While statistics indicate that nearly half of all first marriages in America today terminate in divorce, more than three-quarters of these divorces also result in remarriage, producing stepfamilies. Although they have become increasingly common, stepfamilies are still poorly understood, by stepfamil...

Ausführliche Beschreibung

Bibliographische Detailangaben

1. Verfasser:	Beer, William R. (VerfasserIn)
Format:	Buch
Sprache:	English
Veröffentlicht:	New Brunswick u.a. Transaction Publ. 1992
Schlagworte:	Beaux-enfants - États-Unis Belles-familles - États-Unis Remariage - États-Unis Divorce > United States Marriage > United States Parent-Child Relations > United States Remarriage > United States Stepchildren > United States Stepfamilies > United States Stieffamilie USA
Online-Zugang:	Inhaltsverzeichnis
Zusammenfassung:	While statistics indicate that nearly half of all first marriages in America today terminate in divorce, more than three-quarters of these divorces also result in remarriage, producing stepfamilies. Although they have become increasingly common, stepfamilies are still poorly understood, by stepfamily and non-stepfamily members alike. This book looks at the internal and external dynamics of this new family form, taking the reader through a series of case studies and examining characteristic pitfalls and opportunities. The author begins by comparing the basic building block of the stepfamily--the remarried couple--to the first-married couple. In successive chapters the structure of the stepfamily is considered in terms of increasing complexity, from the simplest, in which one of the partners has never married before and has no children, to the most complex "yours and ours" stepfamilies, in which there are children from both previous marriages and the present one. The author probes the conflicts that arise between parents and children and among stepsiblings and explores the different strategies that stepfamilies devise for resolving these tensions. In the later chapters, the sociohistorical origins of today's stepfamilies are traced in terms of changing values and new technologies. Professor Beer argues that stepfamilies are proliferating as a result of attitudes and patterns of behavior that, more than ever, encourage divorce and remarriage. He demonstrates on the basis of large-scale evidence that stepfamilies produce children who are just as well adjusted as children brought up by both biological parents, and that they will turn out to be adults who are almost as socially well adapted as those from conventional families. The author concludes that stepfamilies are types of families in their own right, with foreseeable difficulties and rich rewards.
Beschreibung:	XVII, 243 S. graph. Darst.
ISBN:	0887384366