Life after Divorce 211
The shifting roles of stepparents. In earlier times, stepparenting
was often a pretty positive role. Nowadays, however, steppar-
enting has turned into one of the more difficult familial roles that
anyone could ever have to fill. One major difference is that in the
old days a stepparent would most often enter onto the scene fol-
lowing the premature death of the natural mother or father. In
this context, they became something of an unselfish savior of the
family that otherwise might have totally disintegrated. Unfortu-
nately, the role of a modern-day stepparent has changed dramati-
cally and generally for the worse. The primary difference causing
this change is that nowadays most people’s remarriages follow
on the heels of a divorce, rather than death.
Today, instead of being a savior entering onto the scene to keep
a family together, the stepparent is more often viewed by the kids
as an unnecessary and unwanted intruder—one whose presence
would be totally unnecessary if only mom and dad could be back
together again. And God forbid if it was the stepparent’s entry
onto the scene that actually precipitated mom and dad’s divorce
initially—that poor step-sucker will probably never be accepted.
The thankless position of a stepparent. Children are understand-
ably extremely tentative about accepting a stepparent into their
lives. It is virtually impossible for such children to bring them-
selves to allow stepparents to become full substitutes for their nat-
ural parents. This becomes particularly problematic the older the
children are at the time their parents remarry. Generally, younger
children are more open to accepting stepparents fully into their
lives than are older kids, who feel extremely conflicted about this
scenario and who are reluctant to develop any real closeness or
loyalty to the stepparent.
Older children seem to instinctively sense that accepting a
stepparent somehow represents betrayal of their absentee natural
parent. This sense of alienation can even be borne out statistically
by surveys of children aged nine and ten or above. Such surveys
indicate that a surprisingly large majority of these kids actively
resent their stepparents. Furthermore, the older the child gets, the
more strident this becomes.
Adolescents, in particular, tend to resent their stepparents since
they are in a rebellion mode anyway. Any stepfather who comes