Stepparents need new rights and duties to solve family needs
Almost a third of children living
today will be stepchildren by the age of 18. Put another way, 21
percent of American families with children have at least one
stepparent, according to the 1990 census.
Yet, in spite of this overwhelmingly
common American experience, legal policies regarding stepparents and
stepchildren are inconsistent, contradictory and downright archaic,
according to a UC Berkeley scholar publishing in the current issue
(fall '95) of the Family Law Quarterly, a journal of the American Bar
Association.
Stepparents in the United States
Stepparents in America have experienced at best a grudging acceptance,
and at worst a negative and suspicious reception throughout American
history. Overall, their role has been poorly defined by law, public
policy, and social custom. Still, stepparents have always had an
important role to play in raising children. In early colonial times
because of high mortality rates and more recently because of divorce,
the common occurrence of remarriage has meant a substantial proportion
of American children are raised in stepfamilies.
