepmothers are sometimes seen by their adult stepchildren as having been
overly involved in the beginning. Jeremy’s experience is a good example of this. As a
child, he felt that his stepmother tried too hard to play the '‘mother role” rather than the
friend role. He didn’t like the extent to which she tried to guide him, “with authority
behind her” (his father).
Well you could just sense it was strained... she's trying to bend over
backwards-to fit in. You know-being an outsider trying to fit in-for
anybody would be a tough deal.
When he became an adult, this tension disappeared, since his stepmother
stopped trying to “parent” him. At this point the relationship became more
comfortable.
It has changed to a adult to adult relationship; it’s totally different...
then they can’t tell you what to do anymore___
To a certain extent, the dynamic of an overly involved stepmother might be
related to the already discussed easing into the relationship over a period of time. But
I think there’s more going on here than that. The perception of a stepmother trying too
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hard can be seen in light of the way women are encouraged to be extremely active in
parenting (mothering) in our society. This engaged energy and the presumption to
discipline the newly acquired stepchild can contribute to initial resentment on the part
of the child.
Due to their superior kinkeeping abilities, stepmothers can become more
primary to adult stepchildren over time than their biological fathers. This appears to
have happened for three of the interview participants.
For Mindy, her stepmother gets more points on the family scale than her father
because of the greater amount of energy her stepmother puts into the relationship.
If I were to rank them into . . . people who I consider my parents, you
know, Number One my parents, Number Two my parents, I think Paula
would still come above my father.. . as a stepparent I think she would
still come before my father as my parent. Where even if she doesn’t
put forth the physical effort I know she tries to push him to. So she
would still come above him in parents, in terms of who my parents are.
Catherine considers her father to be incapable of having a relationship with his
children except through a woman. As previously described, her relationship became
more primary with her stepmother, while her father remained distant and
uncommunicative.
The primacy of some stepmothers over biological fathers also became visible
when interviewees discussed their willingness to provide help if needed. For Joseph,
the extent that he expects he’d be there to help his stepmother differed sharply from
the extent he expected he’d be there to help his father. When I asked how willing he
would be to help his stepmother if she was in need, he snapped his fingers and said
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he’d help her with anything she needed. With his father, it wasn’t quite that
automatic. He would help him if he could, but wouldn’t sacrifice work time or
inconvenience himself as he would for his stepmother.
These examples show that the impact of a gender differential in kinkeeping can
have real consequences for love, support, and obligatory feelings between adult
children and their stepmothers and fathers.
Although women are much more noticeable as kinkeepers than men, three men
were notable for their kinkeeping behaviors as well. The behaviors of each of these
men likely contributed to a greater feeling of kinship ties across stepfamily lines. Two
of these were the interview participants themselves, and one is a stepfather to an
interviewee.
Randy, a member of one of the earlier mentioned families with a strong
atmosphere of inclusiveness, told me that he was organizing a family reunion to be
held for all the biological and steprelatives. This reunion will include relatives on the
stepfather’s and stepmother’s side, as well as step-relatives of the step-relatives.
Randy explains why it makes sense for him to plan this event:
We’re gonna have a family reunion in probably two years and . . . I’m
gonna put it on, it’s gonna [be] my entire stepmom, stepdad, the
entire shebang. It’s probably gonna be two hundred people there —
I’m not saying that we’re like the center of the family but just that we
have common ties to everybody and I know that everybody gets
along...
Expecting that over 200 family members will attend, Randy seems an excellent
example o f how some men perform kinkeeping functions.
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A second example is Mitch, another interview participant. Mitch described
how when he was a child, his biological parents had so much animosity toward each
other after they divorced that they refused to be in the same room together. This
applied to special events in the children’s lives, such as birthdays, graduations, and
weddings. Seeing a similar pattern between his wife and her ex-husband toward their
kids (his stepkids), Mitch determined that things would be different for his stepkids
than they were for him. Mitch helped to facilitate the development of a peaceful co
existence between his wife, her ex-husband, and the ex-husband’s new wife. They all
now spend holidays and birthdays together with the adult children, very harmoniously.
A third example of kinkeeping by men comes from Natalie about her
stepfather. Natalie describes how she and her sisters would squabble quite a bit
amongst themselves while they were growing up. Her stepfather introduced “family
discussion times,” during which grievances would be aired and resolved. The
stepfather acted in a peacekeeping and mediating fashion, helping his stepdaughters to
find solutions. The sisters were not allowed to go out on the weekend until conflicts
were discussed and resolved. Natalie gives her stepfather credit for his patience,
tolerance, and leadership in these difficult situations.
When we were growing up and... turmoil would happen in the family,
this crazy teenage stuff, he was the one that would instigate that we
would have these “family discussion” times and that was his doing ....
We would sit around the dining room table-and we were having too
many fights cause we would get into some really rip roaring fights. I
mean there were 4 of us girls, ail teenagers at the same time. You know,
“she stole my clothes, she did this thing”-you know it’s that kind of
stuff. And so it would get to the point that my mom was like pulling
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her hair out, and saying “I don’t know what to do,” cause she was
working — here are the 4 of us being maniacs so he said, “okay
we’re gonna have Friday after dinner, we’re all coming around the
same dining room table. No one’s going out until we sit and discuss
stuff.” And that was his idea, so-he’s a make peace, not war kind of
guy-
We can see from the above examples that men do participate in kinkeeping.
That said, the interviews revealed that kinkeeping behavior is usually performed by
women, and can have a far-reaching impact on kinship in stepfamilies.
Renegotiation of Relationships with Biological Fathers
Ingrid Connidis (a sociologist who specializes in family and aging) argues that
perhaps the greatest implication of increased longevity of life is the renegotiation that
can take place between adult children and their parents (2001). This resonates with
my study, as renegotiation was evident in a number of my interviews, toward
biological fathers. After divorce, a number of the biological fathers played a very
reduced role in the lives of these interviewees. Some of the interviewees re
established contact in adulthood, or initiated contact for the first time. The
stepmothers could become an important part of this process, often facilitating contact
and helping the child to feel comfortable.
