Children's Viewpoint of Their Stepparents Essay

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Abstract

In modern-day, the chance of a child being raised by a stepmother or stepfather keeps increasing. Families are more likely to divorce than it was in earlier days. Moreover, getting children outside wedlock is a common practice and occurrence lately. Divorced parents are commonly remarrying too. While it is not an easy task to figure out the rate of prevalence of the trend, some estimates suggest that in the USA alone, approximately 10% of the two-parent families that exist are either cohabiting or married stepfamilies. The same study indicates that about 25% of children will spend some time with a stepfamily in their life. The increasing stepfamily formations are of concern as far as the wellbeing of children is concerned. Earlier studies already show that children raised in stepfamilies have a lower chance of physical and mental wellbeing compared to their counterparts raised by both biological parents. The study, further, shows that such children raised by stepparents do not show any advantage over those raised by single parents. There are few studies on children's views on their stepparents. Conducting such studies can prove highly complicated. Some of the hurdles one can run into include ethical considerations regarding the collection of data from such vulnerable persons. Nevertheless, the situation in the family will influence whether children accept their stepparents or not. The aspect of whether such parents are considered helpful to the family is also a strong factor of influence.

Introduction

Stepfamilies come up as a result of two consenting adults getting into a marriage relationship when one or both of them have children from another relationship. American children are commonly raised in such a set up (Jensen & Howard, 2015). Demographic studies estimate that a third of all children will live in a stepfamily setup before they turn 18 years. Studies have shown that views from parents and society, in general, have found their way in the stepfamily literature when it comes to transitions by families. Several full publications on remarriage and the literature relating to stepfamily support the above claim (Jensen & Howard, 2015). While such reviews have made a positive contribution in establishing concrete findings, highlighted the methods that are commonly used, and even given direction for similar work in the future, the aspect of stepchildren has not been given proper focus. It is lamentable not to have incorporated the views of stepchildren. The building of a mutually enriching stepchild- parent relationship is at the epicenter of the stability of a stepfamily. Most of the extant literature has only dealt with the step child-parent relationship in a biased fashion that excludes the child from the equation. Similarly, most findings are only drawn from the views of the stepparents. This paper attempts to assess the reviews and studies carried out on children regarding their stepparents.

Review

In a study conducted by Lardier Jr. et al. (2017), to establish the relationship forces between adult stepchildren with their biological parents and the stepparents they live with, the researchers also sought to establish the level of life satisfaction of such adult stepchildren, the quality of marriage and the role of moderating by the gender of the stepparent.

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The sample comprised 215 adult stepchildren derived from Wave 3 of NSFH. The results from the National Survey of Families show that stepparents and the biological mothers of the adult stepchildren affected the life satisfaction of these children irrespective of the type of stepfamily in question. Moreover, it shows that the effect of the child-parent relationship on the marriage quality of the child in adulthood varies as influenced by the type of stepfamily. In particular, there was a positive co-relationship between the present step mother-child relationship dynamics and the quality of marriage the child in question experiences in adulthood. The converse is also true for children brought up in stepfather homesteads.

According to Cartwright, Farnsworth, and Mobley(2009) studied the narrations of the type of relationship between children and their stepparents. They did so to understand the nature of…

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…children and their stepparents. The researcher made use of undergraduate university students from Rowan University (N=67). The researcher used the Quality of Relationship Inventory. He made the usage of the address term, an independent variable. It was measured by the use of the three stages of QRI, i.e., conflict, support and death. An analysis of the variance was conducted three times to find out if there was a significant difference between the address type and the quality of the relationship reported on each scale stage. The results showed that the address types did not affect or signal the type or quality of relationship as reported by stepchildren interviewed. Thus, whereas address type usage is a component in communication stepfamilies, it was found not to be an indicator of the quality of the relationship between the children and their stepparents.

Conclusion

Limited studies are focusing on the viewpoints of children on their stepparents. The situation can be understood easily, given the level of complexity regarding researching such a topic. There are social and ethical limitations that abound. It is not easy to collect authentic data from such vulnerable populations. Since the research has to be confirmed by the stepparent, then it is unlikely that the data provided by the child would be reliable.

Furthermore, it is not easy for children to express the negative aspects of their parents, let alone stepparents. Consequently, this study has targeted adult children who are more likely to volunteer factual information than their adolescent and younger compatriots. The role the stepparent plays in a child's life influences how the child perceives them. Nevertheless, step relationships are driven by more than just the actions at the individual level. The holistic interaction between the focus parties actively plays into the quality of the relationship. The presence of other interested parties such as the biological parents and how they react to the stepparents is also a factor. Many biological parents influence children to reject their stepparents through a process called triangulation.….....

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