Blended Families and How They
Function
Topics that our team researched:
 Dynamics
 Mother’s role
 Father’s role
 Children’s influences
 Social impacts
Binuclear Families / also considered as two nuclear families
combined or blended families. This is just the beginning of the tree,
it’s branches involve grandparents, aunts/uncles, cousins ect.
• Father / Ex
Husband of
Previous
Marriage
• Mother / Ex
Wife of
Previous
Marriage
• Step Mother
Son /
Daughter
Son /
Daughter
Step Son /
Daughter /
Brother /
Sister
Step Son /
Daughter /
Brother /
Sister
• Step Father
Dynamics
Dynamics can range from a multitude of areas
 Anger and hostility
 Conflicts between Parents and parenting
styles, values, and aspirations
 The shifting of roles and relationships between
former spouses
 Relationships between siblings, cousins,
Aunt/Uncle, Grandparents, Parents and their
appropriate step-catagory
What are some common issues in a
blended family?
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Children of the other parent feeling left out
or like they are not getting enough attention.
Children feeling like things are un fair due to
differences in boundaries being held.
Stress between parents because of finances,
parenting styles, custody, child support,
visitation, and spousal support.
Parents feeling a lack of respect from the
other children because of trust issues or
defiance.
Something to take into
consideration!
Overall there is a mixture of all kinds of aspects, emotions, and
conditions in which a lot of conditioning and support needs to be in place
for the two families to become somewhat of a whole. Children will have
the hardest part in all of this with learning how to basically share their
parents and or their surroundings. It is up to the parents to sacrifice and
do what they need to do to help the children and the family to work at
becoming a cooperative system within the life they want to have. It is not
impossible for divorced families to merge and to develop new family values
between each other, it’s all about the work you put into it.
Mother’s
Roles
Social pressure
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Mothering has been emphasized as a woman’s
true purpose in life for over 200 years.
Intensive mothering- Traditional modeling of
socially acceptable mothering.
◦ Mothers are expected to expend tremendous
amounts of time and energy in raising children.
◦ This creates conflict and guilt in women who desired
to fulfill both the ideal roles of mother and pursue
their own dreams and ambitions.

Mother mandate- Learned guidelines that are used
to socialize girls to be sensitive and nurturing to
other’s needs assume the roles of caretaking.
Loyalties

Usually Mother’s loyalties lie with the
children.
◦ Feel they need to make
up for any hurt the child
has experienced due to a
divorce/death.
◦ The child/mom relationship
predates the new
relationship.
Parenting styles

Protective mother’s will engage in four types
of behavior.
◦ Defender- The need to protect their children
from any harm, even if it means from their new
spouse.
◦ Gatekeeper- Controls the child/stepdad
interaction keeping them in “separate roles”
◦ Mediator- Steps in when conflict arises between
child and stepdad to help maintain control over
the family environment.
◦ Interpreter- Usually simultaneous with
mediator role, where mother tries to explain
each family member to the other.
Traditional vs. Blended Family

Expectations for the Family
◦ The desire to recreate the family into a Traditional
Nuclear Family.
◦ Actual experiences generally differed from
expectations

Expectations for their partners’ roles
◦ Generally were expected to provide financial and
emotional support for mother and children.
◦ Often less gendered than first marriage families,
women find themselves still covering all of the
roles like in a single parent home.
Fathers roles
Expectations
Depending on the situation expectations vary.
Your relationship with your biological kids may
decline because most will choose to live with
there mom over there dad.
 If desired become a “super dad”
 May not be easily accepted by spouses children
 Age can change everything
 Establish respect from your step children along
with helping you spouse receive the same respect
from your children.
 Know that your spouse and its biological child
will always have a stronger closer relationship.
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Being a father in a blended family
Try to treat each child as equal as
possible.
 Be on the same page as you spouse with
disciplining and rules.
 Spend one on one time with each child.
 Establish trust with you stepchildren
 Time and Patience
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What NOT to do
Don’t “replace” any child’s father, be yourself.
 Money can’t buy you love
 Don’t talk down to your stepchildren
 Do not discipline step children (especially at
first)
 Don’t forget about your biological kids and
your relationship with them (may be
different)
 Don’t force children to like you.
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A Child’s Influence
How a child can influence the decision to remarry:

Point 1: Child’s Age and Gender, Parent’s gender
◦ How gender can impact the decision to remarry
◦ Which roles need to be adopted
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Point 2: Circumstances of Separation
◦ How or why the natural family separated
◦ How this may affect the children
The Child’s Age and Gender
and The Parent’s Gender
A child’s gender typically determines the
type of relationship with each of their
parents.
 The opposite gender parent alone may not
be what the child needs while growing up.
 The age of a child can sometimes determine
how well they will adapt to being in a
blended family.
 Younger children may be more accepting
towards new family, while older kids and
teenagers might be less accepting.
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The Family’s Separation
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A parent affected by divorce may make the
decision to remarry more quickly than a
parent faced with the loss of their spouse.
Children may sometimes need more time to
grieve the loss than their parent, but are still
important in deciding to remarry.
Grieving children may be unable to fully
accept a new parental figure.
Depending on the circumstances of their
parents’ divorce, children may feel differently
about the idea of having step-family.
Social Impact of a blended family
Social impacts on children
More than half of school aged children are in a blended
family.
 A stepfamily can be "simple," in which only one member of
the couple has a prior child or children, or it can be
"complex" or "blended." In a blended stepfamily, both
members of the couple may have had pre-existing children,
or the couple may have additional children together
 The children in stepfamilies and non divorced familes
scored significantly different on measures of intellectual
functioning.
 However, all of the means were in the average above range,
analyse of the self-esteem and self –concept data indicate
no overall difference etween the two family groups.
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Children’s self-report of life stress
◦ Girls in stepfamilies are reported more
negative stress than those in nondivorced
families.
◦ Also shows that communication patterns
were less effective.
◦ Both stepmother and father have rated their
families as less cohesvive than parents in
nondivorced families.
Parents
◦ The most common form of blended family is a
mother and stepfather arrangement, since mothers
often maintain custody of the children
◦ Parents of a blended family reported almost twice as
many positive and negative life stressors than adults in
intact families.
◦ Remarriage can be defined as a stressor event
because it changes the family boundary by adding or
taking away one or more members, forming a newly
constituted family. Boundary ambiguity has more to
do with perceptions than actions, which is how it is
separate from inclusive social identity as a family. The
rituals and actions demonstrated by the family help
shape the outlook of the members.
Conclusion
Different roles within the families
 Social impact, how families are changing
 Not widely studied yet, mainly because
the changes are recent
 The best studies of families are long term
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