Jane, a woman in her mid-20s, told me that from the ages of 10-24, she felt no
sense of family. Though she had lived with her mother after her parents’ divorce, she
viewed the mother as more of a friend than a family member, and she saw little of her
father and stepmother during adolescence. In the past several years, she has
completely re-engaged in a family way with her father and stepmother. She told me
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that “he kind of weaseled his way back in” to her life, after she viewed him as a “non
entity” for a period of time. Despite her remoteness, her father had continued to call
and write to her, and eventually Jane responded. Not only did she open her heart to
her father, she let go of resentment toward her stepmother, who she had blamed as the
reason why her parents broke up. With this renegotiation of relationships, Jane once
more feels embedded in the love and support of family. She told me:
For awhile he was a non-entity, just for a little while. But he always
kept trying, calling me, and he came back into the picture.
For Natalie, it was her father’s discontinuation of drinking alcohol due to
health problems that prompted a renaissance of their relationship. For the previous 20
years, she had closed herself off to him because of his abusiveness related to drinking.
I really cut it off until I was [in] about my late 20s. And my father
almost died from Pancreatitis and was in the hospital and I was, “Okay,
I’ll go see him.” Then he stopped drinking-that’s kind of the way my
father was-he was “Okay, I have to stop drinking” and he stopped
drinking from ’78 until he died he didn’t drink. Then— you know,
surprise to himself and to people around him, all of the sudden he
became-he was a much nicer person He still had a lot of problems
. . . he had a very bad temper, but it wasn’t compounded with alcohol-
so we got to know each other as adults and I enjoyed his company.
We’d visit, we’d go out to dinner, you know, we were friends and I did
love him— I learned to love him again but all the time as from a child I
never and I still don’t consider him my parent. As far as a parent,
Harold [my stepfather] is my dad.
Mindy and her sister saw less of their father when he moved away a few years
after his divorce from their mother. As an adult, Mindy initiated contact, which turned
out to be very welcome. However, her relationships with her father and stepmother
seem limited to the contact they have when she initiates it. They are always happy to
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hear from her, but don’t do a lot to initiate contact with her. This unbalanced level of
effort is a key reason why Mindy says she considers these parents to be less than fully
family and parents.
It would actually have to come from them to feel like more to me. It
would have to take them doing something to make me feel that way
If they’d treat me more like a child, I would treat them more like a
parent, that sort of thing.
Joseph’s father was not in touch with him throughout the bulk of Joseph’s
childhood, since there was a lot of animosity between his father and mother.
Interestingly, Joseph says he was raised primarily by his mother’s parents, who turned
out technically to be his maternal grandmother and step-grandfather. Joseph was
unaware until his later teen years that his father had remarried and had more children!
Once he turned 18, he sought out his biological father and initiated (rather than
renegotiated) a relationship with him. Over time, he has developed warm bonds with
that side of the family, especially with his stepmother. His relationship with his father
remains formal and remote, despite decades of interaction during Joseph’s adulthood.
1 mentioned Joseph earlier as one whose stepmother has become more primary than
the biological father in terms of comfort level, affection, and willingness to help.
He never did really express the need to have the relationship with his
son from what I gathered from my mother and my grandmother on my
mother’s side. And so, it was kind of a learning experience that all
throughout my life, gee I got a dad but he’s not part of my life, so why
do I need him? I don’t need him, I got a grandfather and I had a
stepdad. And as time went on, of course, you grow inquisitive and you
want to learn more about who you are and where you’re from. So, out
of high school, I decided that I wanted to go meet him. And I
remember seeing him but it didn’t really dawn on me who he was when
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I was a little boy. It was just that, oh yeah, this is my real father. And
we never really spent enough time together to know. I never knew
really what he was all about, what kind of person he was, what he liked,
what he didn’t like.
Like the others in this section, Mitch saw little of his father following his
parents’ divorce. Unlike the others, though, Mitch’s experiences with his stepmother
were not warm but reflected mutual tolerance. Mitch initiated more contact with his
father and stepmother as an adult. He lived with them for a while, and even worked
with them. The good times didn’t last, though, as Mitch is one of the interviewees
from the sample who is now estranged from his stepparent and parent. He sees his
stepmother as the chief reason for severed relations, and grieves the fact that his father
will not likely go against the wishes of his stepmother. Here we see that although
relations were renegotiated for a time, the renewed level of interaction and
togetherness did not last. Mitch doesn’t expect to see his father and stepmother again
before they die.
Connected to these stories of renegotiation of relationships with fathers are the
facilitating or gatekeeping activities of the stepmothers. Most of the stepmothers
played a crucial facilitating role in enhancing the adult child’s efforts at contact and
closeness. When stepmothers work to actively limit the relationship, however, they
can be powerful relationship blockers.
Co-residence and Stepparent Investment
John Gillis (1996) writes about how men “parent” the kids they live with:
“When men fail to live up to the good breadwinner standard, they do not give up on
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fatherhood but rather try again with a new wife and a new set of children. In an era of
readily available divorce, this option has led to what might be called serial fatherhood”
(p. 199). I’d like to explore this idea by looking at adult children’s perceptions of
long-term stepmothers’ and stepfathers’ investment in them versus the stepparents’
biological children. Much of what I’m seeing here supports Gillis’ argument. Many
of the stepfathers are seen as investing more in the stepchildren’s lives than in their
own biological children’s lives. In contrast, although stepmothers act as significant
kinkeepers to their husbands’ children, they are often seen as investing more energy in
relationships with their biological children. This observation is most likely linked to
the typical pattern that children reside full-time with biological mothers (and
stepfathers), rather than with biological fathers (and stepmothers).
Randy feels he got more from his stepfather than his stepsisters did, because he
was male and his stepfather could pass on to him his male-typed occupation skills.
Not surprisingly, Randy’s stepsisters weren’t interested in learning their father’s
profession. It seemed natural to Randy that he be more interested in working with his
stepfather. Since work activities were a linking mechanism for the two men, Randy
spent quite a bit more time with his stepfather than his stepsisters did.
I think I got more because he works all the time and he’s a workaholic
and I was there more than they were... he’s close with his daughters
and everything but, at that time I think that they spent more time with
their mother.
