Yours, Mine and Ours

BY CAMILLA CORNELL

ANGELIKA AND DOUG BULLIS of Moosejaw, Sask., began married life full of hope and love, with all their children (two of hers, two of his and one of theirs) joining in the ceremony and the song "Circle of Life" playing as Angie walked down the aisle. But despite best intentions, Angie recalls her first year with this instant family as a blur of sibling squabbles and rising resentment on her part. With five kids underfoot, she felt like an unpaid servant, constantly cooking, picking up dishes, putting toys away and acting as a referee. She had no time for the special moments she had once enjoyed with her own children, and even less for herself.

That summer Angie reached a crossroads in her life. She took her own three children and rented a cottage close to her parents. "Basically I asked myself whether this was ever going to work," she says.

SHE'S not the only one. With one in three marriages ending in divorce, the number of "blended" families is on the rise. In fact, Statistics Canada indicates that ten percent of families with children are stepfamilies, and about a third of them include children from different unions. In the United States, it's estimated that stepfamilies may outnumber biological families by the year 2010.

Though most couples begin their blended marriages with every intention of making it work, the road can be fraught with difficulties. "Take every problem possible in a biological family and magnify it," says Ron Huxley, a Fresno, Calif., marriage and family therapist with a blended family of his own. Normal rivalries become complicated when children haven't grown up with and developed bonds with stepsiblings. Also, kids may struggle with jealousy at having to share the limelight with a stepparent and his or her children, or feel displaced from their position as the eldest or the "baby" to that of middle child. And the parents may find themselves polarized by battling children, questioning whether they've made the right decision.

No wonder recent U.S. research has found that up to 60 percent of second marriages end in divorce -- a double whammy for children who have already endured one. "It puts kids in the position of not wanting to get close to people because they don't want to be hurt again," Huxley says.

That said, blending families isn't necessarily a recipe for disaster. "Many are well functioning and nurturing," says Elaine Fantle Shimberg, the Tampa, Fla.-based author of Blending Families. "But it takes time, a sense of humour and lots of patience to develop coparenting skills with your ex-spouse as well as with your new mate." Read on for advice from the veterans on how to get through the most common challenges.

The "Brady Bunch" syndrome.

Related Links The following links are for informational and educational use only. Reader's Digest does not endorse or guarantee any infomation contained therein. Second Wives Club Good stepparenting Stepmothers International Stepfamily support ParentsPlace.com Eight Ways to Build a Healthy Stepfamily Cyberparent.com Tips on starting a blended family National Council on Family Relations Remarriage

When Susan Wilkins married Kevin Hubley five years ago, she envisioned her stepchildren, Emily and Adam, then four and six, happily joining her five-year-old, Jordan, to create a big happy family. To her shock, says Susan, who runs secondwivesclub.com from her home in Upper Tantallon, N.S., "instead of growing closer, my stepdaughter made it clear to me that at that point she didn't even consider me part of the family."

Says Esther Birenzweig, a counsellor with Families in Transition, a department of the Family Service Association of Toronto, it's not surprising if children don't jump wholeheartedly into their new "family." While the parents may still be riding the warm wave of a new romance, the kids are often reluctant participants in the marriage. "Expect that the family may take three to five years to integrate," Birenzweig says. "With older kids, it may take even longer."

She recommends parents have realistic expectations of the new family unit. Otherwise you may be left feeling terribly disappointed and disillusioned.

The adjustment can be further complicated when children fantasize about their biological parents getting back together, which was what the Wilkins-Hubleys faced. "Emily was so young she didn't understand what was happening," she explains. Susan and Kevin were finally able to explain to her that although both of her real parents loved her, they were never going to reunite. Susan says, "She then realized I wasn't going anywhere."

Children may also have trouble adapting because of feelings of resentment towards new stepsiblings. Jason White*, seven, of Toronto, had always been an easygoing child. But about a year after his mom, Linda*, remarried, she looked out the window of their house and saw him shove his stepbrother, Kenny*, also seven. "You really bug me!" he exploded.

This was the culmination of Jason's frustration at having to share all his toys with Kenny even though Kenny seemed to have many expensive gadgets at his own mom's house. "I've got that, and that, and that," he'd crow during TV commercials.

Birenzweig says that although such conflicts may seem trivial to parents, they must take children's feelings seriously. "I think Kenny was trying to connect with Jason by impressing him," Linda now says. She discussed it with Jason, asking him, "Do you really think Kenny has everything he says he does?"

"Maybe not all of it," the boy replied. With Linda's help, Jason was able to see Kenny as a kid who just wanted his stepbrother to like him.

What you should never do, says Birenzweig, is allow yourself to be drawn into the battles between your kids. If parents become polarized, each defending his own children against a partner who is defending hers, it can put a serious strain on a marriage.

"You love your children more than mine!"

"I have four children I love unconditionally," says Steve Johnson* of Toronto. "Laura [stepmother to Steve's two older children and mother to the younger ones] has two children she loves unconditionally and two that she loves -- but maybe not unconditionally." While Laura Roberts* sometimes feels guilty that she can't muster the same devotion to Steve's children, Shimberg says that's normal and may be expected.

"Admitting that takes care of a lot of guilt," says Shimberg, herself a grandmother of two stepgrandchildren. But still, adds therapist Huxley, you must be scrupulously fair. "You can't give one kid a $2 bauble for Christmas and another an expensive ski suit."

Laura eventually joined a stepparent support group and continued reaching out to her stepchildren, taking them to museums, reading to them and picking up little gifts for special occasions. And over time, Laura has indeed grown closer to Steve's kids. In fact, when Jennifer*, the eldest at nine, had a question about menstruation recently, it was Laura she turned to. "When I finished explaining," says Laura, "she whispered to me, 'Does Daddy know all this?'"

