At first the two eight-year-olds treated each other with the wariness
of two hungry cats that suddenly have to share the same food bowl.
They had, until David's father decided to marry Kay's mother, each
spent most of their lives as the only child of single parents. Now
that was changing. David and his father had moved into Kay's home.
The teasing, tattling and tussles that routinely mark sibling rivalry
can become a special problem for blended families. "Only"
children have to learn to share a parent's affection and attention.
Cries of "Mom always liked you best!" can have a sharp
and bitter edge. Parent often feel as if they are being tugged in
opposing directions by their feelings of love and protectiveness
for their children and their new spouse.
Children undergo a large number of dramatic and subtle changes when
they inter a blended family. Parents often underestimate the extent
and importance of those changes.
Private space is a major area of conflict for stepsiblings. The
dickering over who gets which bedroom or who has to share a bedroom
can make political negotiations in the Middle East pale by comparison.
If as is often the case, one side of the family moves into a house
or apartment that the other side has been living in, the territorial
squabbles can grow very bitter. The children who have already been
in the house and who already have their own turf staked out feel
imposed upon and threatened. The entering children feel more out
of place than their new stepsiblings do.
Birth order becomes confused in blended families. Most children
define their roles within the family partially in terms of where
they are among their siblings. After a remarriage, a girl who has
been the oldest for ten years may suddenly have two big stepsisters.
A boy who was the baby of the family suddenly loses the advantages
of that position to a stepsibling.
Holidays can become arenas of strong conflict for blended families,
especially for the first year or two. Each set of children, unsure
of what the new family means for their future, clutches at the past
by insisting that its is the "right" way to celebrate.
Christmas trees are divided in half so that each set of children
can decorate it "properly."
Age plays a major role in determining how children respond to their
new families. Teenagers often have more difficulty than younger
children do in adapting to blended families. Parents wonder if the
apparently rebellious adolescent who stays away from the house and
doesn't participate in planned family activities is trying to sabotage
the new family.
Often the problem is not the child's attitude but a conflict between
the stage of development of the child and the stage of the new stepfamily.
Separating from family and developing an individual identity are
among the major developmental tasks of adolescence. It is important
that teenagers place some distance between themselves and what they
perceive as the dependent behavior of their childhood. Spending
time with friends away from home and arguing over parental restrictions
are ways of safely testing the turbid waters of adulthood.
The newly formed stepfamily, however, is at a developmental stage
much closer to that of a younger child. Parents strive for the new
family to be surrounded by the symbols of harmony and closeness.
The adolescent perceives those same symbols as signs that the very
dependence he is trying to escape. The more the parents promote
togetherness, the more the teenagers strive for separation, both
from their parents and from their new stepsiblings. By recognizing
a teenager's desire to spend time away from family and with friends
as a sign of normal development, rather than by forcing the child
to spend time with family, parents can help their children form
bonds with the new family in the most appropriate and long-lasting
ways.
High schools seniors and other teenagers who are about to leave
home may have a very different reaction to a parent's remarriage
from that of younger adolescents. While a fifteen-year-old may rebel
against the new family, an eighteen-year-old will often embrace
it. The soon-to-depart child is often relieved that someone else
will be able to take care of his or her parent.
Before trying to put a stop to all stepsibling rivalry, recognize
that, as with other forms of rivalry, some aspects of it are very
healthy. The competition allows children to practice some new roles.
It also allows them to figure out for themselves the types of relationships
they want with their new family members. If you try to turn them
into an all-loving instant family, the children will simply rebel
by showing you how much they can't stand each other. Remember that
your strongest ally is time. Give your children and yourselves a
chance to stumble about a bit as you sort through the new relationships.
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