Natalie’s stepfather also invested in her occupational future, but rather than
apprenticing her to his line of work, he funded her college education. Financially, she
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perceived his investment in her and his own sons to be pretty equal. She went on to
say that she feels her stepfather invested more emotionally in his residential
stepdaughters rather than his non-residential biological sons because he was around
them more. Natalie has talked with her mother about the regret that her stepfather
seems to feel about not doing more for his sons. She speculates that he invested more
in her and her sisters because he got greater rewards from those relationships, that he’s
more proud of his stepdaughters than his sons.
He does feel more pride in us than he does in his own sons and that
hurts him, you know, it does hurt him. So I think in many ways [he]
feels like he has made a greater investment in us-but he also feels like
he got a greater reward, but wishes he could have that same feeling
with his sons.
In each of the above cases, the stepchildren were co-residential with the
stepfather, whose biological children primarily lived elsewhere. The other side of this
dynamic is that stepmothers often are seen as investing more in their biological
children than their stepchildren. Usually co-residence is a factor here as well— the
stepchildren do not primarily live with the stepmother, but the stepmother’s biological
children do. Past co-residence patterns may also play into this dynamic.
Randy feels that his half-brother (the stepmother’s biological son) got more
from her, in the whole picture. He describes this with no resentment, emphasizing that
he was older when his stepmother came into the picture, compared to her having her
son from day one. The differential was also not seen as terribly skewed. Randy
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explained that when he would physically be with his stepmother, she gave everything
she had.
I’d say not just by default but Kyle got more and I don’t hold a grudge,
I’m not holding a grudge or anything... he’s been there for sixteen
years and he lives with her. I think just naturally that’s what happens.
It’s kinda like with me and Jon [the stepfather]. I was there, I was there
at the house, I was there at work, I spent more time around him. He
[Kyle] spent more time around her [the stepmother]. Therefore that’s
just the way it is .... But I think if you did it on a per hour or per day
. . . she gave everything when I was there.
Mindy also felt that the biological children of the stepmother (in this case, her
stepsisters) got more of an investment from her stepmother. Similar to Randy, she
seems to have no resentment about this.
It was just more intense with them. I think its probably a lot similar
It was a hundred percent with them, whereas maybe it’s thirty
percent with us .... Cause she. well, she did bear them and she didn’t
bear us, so.
For Catherine, it wasn’t the recognition of unequal investment that bothered
her. It seemed reasonable that her stepmother would invest more in visiting and
keeping up with her own biological children than in her stepchildren. Rather, it was
the hypocritical rhetoric that “all the children are the same” that bothered her. The
false illusion of equal investment eventually became too difficult for Catherine to live
with.
My brothers all know that there’s a double standard between the
Fontana kids and the Reynolds kids. And my father apparently even
admitted it one time to my brother Randy on the golf course. That
Jessica has a double standard. “Her kids and then there’s my kids.” So
my father’s aware of it, he just chooses not to do anything about it.
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Jeremy noted that his father and stepmother seemed to spend more time with
his stepsiblings than with him and his biological siblings, at least for a period of time.
He modifies this observation somewhat by noting differences in geographic proximity:
There were some years where we were growing up where my dad . . .
and Carlie would spend way more time with her kids and their family
then they would with my dad’s kids and the family-but that’s the way it
usually is-you know My relationship with my wife and myself—
yeah, you usually follow her lead and what she wants to do-It’s sad but
true. The woman really does control pretty much in general, I think-
his is my opinion-and-I can just see my dad following Carlie wherever
she says . . . yeah, my dad... and Carlie spend more time with her kids
and their family than they spend with our kids and our family-which is
not to say that they don’t spend time with us. But it has lots to do with
proximity as well...
It’s worth noting that in other cases, the stepparents are notable for their equal
treatment of both children and stepchildren. This seems to apply where money is
involved. One example of this is Jeremy. Before Jeremy’s stepfather died, the
biological and stepchildren were informed that he had left an equal amount to all of
them in his estate. He told me, “No, definitely there is [sic] 8 of us kids and an 8-way
trust and that’s the name of that tune.”
Another example of financial intergenerational equity involved Rachel. She
reported that when her father and stepmother send her money, they seem to feel
obligated to send money to the other children as well— Rachel’s biological brother and
two stepbrothers. Sometimes Rachel gets money out of the blue, which she figures is
a time when the parents are helping out one of the other kids, so they sent her money
too.
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Or I think she [the stepmother] feels sometimes that if she gives me a
hundred bucks she’s gotta give a hundred bucks to all my brothers, and
I think she does. I think they do. Because I’ll talk to my brother and
— he’ll go out to visit and then he’ll tell me “oh they gave me a couple
of hundred bucks,” so I think that they give all us kids the same
amount, whenever they can because they would feel guilty if they
didn’t. Or like . . . if Cassie gives me two hundred bucks, she’s gotta
give both her sons money too, because they’re her sons or my d ad__
gives them money too.
These examples show that investment can be viewed in different ways-in time
spent, in emotional connection, and in financial help. They suggest that time spent
together and emotional connection during a child’s adult years may relate back to
patterns that were formed during the more intensive full-time co-residence or less
intensive part-time co-residence of the childhood years. Since physical co-residence is
primarily with biological mothers and their partners, stepfathers may invest more
heavily in their stepchildren, and stepmothers with their biological children. Of
course, stepparents don’t always have biological children. At any rate, in these
interviews we see some support for Gillis’ idea that men parent the kids they live with.
The Child as a Symbol of Power Between Spouses
In one of my interviews, power issues between the mother and stepfather
seemed to cause the mother to act as a gatekeeper, limiting the stepfather’s say over
the life of the child. The stepfather’s greater financial resources and unwillingness to
share freely of them led to a situation where his wife (the biological mother of the
child) used her power to limit his influence on the child’s life.