Also, Laura allows her stepchildren to call her by her first name. The important thing, she says, is that they know "at our house, Steve and I are in charge."

"You only put up with me because of my mom."

When Kevin Hubley married Susan Wilkins, he could see that his stepson, Jordan, was a bit at sea. "He had a new house, new town, new family and new school to contend with," Kevin says. Many times during that first year, the boy shook with sobs, crying, "I want to go back to Acorn Street."

The fact that children don't get to choose their stepparents can make them feel like second-class members of the new family. That's why, Shimberg says, it's important to connect with your stepchildren apart from their biological parent. "Find out what they are like," she advises. Get to know them as individuals. If dinosaurs are their passion, borrow some library books on the subject and read to them.

If the children push you away, "by all means give them some space -- without allowing yourself to become bitter," Huxley urges. But be prepared to jump in. "Inevitably they'll need someone when there's nobody around but you," he says.

In Susan and Kevin's busy household, there weren't many opportunities for Kevin to be with Jordan one-on-one. But when Jordan joined the Beavers, Kevin signed up as a leader. "It gave us a shared activity once a week," he says. Kevin began to get to know his stepson. He learned that Jordan loved walking in the woods, and he discovered who his friends were. "It takes a while to build trust," says Kevin. "But I think he knows I'd be there for his mother, and for him."

"You can't tell me what to do."

Before Angie Bullis came on the scene, Daryl and Graham (then 11 and eight) had been allowed to do what they wanted when with their dad. Their mother had died of cancer seven years earlier, and because of Doug's work situation, they stayed with a family friend on weekdays. Doug admits his goal was to make it fun for them whenever they were all together. "That meant discipline was somewhat lax," Angie says. "There were no strict bedtime rules, and fighting and not sharing weren't a big deal."

When they all moved in with Angie and her two sons, ages eight and nine, and their half sister, three, Angie's attempts to discipline Doug's boys when they fought or left a mess often unleashed an angry, hurtful response. "You're not my mother, and you can't tell me what to do!" Graham would scream at her.

Worse, while Doug didn't condone Graham's nastiness, he'd criticize Angie openly when he felt she was being too hard on them. "He felt that if you ignored it, it would go away," Angie says. "But as a stay-at-home parent, I knew I had to deal with stuff sooner rather than later."

Rifts in discipline styles are common in blended families, says Shimberg. Biological families develop traditions and parenting practices gradually, making decisions one at a time to build a body of expectations that all members of the family can live with. But blended families are thrown together with all their conflicting rules and expectations; one family might be more lax about bedtimes and curfews, while the other is more strict.

Deciding on rules and how to enforce them needs lots of discussion. In the Bullises' case, the couple agreed to try to present a united front. Now the rules are "house rules," not "Mom's rules" or "Dad's rules." Although one stepson frequently shouts at Angie that her children "never have to do anything!" she has learned not to get caught up in attacks. "You're just looking for an excuse," she tells him. "And it's not going to work."

Angie has also learned not to sweat the small stuff. "I don't say much if they leave a plate or a bowl out," she says. "And I almost never go into their rooms."

"My dad says you're a lazy bum."

Laura Roberts has often had to bite her tongue since marrying Steve and becoming a stepmother. Steve's ex-wife was openly bitter over her divorce. Once, four-year-old Gary* blurted out to Laura, "Mommy says you're a piece of garbage!" Instead of lambasting the woman, Laura responded calmly. "Well, that's sad," she said, "because I am not a piece of garbage." Gary shrugged his small shoulders. "I know," he said.

His response made Laura realize that the couple's conflict with Gary's mom was even harder on him. Indeed, recent studies of children from divorced families show an increased tendency to develop problems with behaviour, school, work and commitments even many years later.

But as Carolyn Usher, publications director at British Columbia Council for Families in Vancouver and author of several pamphlets on parenting through divorce, points out: "It's not divorce per se that causes damage. Children can usually adapt to new living arrangements. It's the ongoing conflict that hurts them." That's why responding to nastiness from an ex with more nastiness is counterproductive. "Keep your cool -- don't overreact," Shimberg advises. "The child may be repeating what his biological parent said because he's troubled by it, or he may be reporting it out of context."

Developing a thick skin.

Each summer Susan Wilkins-Hubley's stepchildren went to a baby-sitter while their own mother worked. Last year Susan asked their mother if the children could come to her house instead. "I wanted them to have good memories of summers at Dad's," she explains. Their mother agreed.

But by the middle of the holidays, the kids greeted attempts to tear them from Nintendo with, "Do we have to go to the beach again?" And Susan felt like a nanny rather than a coparent.

Her solution? Mental distance: "I decided to think of myself as a 'friend' who was letting them stay here." This helped Susan cope with her frustration and feel less sensitive to the children's reactions.

The most counterproductive thing to do when faced with adversity, Esther Birenzweig says, is to panic. One of the things that accounts for such a high rate of divorce second time around is that in the first few years, when people face difficulties, they tend to think, Oh my God, did I make a mistake? In fact, the difficulty in adjusting is very much part of the process during a second marriage, she says, especially when there are kids involved. It doesn't mean it's not going to work. It's important to remember that even biological parents have struggles with their kids.

RON HUXLEY concedes it's not always gratifying to be a stepparent. But "this love and this family is a choice based on commitment. It has to be unconditional." If you hang in there, it may well reap tremendous rewards.

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PHOTO: © DARREL KAJATI