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Step Family And Blended Family - Help Guide

Relationships can be the most meaningful part of people’s life.  A stepfamily or blended family is a family where one parent has children, from a previous relationship, that are not genetically related to the other parent. Either one or both parents may have children from a previous relationship. Children from a stepfamily may live with one biological parent and visit their other biological parent, or they may live with each biological parent for a period of time. 

Stepparents can become legal parents to their stepchildren through the process of stepparent adoption. Both biological parents, if living, must consent or agree to the adoption. When a stepparent adopts a stepchild, either the non-custodial parent of the child willingly gives up his or her parental rights to the child, or the court terminates the parental rights of the biological parent if there is evidence of abuse or neglect to the child. If a parent is not involved in the child's life, the court can terminate that biological parent's rights on the grounds of abandonment. Grounds for abandonment in most states is no contact between the parent and child for at least one year. 

A strong bond with trust and love is required between a child and his biological mother, so no doubt it would be harder to forge and build new relationship with your step-mother. In fiction, stepmothers are often portrayed as being wicked and evil. The character of the wicked stepmother features heavily in fairy tales; the most famous examples are Cinderella, Snow White, and Hansel and Gretel. World-wide, the story of Cinderella is very popular not among just infants but also with adults. The story introduces with the cruel relationship between a step-mother and her step-daughter.  There is no love and support in their relationship, also the step-mother treats the daughter like a slave. She makes her do all the household chores by herself, dominates her life and is mean to her. With this story, a very negative image was created in the eyes of the world about the relationship of a step-mother and a step-daughter.

However, this is not true in every relationship.  Despite many examples of evil or cruel stepmothers, loving stepmothers also exist in fiction. In Kevin and Kell, Kell is portrayed as loving her stepdaughter Lindesfarne, whom her husband Kevin had adopted during his previous marriage. Likewise, Lindesfarne considers Kell her mother, and has a considerably more favorable view of her than Angelique, Kevin's ex-wife and her adoptive mother, due to feeling neglected by Angelique during her childhood.  

So it depends on individuals how they relate with others in general. If a child who is supportive and accepts her new mother happily, helps her adjust as she is new to the family then the stepmother might also show positive mutual feelings. Same goes when the step-mother comes to the family, introduces herself to the child, interacts with her and tries to form a friendly bond then the consequence of the relationship can be a positive one.                                                                                  

Many times, the child is unable to accept a new mother that her father brings after marrying her into the family. Many reasons can be seen to lead to this. Some are-
The child sometimes mourning the loss of her biological mother suddenly sees her father getting a new mother for her might be difficult to digest for her, she might get feelings of anger, betrayal and sadness. She doesn’t understand how her father moved on while she couldn’t and is not able to welcome the new mother. Consequently disliking her step-mother. At times, the child might have pre-conceived notions about step-mothers to be cunning and untrustworthy so they develop negative feelings towards her automatically. Many children believe the step-mother has snatched their father from them and he is in control of the step mother so the loss of a parent causes them to abhor their step-mother.  Various misunderstandings and sometimes real negative feelings causes’ tension between the family due to bad relationships between the child and the step-mother.

Sometimes even the step-mother who has married a person with a child from previous relationship but doesn’t have any experience of being a mother can get confused on how to deal with the child. This confusion can lead to various misapprehensions. She might lack the sensitivity with how to deal with the child, their probable differences or even being new to each other. Sometimes the step- mother feels that the child is an extra baggage, she might ignore child completely worsening the relationship.

Both the step-mother and the child can build a happy and positive relationship if both work on it together. Yes, there will be inhibitions but to welcome and accept each other by keeping a neutral stand for one another is important. Every relationship needs time and work to develop in an optimistic way but there is a good chance that if the both people have an understanding they can work it out.

Certain tips that Step-mother and the child can refer to-

~ One should not have pre-conceptions and judgments about the other person, but should be open with each other.

~ True, it is not easy to welcome new people in life, but one should make an effort if you are bound in a relationship by someone you love, i.e. the child and the step-mother should make an effort to work out the relationship for their beloved husband or the dear father.

~ The step-mother should maturely handle the sensitivity of the situation, should try to befriend the child, interact and give her time to gain her trust. This will carry out positive results.

~ The child should try to avoid being hostile and negative towards the mother but instead get to know her, forge new bonds. They should understand that every step-mother is not evil but might truly love you.  

~ Mother and child relationship is very precious. The child should respect and feel lucky to have a mother even if they are not biologically related and vice-versa.

Please note: The opinions expressed in this post are the personal views of the author. They do not necessarily reflect the views of mycity4kids. Any omissions or errors are the author's and mycity4kids does not assume any liability or responsibility for them.