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We’ve seen already how stepmothers often behave as facilitators and less often
as gatekeepers of a child’s access to biological fathers. Here we see a biological
mother acting as a gatekeeper of a child’s relationship with her husband, the child’s
stepfather. The mother may feel that the one thing of value that she can keep to
herself is her daughter. She’s established the daughter as her turf, her
accomplishment, her creation, her domain of power. As a result, this stepfather-
stepdaughter relationship is more distant than many:
My mom wouldn’t let him try and raise me so it was an issue with them
. . . and I don’t know if it was just even on some level like a power
thing or a control thing. Like this is all that I have that’s mine and I
don’t want you to touch it, you know. But... they’re kinda weird
anyway cause he lived single for so long, he’d never been married,
never had kids or anything and then got married in their forties. And
they have really . . . separate finances and separate stuff and so that’s an
issue between them too, so, there’s a lot going on. So I think it was like
that, you know. She’d take care of me, she’d pay for my things.
Although this pattern only showed up once among my interviews, it is notable
because of the typicality of husbands making more money than their wives. When
power is an issue in a marriage, as it appears to be here, there may be real
consequences for family and parent bonds between the children and the residential
stepfather.
Flexible and Voluntary Kinship
So far, we’ve seen how children can hold themselves apart from an inclusive
stepfamily environment. We’ve seen how parent/stepparent inclusion can be seen as
conditional. Despite the mutual inclusion that sometimes takes place across
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stepfamily lines, the kinkeeping of stepmothers and the investment of stepfathers,
these relationships often tie into what Patricia Hill Collins (1991) describes as the
“both/and” principle. These relationships are both secure and insecure, both loving
and conditional. They are both family and not family, both parents and not parents.
As in other studies of divorce-extended families, they are “diverse, fluid, and
unresolved” (Stacey, 1991). Ultimately, these relationships are flexible and voluntary.
In this section, I develop the flexible and voluntary theme further, by focusing
on situational inclusion and conditionality/durability that emerged from the interviews,
toward both stepfamily and biological family members.
Situational Inclusion.
Inclusion of stepparents and biological parents as family members and parents
often varied across situations in my interviews. For instance, participants sometimes
indicated that a stepparent was fully a “parent” on their surveys, but in conversation
with me would initially report just the biological parents as the parents. This
sometimes indicated a shift between biological, legal and social connections. Jeremy
is an example of this, as previously discussed.
Another example is where Victoria felt it was disloyal to call her stepmother
“mom” because she had a biological mother who was her mom, even though she
didn’t have a good (or active) relationship with her. On the other hand, she would
give her stepmother cards saying things like “to a special mom”:
I think in some ways it would be a disloyalty to call her mom because
she’s not my mom. A nd when I got her cards, greeting cards,
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birthday cards, whatever, it was to my special mother or to mom. The
cards were very loving and... heartfelt sentiment was in there. So the
cards were always to my mom, mother. But I would introduce her as
stepmother and I would call her Evelyn.
The previous examples show how a stepparent can be seen as being both a
parent and not a parent. This can also apply to biological parents. Jane describes her
biological mother as being both a parent and not a parent to her. The biological
mother provides certain things, like quantity of time and interaction. Quality is seen as
lacking there, though. In Jane’s case, she feels she gets quality of parent interaction
but not quantity from her father and stepmother, since they live so far away.
I talk to her [biological mother] everyday, and but we’re more friends
and ever since my mom and dad got divorced, we have been friends
kind of. Which is a long time. So, I don’t even call her “‘ mom”; I only
call her “mom” when I am sick or when I want something, but
otherwise I call her Bonnie.
Caroline confuses her friends sometimes because she’ll refer to her “parents”
when talking about her mother and stepfather (rather than both biological parents), or
will refer to her sisters (half-sisters) when she previously referred to herself as an only
child. These things are all “true” depending on the context.
Sometimes I catch myself or I really confuse my friends. I say my
parents a lot of times [when] I’m talking about my mom and Jon. I say
that in passing. Or I’ll say my sisters after I told them a week before
that I’m an only child (laughs) you know.
Situational family inclusion can apply to fictive kin as well. Seth initially
described himself as having no family, except possibly his maternal grandfather. (This
is because he does not consider his biological mother, stepfather, sister, biological
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father, etc. to be members of his family.) Later in the interview, he identified his
friend’s mother, who he’s living with, as part of his family. This woman, her
boyfriend, and her son (Seth’s friend) emerge as “family” within a particular
context-he can count on them.
My roommate’s mom has been more of a mother to me in the past two
years that I’ve lived here than my mother has been in the eighteen years
that I lived with her.
These examples of situational inclusion help us to see the flexible and shifting
nature of family boundaries at anv given time. Previous sections have focused on the
warming o f kin relationships with stepparents across time. Next, I discuss how the
conditionality or durability of relationships with both stepparents and biological
parents reveal the voluntary nature of kinship with both blood and non-blood relatives.
Conditionalitv/Pnrabilitv
Conditional aspects of ties with stepparents came out most strongly when I
asked the interview participants if they thought they’d maintain a relationship with the
stepparent if the stepparent and biological parent were to divorce. To my surprise,
even some of the participants with very strong relationships with stepparents indicated
that they probably would not maintain a relationship under those circumstances, or
would transition into a more remote relationship. Here are some examples of
participant responses on this topic:
[Regarding whether he’d continue a relationship — ] Probably not.
Not because, not to do with anything negative. . . I don’t tend to
initiate friendships and conversations on a regular basis so if somebody
doesn’t call me they tend to go away. And I tend to lose touch with
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them. And so, I don’t think Carlos would call me on a regular basis.
Out of respect for my mother he would not intrude, and we don’t have
that much in common anyway (laughs) except my mom. So no, we
probably would drift apart. But it wouldn’t be negative. (Percy, about
his stepfather)
I think Helena would probably disappear off the face of the earth if that
happened . . . 1 know I wouldn’t go out of my way to go find her. My
wife would probably make several attempts to get in contact with her,
make sure she’s okay and let her know if we still see her as part of the
family even though they’re not married. But me personally, 1 know 1
wouldn’t make any valid attempts to do anything. (Travis, about his
stepmother)
That would be hard to say, you know, I love my mom so much . . . and
if anything got so terrible that would cause them to divorce, I think my
loyalty towards my mom would be such that I may, I might just cut him
off. And that would be hard you know, it’s so hard for me to even
think about something like that. (Natalie, about her stepfather)
Others emphasized that the continuation of the relationship might happen, but
not for sure.
