Chapter 13
the wife plays a dominant role. According
to Bray, matriarchal women have powerful
personalities, are highly competent, and
have a strong desire to be the leader in the
family. This type of family accounts for
about 25% of stepfamilies and can be
quite successful if the husband and wife
have similar values.
Over the last 20 years, stepfamily
research has proliferated. Research has
typically focused on 1 of 4 family types:
stepfather families, stepmother families,
complex stepfamilies and stepfamilies
with a mutual child. Of the roughly 10%
of children living in a stepfamily, more
than 8% reside with their biological
mother and a stepfather (Kreider, 2008).
These stepfather families are formed
when a woman with children marries a
man without children. It is often thought
these families have the least difficulties of
all stepfamilies. While some researchers
have suggested this is because stepfathers
take a noninvolvement role (White &
Gilbreath, 2001), researchers find that
many stepfathers develop satisfying
relationships with their stepchildren.
This is especially true when the stepfather
takes a secondary parent role as warm
and supportive, avoiding a direct
disciplinarian role (Bray & Kelly, 2002;
Hetherington & Kelly 2002; Sweeney,
2007).
Stepmother family types in which the
woman with no children marries a man
who has children can be more stressful
than stepfather families, because mothers
usually set the emotional tone for the
family. This may contribute to the
difficulties of stepmother families, in
addition to the findings fathers tend to
abdicate childrearing activities to their
new wife (Norwood & Wingender, 1999).
This is especially stressful for a wife with
no previous parenting experience from
which to base expectations of the new
stepchildren. She often has a romanticized
idea of raising someone else’s children,
expecting it to be “love at first sight.”
Complex stepfamilies are families in
which both spouses have biological
children and are therefore also
stepparents. These families are the most
likely to re-divorce (Coleman, Ganong, &
Fine, 2000). In addition to working out
stepfamily difficulties, these families have
the added burden of working out
stepsibling relationships and disrupted
birth order, where, for example, a
youngest child may become a middle child
in the new stepfamily (Ganong &
Coleman, 2004).
The last type of stepfamily, the
stepfamily with a mutual child, has not
received much attention in the way of
research. There has long been the sense,
especially in popular literature, this child
will bind or cement the family together;
however, this has not been demonstrated
in the research. Some of the few studies
which have been done suggest that,
especially if the child is born before