Children in Single-Parent, Divorcing, and Blended Families

Children in the 21st century come from many different types of families. No longer can teachers or others working with children assume that a child lives in a family with his or her biological father and mother and the siblings from that marriage, although this family form still remains the most common structure. In 2016, about 69% of children were living with both parents, 23% lived with a single mother, and 4% lived with only their father (U.S. Bureau of the Census, 2016). Of the 50.7 million children living with two parents, 47.7 million lived with two married parents, and 3 million lived with two unmarried parents (U.S. Census, 2016). About 16% of all children lived in blended families that included a stepparent, half siblings, or stepsiblings (U.S. Bureau of the Census, 2011). Eleven percent of children were living with a never-married single parent; the father was the absent parent in 86% of single-parent situations. Thus, although all children begin life as the result of the biological union of a man and a woman, many of them do not grow up with these two individuals, and a few never even know the identity of one or both of their biological parents. A study in 2014 (Pew Research, 2015) found that fewer than half of U.S. children live in a “traditional family,” meaning that having a stepparent and living in a blended family is as “normal” for many children as it would be for them to live in a “traditional” two-parent home. Because of the prevalence of divorce and the upheaval in children’s lives that often accompanies the separation of their parents, this chapter focuses on helping children in divorcing families and in the new families that are formed when a parent establishes a new household with a new partner. The chapter also addresses issues that may occur for children in single-parent families. In my own clinical practice, I have had contact with children from numerous divorced families in which each parent developed relationships with new partners who also had children. Sometimes these new unions produced new children who were half siblings of the child from the divorced family. The world of these children, therefore, consisted not only of their mother, father, and brothers and sisters but also of a stepmother and her children as well as a stepfather and his children, and frequently new half siblings. Often the child changed residences on weekends and vacations because of custody agreements, and the change of residence might mean that the child would have to share a previously private sleeping space with the new stepsiblings. Other times he or she would be the one to move in on a stepsibling, who might or might not welcome him or her. Furthermore, the child often had to develop relationships with the extended family of his or her stepsiblings who might be visiting at the same time, including grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins. I purposely list these extended family members to emphasize the numerous new family contacts that children in blended families may be expected to establish and sustain. The term “blended family,” sometimes called a “reconstituted family,” refers to a family in which one or both partners have been married before and in which they are combining two families into one. Over 50% of U.S. families are remarried or recoupled, meaning that blended families are as common as “traditional” formats. A helpful workbook for children living in blended families allows the child to document different relationships (Evans, 1986). Despite society’s growing tolerance of divorce, remarriage, and single parenthood by choice, children living in these and in various other family arrangements often suffer multiple stresses that are not usually experienced by children in intact,
“traditional” nuclear families. These stresses include the following:
• Lower socioeconomic status. • Custody battles. • Divided loyalties. • Changes in school and home environments. • Reduced or absent communication with the noncustodial parent. • Adjustment to stepparents, stepsiblings, and other new relatives. • Divergent rules and lifestyles in different homes. • Uncertainty about information that they are permitted to share with others. • Confused feelings about where they belong. • Prejudice or disapproval related to their family’s lifestyle. Of course, every family is unique, but I believe that children in divorcing and blended families have some important issues in common and that we need to consider these issues in our efforts to help them. The most important issues relate to experiences of loss and multiple stressors. ISSUES OF LOSS AND MULTIPLE STRESSORS Loss In popular books and on television, the traditional nuclear family is most typically portrayed as consisting of mother, father, and children. Preschoolers learn before they begin kindergarten that everyone has a mommy and a daddy. When there is no father in the home, a child will usually ask about him, and, depending on what the child is told, he or she may either accept the explanation or continue to mull it over and wonder when Daddy is going to appear. If a never-married mother speaks disparagingly to her child about the man who impregnated her and then disappeared, the child picks up the underlying message that his or her father was “bad.” This perception may have an ongoing influence on the child’s feelings about men and relationships, as well as on his or her own sense of identity. Another example of an absent father involves a single, never-married lesbian mother in a gay relationship who wants a child and arranges to become impregnated with the help of an anonymous sperm donor. This mother must find a way to explain to her child the fact that he or she has two mothers but no father who is part of their family. On the other hand, the preschool child in a blended family who has a stepfather and also has ongoing contact with his or her biological father may accept the mother’s statement that the child is lucky to have two daddies. However, as this same child grows to school age, he or she may intuit differences in the way the stepfather treats him or her compared with his biological children; the child may then begin to want more time with his or her “real” father, beyond the usual once-a-week visitation. This child may question both parents about why they don’t get married or live together anymore. Absent (“lost”) parents remain significant presences for children in divorced, single, remarried, and homosexual families. Similarly, the “ghosts” of missing parents also continue as important influences among adopted children who do not have information about their biological parents (LeVine & Sallee, 1992). My own experience with children confirms that absent parents play important symbolic roles in these children’s lives and that the children grieve for the lost parents on significant holidays (e.g., Mother’s Day or Father’s Day, the child’s own birthday, Thanksgiving, and other major holidays when rituals emphasize family togetherness). In psychodynamic terms, such a child has suffered an “object loss,” namely the loss of a major attachment figure. Feelings of longing and anger about this loss may persist indefinitely. Sometimes the imagined presence of a “lost” parent serves an important comforting role for a child, similar to the manner in which a child may retain and benefit from the memory of a deceased parent (Silverman & Worden, 1992). An unfortunate aspect of the child’s loss in a family with a missing parent, however, is the child’s inability to speak openly about it because the adults with whom the child currently lives usually prefer to deny or minimize the child’s feelings of longing for or positive connection with this person. The custodial parent’s anger toward the spouse may  prevent any sympathy or acknowledgment of the child’s feelings. The child is unsupported in his or her grief, which cannot be openly acknowledged or worked out. As noted in Chapter 10, Doka (2002) refers to this type of mourning as “disenfranchised grief.” Other losses experienced by many children in divorcing and blended families relate to the reduced economic status and possible changes in schools and living arrangements that often accompany divorce, remarriage, or a period of single parenthood. Furthermore, when a parent’s marital status changes, relationships with the kinship network also usually alter; in fact, a child may lose contact with an entire group of grandparents, uncles, and aunts because the custodial parent no longer feels comfortable in their presence. This is an example of the adult’s needs eclipsing those of the child. In the single-parent home following a divorce, a parent may work long hours and want to devote some time to adult relationships without the child (or children). This can cause a child to feel resentful, rejected, and lonely. A child in a single-parent household may also be expected to share in performing chores and/or to accompany the parent to the supermarket or laundromat. Sometimes the single parent unwisely begins to confide in the child, almost as if the child were an adult. In these situations the child may take on the role parental caretaker. This blurring of parent–child boundaries causes the child to worry about adult concerns prematurely, and this may interfere with the freedom to focus on his or her own developmental tasks (Siegel, 2007). When this happens, the child is losing his or her very childhood.