No, we’d probably slowly fade away, you know. No, I wouldn't call
him up to go golfing o r go out of my way to invite him to go
fish or something. Once in a while we might. But, I doubt it. (Brad)
Probably not. Not that I wouldn’t want to or wouldn’t have good
intentions to but it just doesn’t seem realistic that that would happen.
Unless, unless she were to contact me and such. Then, I’ve always
been the type where you know, if you write me a letter, I’ll write you
back but if you don’t, then that’s the end of the relationship. (Mindy,
about her stepmother)
“I would imagine, yeah. I don’t know to what extent.” (Randy, about
his stepfather)
I’d love to think that I might but I don’t know without my mom, how
much we really have without her as a common bond. I mean I love to
think we have more than that but to think about it, I don’t know.
(Caroline, about her stepfather)
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Depends on at what point they would’ve divorced. If it had been over
after a period of years, probably yeah. I think so. Because I keep
relationships with lots of people for years and so. (Victoria, about her
stepmother)
Sometimes an estrangement from the biological parent created a conditional
context to the relationship with the stepparent:
I haven’t had a relationship with my stepfather but I adore him and the
only reason is because I’m not dealing with my mother and he feels that
. . . it’s not appropriate for me to deal with him when she’s not in the
picture. (Victoria, about her stepfather)
These comments indicate that the true foundation to these relationships may be
in their continuing mutual relationship with someone else. Though these are long
term, mostly positive relationships, there’s an underlying fragility here. This fits with
the dramatically lower levels on “family” and “parent” expressed toward ex
stepparents in the survey data.
While conditionality and time-specific inclusion seem to be common, some
participants were sure that they would maintain a family tie with their stepparents. I
refer to this as durability rather than conditionality. The relationship has staying
power (durability) on its own, even without the biological parent being involved.
Randy exemplified this toward his stepmother. When I asked if he’d continue a
relationship with his stepmother if she and his father divorced, he answered “Yes.
Definitely.” When I asked why he was so sure, he replied, “Because she’s really,
other than my wife, one of the two people on the face of the planet that I can really
discuss . . . anything with.” This shows that sometimes a primary relationship does
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form with stepparents, and the relationship has evolved independent of the link to the
biological parent. There are other examples as well:
Yeah to the same extent it is now— I would not expound upon it and
make it more, but yeah, definitely I’ve known her for 30 some odd
years . . . you know, it’s not like she’s a stranger. . . (Jeremy, about his
stepmother)
[Would relationship change if stepmother and father divorced?] I don’t
think it would change other than... she may be the one that needs
somebody to pat her on the back and give her a shoulder to cry on, I
don’t know... I would probably tend to be in touch more with Sharon
[stepmother] than I would Jack [father]. (Joseph, about his stepmother)
I plan on keeping in touch with Hannah . . . I don’t know if it’s the time
thing or just a personality thing... But I mean, like I said, between the
two [stepmother and stepfather], I think of her way more as a parent
than I do Jon. (Caroline, about her stepmother)
One participant summed up her feelings about biological and stepfamily
relationships in her family. Her comments epitomize the voluntary nature of much
kinship today.
We’ve got people who are blood, but because they do some of the
things they’ve done, we don’t want to integrate them so much-they’re
not so accepted. When we have to get on the phone and call the next
door neighbor, or the stepparents have to come to the wedding, but we
didn’t invite, what’s his face because, he’s an outcast, but he’s bloodl
But he’s an outcast but the stepparents are there.
Jane is actually quite aware of the voluntary nature o f her relationship with her
stepmother, and celebrates it.
I got to choose to be with her. I got to choose not to also. So the
investment she has in me I chose-I mean I chose her, instead of-I could
have let the relationship go-I could be as friendly as or as loving a
person [as I want to] when I am with her. But her daughters of course
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they grew up with her; they’re her daughters, not that they have to but
. . . they were born to, and I wasn’t.
These relationships are sometimes more satisfying, since their voluntary and
expendable nature allow people to “choose” only the step-relationships of the highest
quality. Perhaps this was what the Rileys had in mind when they coined the term
“latent kin matrix” to refer to the “latent web of continually shifting linkages that
provide the potential for activating and intensifying close kin relationships” (Riley &
Riley, 1993. p. 173). Of course, the latent matrix also allows for de-activation and
distancing of kin relationships.
Biological parents are also seen as disposable at times. While I haven’t
emphasized this quite as much as with stepparents, a number of the interviewees had
either currently or in the past chosen not to have a relationship with a biological parent
(Victoria, Natalie, Jane, Rachel) or had that situation imposed upon them by the parent
(Mitch, Catherine, Seth, Percy, Joseph). Of course, four of the interviewees were
selected on the basis of having no family feelings toward a stepparent, and that was
often connected to a troubled relationship with the linking biological parent. The
pattern goes beyond those four, though. The above names show that voluntary
exclusion on the child or biological parent’s part happened at some point for over half
of the interview participants.
Despite the conditionality that appears when the hypothetical situation of a
parent’s divorce is suggested, the general evolution in these interviews is toward
greater fondness and integration of the long-term stepparent into one’s perception of
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family. There’s an underlying fragility to some of these relationships in terms o f long
term inclusion, and durability in others. Permeable boundaries and the long-term
nature of these relationships have created complex webs of interaction and support
across stepfamily boundaries.
These examples, the previous sections, and even the quantitative findings show
the diverse, flexible, and voluntary nature of family ties in even long-term stepfamily
relationships today. Out of the confusion that the changing constellations can bring
comes also the freedom to refashion these relationships to one’s liking. The social
construction of family boundaries is ongoing. Given the demographic trends, we're
bound to see more of these complicated and shifting notions of “family” in the future.
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CHAPTER 7
SUMMARY AND DISCUSSION
Summary
This dissertation has explored the subjective perceptions of kinship that adult
children have toward their biological parents, current stepparents, and ex-stepparents.
Using a multi-method approach with a multiple-generation sample, I have highlighted
the diverse, flexible, voluntary, matrilaterai-biased nature of contemporary
(step)parent-child relations.
