Diana’s memorial service.
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Step-by-step families
Step-by-step families | The Courier-Mail
THE SCHORTEMEYERS are the classic blended family with children from two failed marriages and now a baby of their own.
While they might look like any other loving family, the reality for them – and 57,500 step or blended families like them in Queensland – is they’ll have a hard time staying together.
While it is estimated one in five children will live in families like this at some point, research shows half these families break apart in the first five years.
As well as the trials experienced by any family, there are the added pressures of being a parent to someone else’s child, of baggage from previous relationships and the difficulties of co-parenting with former partners.
“Our family runs pretty smoothly, but I’m sure there’s room for improvement,” says Peter Schortemeyer, 42.
The Schortemeyer family, from Rocklea in Brisbane’s south, consists of Peter and his daughter Ashley, 13. Just over a year ago, Peter married 36-year-old Kelly, who has a son Zac, 6. Ten months ago, Emma was born.
“We are fairly easy-going people, but you do have to tread carefully in the beginning,” says Peter. “It’s a case of not favouring your own child. Not overstepping that line, while being able to lay down the law. That’s the biggest issue for Kelly and I, but I don’t think we do a bad job.”
The couple moved in together only a few months after they met and Kelly admits it’s still early days in their relationship, and in their parenting.
“The challenges are really just making sure that we treat all three of them fairly,” she says.
“When issues come up, we use each other as a sounding board and try not to involve the children.
“We are lucky, though, because we don’t really have any problems with the other parent in our relationships.”
The Schortemeyers are attending a new program at Griffith University designed for step and blended families.
Professor Kim Halford devised the course after following the fortunes of 120 step or blended families over three years. Step families are where one of the adults is a step parent of at least one of the children.
Blended families have two or more children where at least one is the natural or adopted child of both adults and at least one is a step child.
Halford says: “In step families you have to work out how to be a step parent, how to share parenting with a new partner, and how to develop a new family. Children often have trouble adjusting, and might resent the new partner which can be very stressful for the partners.”
Halford and his research team started their study with an extensive interview with the couples, asking them about their relationship with each other, the children, former partners and also about how they planned to overcome any problems.
Three years after the first set of interviews, only 80 of the original 120 couples were still together.
“In first families, you would expect to see about 10 per cent of them break up. In the first three years, step families break up at three times that rate.
“For step family couples, often the biological parent will say they still love their partner, but feel they have to give up because it’s not working out for the children.”
Halford identified two important areas that determined whether or not the families were still together after three years.
One is the strength of the couple’s relationship and their commitment to each other, while the other is their willingness to develop a new identity for their family.
“What seems to make a difference is the level of commitment to the relationship,” says Halford.
“Maybe because these people have been burned before, they are often not sure how things will work. Almost all step families are formed by couples moving in together – but are they doing that because of a long-term commitment or just to see how things might work? The couples who started living together soon after they had met, tended to do more poorly.
“If when we first spoke to them the couple had disagreements about how to manage the parenting and the role of former partners, then that seemed to predict difficulties further down the track,” says Halford.
Because at least one of the adults in a step family relationship has seen a previous relationship breakdown, Halford says there’s a tendency for them to avoid talking about any issues which could cause conflict.
But Halford says those couples who were willing to talk openly about problems early on were far more likely to still be together.
The new program devised from the research, called Step CARE, aims to strengthen relationships between couples and improve step family life.
The Schortemeyers jumped at the chance to take part and are taking heed of the advice in an attempt to avoid becoming another break-up statistic.
“There are a lot of families out there in our position,” says Peter. “You hear many horrible stories of parents breaking up because of issues with the kids.”
Kelly adds: “You have to stand together as a couple, and as a family.”
Brisbane couples who have formed a step family in the past three years and would like to participate in a free six-week Step CARE program can call 3735 3351.
Source:The Courier-Mail
