“…Stepfamily members may pick up on this influence, both consciously and unconsciously, and may feel second best or inferior to this idealized family standard, causing an eagerness to seem like one. In a total of nine studies, stepfamily members explicitly reported on wanting to be like what they describe as a “normal family” or a “real family,” and often this desire seemed to function as the driving force behind the processes of doing family (Baxter et al., , ; Braithwaite et al., , ; Cissna, Cox, & Bochner, ; Koenig Kellas, LeClair‐Underberg, & Normand, ; Nuru & Wang, ; Weaver & Coleman, ; Whiting et al., ). A stepdaughter's explanation of what shared family time did for her blended family illustrates this desire:Closeness.…”
Section: Resultsmentioning
confidence: 99%
“…Big rituals, such as moving to a new place, remarriage, or the birth of a child to the new couple, often enhanced the sense of feeling like what they know as a “real” family (Coleman et al., ; Martin‐Uzzi & Duval‐Tsioles, ; Nuru & Wang, ). As this child describes, marriage helped stepchildren feel like their family was going to be a legal family:It was family, but not technically, not legally.…”
Section: Resultsmentioning
confidence: 99%
“…The development of interpersonal mattering seems to be an essential process in family making (Braithwaite et al., ; Ganong et al., , ; Hutchinson et al., ; Nuru & Wang, ). Especially in the stepparent–child relationship, children care that stepparents show interest in them by attending their sport events, helping them with homework, providing emotional or practical support, etc.…”
The present review examines how stepfamily members without a shared history co-construct a shared family identity and what family processes are relevant in this stepfamily formation. Three databases (Web of Science, PsycInfo, and ProQuest) were systematically searched, resulting in 20 included qualitative studies. The meta-ethnography approach of Noblit and Hare allowed synthesizing these qualitative studies and constructing a comprehensive framework of stepfamilies doing family. Three interdependent family tasks were identified: (a) honoring the past, (b) marking the present, and (c) investing in the future. Stepfamily members' experiences of these family tasks are strongly affected by the dominant societal perspectives and characterized by an underlying dialectical tension between wanting to be like a first-time family and feeling the differences in their family structure at the same time. These findings clearly demonstrate the family work that all stepfamily members undertake and provide a broader context for interpreting stepfamilies' co-construction of a new family identity.
“…Stepfamily members may pick up on this influence, both consciously and unconsciously, and may feel second best or inferior to this idealized family standard, causing an eagerness to seem like one. In a total of nine studies, stepfamily members explicitly reported on wanting to be like what they describe as a “normal family” or a “real family,” and often this desire seemed to function as the driving force behind the processes of doing family (Baxter et al., , ; Braithwaite et al., , ; Cissna, Cox, & Bochner, ; Koenig Kellas, LeClair‐Underberg, & Normand, ; Nuru & Wang, ; Weaver & Coleman, ; Whiting et al., ). A stepdaughter's explanation of what shared family time did for her blended family illustrates this desire:Closeness.…”
Section: Resultsmentioning
confidence: 99%
“…Big rituals, such as moving to a new place, remarriage, or the birth of a child to the new couple, often enhanced the sense of feeling like what they know as a “real” family (Coleman et al., ; Martin‐Uzzi & Duval‐Tsioles, ; Nuru & Wang, ). As this child describes, marriage helped stepchildren feel like their family was going to be a legal family:It was family, but not technically, not legally.…”
Section: Resultsmentioning
confidence: 99%
“…The development of interpersonal mattering seems to be an essential process in family making (Braithwaite et al., ; Ganong et al., , ; Hutchinson et al., ; Nuru & Wang, ). Especially in the stepparent–child relationship, children care that stepparents show interest in them by attending their sport events, helping them with homework, providing emotional or practical support, etc.…”
The present review examines how stepfamily members without a shared history co-construct a shared family identity and what family processes are relevant in this stepfamily formation. Three databases (Web of Science, PsycInfo, and ProQuest) were systematically searched, resulting in 20 included qualitative studies. The meta-ethnography approach of Noblit and Hare allowed synthesizing these qualitative studies and constructing a comprehensive framework of stepfamilies doing family. Three interdependent family tasks were identified: (a) honoring the past, (b) marking the present, and (c) investing in the future. Stepfamily members' experiences of these family tasks are strongly affected by the dominant societal perspectives and characterized by an underlying dialectical tension between wanting to be like a first-time family and feeling the differences in their family structure at the same time. These findings clearly demonstrate the family work that all stepfamily members undertake and provide a broader context for interpreting stepfamilies' co-construction of a new family identity.
“…Specifically, stepchildren have reported that the meaningful and effective communication between family members decreased which led to increased conflict or disagreement. Thus, a child's sense of doubt was heightened, which increased the probability of developing a fixation (Nuru & Wang, 2014).…”
Section: Divorced Familymentioning
confidence: 99%
“…Further, if the change impacts the way in which a child connects to a biological parent, or if their needs are not as adequately addressed, a child can develop a fixation. Thus, research ultimately shows that stepparents do not take on as active an involvement in their stepchild's development as a biological parent, which is typically harmful, whether in a major or minor way, to a child's progression through Freud's and Erikson's life stages (Nuru & Wang, 2014).…”
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