The survey analysis tested fourteen hierarchical regression models: four
predicting perceptions of stepparents as “family,” four predicting perceptions of
stepparents as “parents,” three predicting perceptions of biological parents as “family,”
and three predicting perceptions of biological parents as “parents.” I progressively
added variables for each of the above, drawing from conceptual models presented in
Chapter 4. The significant predictors of perceiving stepparents as family members and
parents included longer co-residence, the stepparent remaining in a relationship with
the parent, the stepparent being legally married to the parent, and the adult child
having strong general feelings of family obligation. The significant predictors of
perceiving biological parents as family members and parents included longer co-
residence, the biological parents staying married or divorcing later in the child’s life,
and the parent being female. These significant predictors coincided with a number of
hypotheses, summarized in Chapter 4.
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The interview analysis yielded a number of themes found to be important to
understanding adult children’s relationships with long-term stepparents acquired in
childhood after parental divorce. Boundaries between the two groups were sometimes
permeable, and sometimes more rigid due to the resistance of either party. Being in a
time of one’s life when child rearing was of high concern, some o f the interview
participants found themselves modeling their parenting behavior on their stepparents
and/or appreciating their stepparents’ efforts to be full grandparents to their children.
Relationships with stepparents were usually described as warming over time.
A number of gender patterns emerged in the qualitative analysis as well.
Stepmothers had typically taken the lead over biological fathers in guiding, nurturing,
and disciplining their minor-age stepchildren when they visited or co-resided.
Stepmothers often behaved as “kinkeepers’-facilitating contact and inclusion between
themselves, their husbands, their children, their husbands’ children, and extended
family members. This sometimes resulted over time in stepmothers becoming more
primary than the biological fathers in the lives of the stepchildren. A number of
interview participants reported a renegotiation of relationships with biological fathers
during adulthood. Relationships with these fathers often became more active, and this
was usually facilitated by the kinkeeping of stepmothers. Finally, stepparents were
often seen as investing most heavily in the children that had lived with them the most.
Since residential custody is skewed toward biological mothers, long-term stepfathers
were often seen as investing more in their stepchildren than in their biological
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children, whereas stepmothers were usually seen as investing more in their biological
children. However, investment was seen in different ways. While spending time and
engaging emotionally seemed to increase with co-residence, financial investment in
biological and stepchildren was often perceived as being equal.
The final theme from my interviews is that stepfamily relationships were seen
to be flexible and voluntary. This fits well with the overall findings of the survey
analysis. Some adult child-stepparent relationships were seen as being very stable and
strong (durable), while others showed signs of conditionality and fragility. Diverse,
flexible, and voluntary ties applied to relationships with biological parents as well.
The interview analysis yielded more evidence of strong gender patterns than
the survey analysis. I do not see this as contradictory, because the sampling frame for
the qualitative interviews was much narrower than that for the survey analysis. The
survey results captured stepchildren of all ages across the adult life course, and
included short-term stepparents, ex-stepparents, cohabiting partners o f parents, and
stepparents who had never co-resided with their adult children. In contrast, the
interview design narrowed in on adult children from younger generations, who had
long-term, currently legally married stepparents who were acquired in childhood.
Although co-residence with stepparents was not part of my interview sampling, all but
one of my interviewees had co-resided to some extent with the focal stepparent. As a
result, the interviews reveal processes that may only apply to a circumscribed range of
adult stepchildren. Both the survey and interview findings suggest that the gendered
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activities of stepparents and biological parents, such as establishing residential custody
and acting as kinkeepers, carry more weight than gender dynamics among the
(step)children.
Discussion
This study was initially framed in a somewhat different way, distinguishing
between life course, family structure, gender, and attitude factors that might contribute
to perceptions of family membership between adult children and various types of
parents. Over time, it has become important to distinguish between the factors in a
different way. I have thus framed the results by highlighting three main types of
ties-social, legal, and biological. Each of these ties contributes a piece to the way the
parameters of family are seen, and each '‘binds” family members to one another with
different levels of strength.
The following table shows the possibility of each type of tie among the
different groups of parents considered in this study:
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Table 28
Types o f Ties that Apply to Biological. Step-, and Ex-Stepparents
Type of Tie
Type of Parent Biological
Legal (marriage
between the parents) Social
Biological yes yes no yes no
Stepparent no yes no yes no
Ex-Stepparent no no yes no
In this framework, when we think of all the ties that are possible with
biological parents, it includes biological and legal and social. With stepparents, the
ties include legal and social, but not biological. With ex-stepparents, the social tie and
possibly the former legal tie are the ones available.
Most of the variables that remained significant in the full multivariate
equations can be placed into one of these three categories. Legal ties for stepparents
and ex-stepparents include whether the stepparent was married to the biological
parent, and whether the stepparent was still in the relationship with the biological
parent. An indicator of social ties with staying power for stepparents and ex
stepparents was captured by length of co-residence. I have used another category,
“contextual factors”, to cover factors that are less direct (like generation) or are more
psychological (like attitudes).
The biological tie is a given for responses about biological parents. Legal ties
for biological parents that were significant in the analysis included the biological
parents staying married to one another, or divorcing later in the child's life. Social ties
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that remained significant included the length of co-residence and the parent being
female.
The typical assumption is that biological ties bind. The results of this study
show that a combination of ties is most conducive to a perception of full family and
parent membership. Biological relationship provides the opportunity for the most
fully realized of all the ties. When legal and social ties are loosened or absent, this
lessens the likelihood of biological parents being perceived as family members and
parents. Current, legally married, co-residing stepparents are those with the next
strongest potential set of family ties in the study-those with both legal and social ties.
The absence of these ties generally results in a perception of “not at all” family and
“not at all” a parent. For ex-stepparents, the social tie must carry the whole
relationship. If that social tie is strong, it can result in a family and/or parent tie that
has durability.
In fact, the bivariate analyses demonstrate that the only factor statistically
associated with perceiving ex-stepparents as family members was a social one-length
of co-residence. An additional social factor, being young when the stepparent was
acquired, was significantly associated with perceiving ex-stepparents as parents (but
not family members). These factors-length of co-residence and early timing— show
that family ties with ex-stepparents can persist, and result from early social interaction
during childhood.
