03.21.07

Families May Not Need Hyphens to Work - But Some Are Special

Posted in News, Perspectives at 9:56 pm by Dawn Miller

In an article in the March 21st Lakeland Ledger called Families Don’t Need Hyphens to Work, family psychologist John Rosemond talks about the nuts and bolts of raising children - and argues that blended families or families with adoptive children don’t need to obsess about special situations or rules.

On the surface - some of his advice makes sense. Yes - the boundaries of good discipline and the basic principles of raising children are the same. And stepparents will applaud his support for putting marriage first as the primary relationship in the home. I’ve written this as well and encouraged blended families to put the kids second.

He thinks that books for stepfamilies and adopted families are not needed and serve only the needs of book publishers. I would dispute that - there’s much advice and help offered in many books for blended families. Blended families are so rarely discussed in our culture today in positive terms - that these books provide a place for us to see ourselves in reflection and help us understand that what we are experiencing as a stepparent is yes, quite normal - and they offer some good advice too.

Rosemond advises a bio-mom seeking advice on how to discpline her daughter, to wait until the child’s stepfather comes home. On the surface, the advice is mildly sexist (forget letting a woman actually make a decision on the spot about her own child - why not emasculate her as a parent just for kicks). It also flies in the face of conventional wisdom about stepfamilies, which says that bio-parents should be the ones who discipline their own children, while stepparents run back up. Over time, I think stepparents can step into disciplinary roles - however, it depends on the family situation.

There is a critical need for blended families to have consistent rules - and both of the adults in the marriage must back up and enforce those rules regularly. Otherwise you end up with a situation where one adult can undercut the other (read a comment from a reader going thru this) - and the other adult feels like he/she is not backed up and all hell is breaking lose. For a general discipline question - marriage partners in blended families should talk ahead of time about what those rules will be and stick to them doggedly - not wait til someone gets home.

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