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Thus, the biological parent analyses show that the biological link without the
social tie is not enough to insure family ties. The stepparent analyses challenge the
notion (prevalent in government policies) that parent-child ties are bounded by
biology. The ex-stepparent results (as shown in the bivariate results) challenge that
there have to be legal ties.
The case of ex-stepparents or potential ex-stepparents help us to see the
process through which some of the relationships come to succeed on their own terms.
The survey results about ex-stepparents show that the family bond formed through
social interaction can hold even when the legal tie or active relationship with the
parent has ended. The interview results also shed light on anticipation of a continued
relationship should the stepparent become divorced from the biological parent. The
interviews, as discussed in the previous chapter, reveal contingencies. Primary loyalty
to one’s biological parent sometimes comes to the forefront here. Even relationships
with stepparents that have been described as fully family and fully a parent could lose
strength if the parent’s marriage to the stepparent doesn’t remain intact. For others,
the relationship with the stepparent has become so primary, the loyalty so strong, that
not even a parent’s divorce could shake that. The individual recognizes that there is
choice involved, and some of the highly satisfying relationships will be kept.
The importance of biological, legal, and social ties to family membership come
out in the interviews as well. One area that these are evident is in the interview
participants’ descriptions o f what makes a family:
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All you really need is one parent and one child to the parent, not even
necessarily biological from my own personal opinion. (Percy)
Usually blood relations, but not necessarily. Blood and marriage
relations, but mostly the people you could turn to if you’re in trouble.
(Mindy)
What makes a family is the closeness, the communications, the love,
the interactions, the traditions, gatherings, the history. (Victoria)
A family is any group of people . . . that are living together, that are
close together whether they’re related or not. (Caroline)
I pretty much kind of prioritize my blood family a little more than I do
my non-blood relatives, but you know, I still try to be there for them
when they need me. (Brad)
I’d say bonding. . . family time... trust and love. (Seth)
These descriptions draw upon blood and legal ties somewhat, but each goes
beyond that structure to engage with social aspects as well.
How Do These Findings Inform Our Understanding of Families?
1. The findings show that notions of family are as diverse as the contemporary
structures that surround them. They show that “‘ official” notions of “family” bounded
by blood and marriage are missing the crucial contribution of the social aspect.
Although biological and legal ties have a lot of staying power, they can be weakened
in the absence of social interaction while less formal relationships can be recognized
as family on the basis of just social ties alone.
2. The findings also challenge the notion of family boundaries that are neat
and tidy. The commonness of responses designating stepparents as “a little” or “quite
a bit” family/parent show this strongly. These findings are in line with Eviatar
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ZerubaveFs sociological insights about boundaries. In The Fine Line f 199 P . he
argues for a flexible boundary system, juxtaposed between the two extremes o f rigid
thinking and fluid thinking. His comments seem very applicable to contemporary
family ties, ties that don’t bind and yet aren’t that loose, either
Reality is not made up of insular chunks unambiguously separated from
one another by sharp divides, but, rather, o f vague, blurred-edge
essences that often “spill over” into one another. It normally presents
itself not in black and white, but, rather, in subtle shades of gray, with
mental twilight zones as well as intermediate essences connecting
entities, (p. 62)
3. Family boundaries are voluntary, and change over time. I believe this
should be emphasized more in scholarship, and media portrayals. Could we imagine a
society in which we all knew how flexible and voluntary it really was, and celebrated
that, along with the security of feeling durable ties with an enduring few? This seems
preferable to being undermined by politicians and pundits who claim to want to
support families, but in fact only support a narrow range of family lifestyles. If our
freedom to choose who we consider family and not family and who we associate with
was more out front, people would feel less sanctioned, less guilty for making certain
choices that might not fit in with how they perceive society to be telling them would
be the right path.
4. The sample for this study, with its focus on adult children, helps to reveal
dynamics that occur in divorced families once children are grown. The interviews
revealed a common attempt by children to renegotiate relationships with biological
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fathers during adulthood. This renegotiation is obscured by divorce-outcome research
that does not take a long enough view of these relationships.
5. This research resonates with family scholarship that emphasizes the
historically changing (Gillis, 1996; Stacey, 1991), matrilateral-biased, voluntary
(Johnson, 1988), structurally complex and flexible (Johnson, 1988; Riley & Riley,
1993; Stacey, 1991) nature of kinship today. It reinforces ideas in the family literature
about the tenuousness of relationships between divorced fathers and their children
(Solomou, Ely, Brayne. & Huppert, 1999), the importance of kinkeeping behaviors of
women (Bomat, Dimmock, & Peace, 1997; Hagestad, 1986; Johnson, 1988; Vinick,
1997), and the increasing reality of the latent kin matrix (Riley & Riley, 1993) where
step-relatives are concerned. The latent kin matrix consists o f both those who are
likely to become active kin and those who aren’t. There are more choices, and also
more ambiguity surrounding this latent matrix. Boundary ambiguity, the lack of
clarity that family members can feel about who is in or out of a family system at any
given time (Boss & Greenburg, 1984) may be inherent, as individuals draw upon
multiple types of ties in describing their relationships-biologicai, legal, social.
Policy Implications
In the United States there are few ways for stepparents to acquire rights and
responsibilities toward stepchildren. Short of legal adoption, stepparents must abide
by the vagaries of inconsistent state and federal laws. Legal adoption is difficult to
achieve, since it revokes the rights o f the biological parent of the same sex as the
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stepparent. Most states utilize a “stranger model” in which residential stepparents are
considered legal strangers to their stepchildren. At the federal level, a “dependency
model” is in place which assumes that residential stepparents (usually stepfathers) are
supporting their stepchildren. Stepparents typically have no legal rights to make
decisions about a child, such as approving emergency medical treatment or signing
school permission slips (Mason, 1998).
I’d like to see policy develop in a way that neither negates that a relationship
exists nor requires an outlay of financial or emotional support. A flexible system in
which active and meaningful non-biological family relationships can be recognized
along with biological ones could give rights to stepparents and enhance support for
minor-age and young adult stepchildren. As discussed in the introduction, England
has such a policy (Bala, 1994). Stepparents who have been married at least two years
to a biological parent may voluntarily petition for a “residence order” for his or her
spouse’s child. This allows three parents to claim parental responsibility, and also
allows stepparents to apply for a visitation order if they divorce the biological parent
of the child (Mason, 1998).
England’s Children Act of 1989 (as the above law is called) is a move in the
right direction, in my view. It expands beyond a model that only allows two
individuals to have rights and responsibilities toward a child. It recognizes the desires
of many “social” parents to have more of a legal tie to those they consider their
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children. It is voluntary, so does not impose an unwanted legal obligation upon a
stepparent.
England’s policy may not go far enough, however. It allows for three parents,
but how about four? In cases of joint residential custody, there might be two
biological parents and two stepparents who are involved in raising a child and desire
legal rights to that effect. Further, it is limited to married, co-residential, heterosexual
stepparents. This leaves out cohabiting, non-residential, and homosexual stepparents
who may also wish to formalize their relationships with stepchildren they are raising.
Beyond “current” stepparent rights, I’d like to see more provisions for ex
stepparents (who are no longer married or cohabiting with a child’s biological parent).
Perhaps more of these ex-stepparents would maintain supportive social ties with their
ex-stepchildren if they had more rights of visitation. In most states currently, ex
stepparents have few legal rights or obligations (Mason, 1998). It might also be a
good idea to let children have more say in the visitations they take part in after a
parent’s divorce. If we as a society are interested in children’s well-being, why
wouldn’t we want to support a voluntary network of stepparents who wish to
contribute to the well-being of their stepchildren? Why not enhance strong social ties
with some legal ties? In an era of weak continuity of intimate relationships, it could
greatly benefit children to facilitate the continuity of their relationships with
supportive and loving ex-stepparents.
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There may also be policy issues that apply to adult children and their
stepparents. For instance, some stepparents do not have biological children of their
own and might benefit if their stepchildren can be recognized as legitimate sources of
decision making and support. As with the above recommendations, this would move
toward policy parameters that take active and meaningful non-biological family
relationships into account as well as the typically recognized biological relationships.
Whv are these findings important?
Stepparents can be a reserve or a primary source of emotional and instrumental
support for children of all ages. Their presence can be an enhancement beyond
relationships a child already has, as well as a substitute for other family members who
are absent or inactive. These relationships may or may not be perceived as “family-
like”; there is a wide range of positive relationships possible. We should not assume
that lack of family and parent feelings means a lack of positive regard for stepparents
and cohabiting partners of parents. These relationships may play out more as friends.
There was some evidence of this in my interview with Mitch, who argued that
friendship was the avenue to a family and child-parent feeling toward his stepfather.
Where problematic relationships do exist with stepparents and/or biological
parents, this doesn’t mean that a person isn’t embedded in a supportive and healthy
network of close associates. Even my interview participants with the most horrendous
stories o f estrangement from stepparents and biological parents had close and
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affirming child-parent ties with in-laws, fictive kin, or biological parents and
stepparents on the other side of the genealogical tree.
My findings suggest that many stepparents do act as functional enhancements
to or substitutes for biological parents. Although these stepparents are uncertain as
long-term ^family members,” their existence challenges the notion that children of
divorced parents lead uniformly dysfunctional lives. It’s possible that stepparents who
substitute for an inactive biological parent may be compensating for that absent parent,
thus contributing to children’s overall well-being.
Study Limitations
Personality factors are likely important to some degree in the subjective
perceptions of kinship toward step-relatives. Is the stepparent personable, likeable,
etc.? I have not measured those factors here. I also can speak to only adult children’s
points of view, not minor-age children and not the parents’ and stepparents’ points of
view. Further, I can say little about how subjective perceptions of family differ across
the racially and ethnically diverse nation of the United States. I have applied a cross-
sectional analysis to a non-representative sample, and my results must be understood
as such.
With this study, I didn’t connect together the M l constellation of parents that
each individual had. It seems obvious that relationships with stepparents will be
related to relationships with the linking biological parents. We might imagine, for
instance, that the overall pattern of relationships with stepmothers includes both those
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kinkeeping stepmothers who facilitate adult children’s relationships with fathers and
those who are not known well because of a distant and remote relationship with the
biological father. This is the lack of independence problem-one that could be resolved
in further analysis by making each individual’s constellation of parents and
stepparents the unit of analysis rather than each individual parent-child relationship.
This type of further analysis will reveal diversity or similarity of parent-child ties
within an individual’s constellation of various types of parents, as well as variations
across adult children and across families. I hope to do this in the future.
Maior Finding and Uniqueness of this Study
Function doesn’t always follow form. That is, active and meaningful family
relationships don’t require a biological or legal connection. A big part of functional
family relationships comes from social interaction. My findings show the importance
of both structure and function.
The bulk of my study focused on stepparents, and under what circumstances
adult children perceived them to be family members. But the analyses of biological
and ex-stepparents helped to bring into focus that no one type of tie binds absolutely.
It’s true that biological parents are usually perceived to be fully family members and
parents, but interesting that some are not. It’s true that ex-stepparents are usually not
perceived as family members and parents, but interesting that some are. These
exceptions show the importance of social ties-both the absence of them in some
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biological parent-child relationships, and the presence of them in some ex-stepparent-
child relationships.
My hope is that these findings will promote more recognition and tolerance for
diverse family relationships. This study adds to a small body o f empirical research
that explores subjective perceptions of family in complex contemporary family
structures (Church, 1999; Gross, 1986; Johnson, 1988; Klee, Schmidt, & Johnson,
1989). This is the first study to my knowledge to examine large scale patterns of
family perception toward stepparents, and to consider subjective perceptions of ex
stepparents and biological parents as well.
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Creator
Schmeeckle, Maria
(author)
Core Title
Rethinking the ties that bind: Adult children's perceptions of step, ex -step, and biological parents
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Doctor of Philosophy
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Sociology
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University of Southern California
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Gerontology,OAI-PMH Harvest,Sociology, general,sociology, individual and family studies
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Schmeeckle, Maria
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