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T A B L E++T A L K

Author Susan Chira joins parents to discuss the problems and benefits of balancing career and kids in the Mothers area of Table Talk

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R E C E N T L Y

Crossing borders
By Rigoberta Menchú
The famed Mayan activist whose mother and brother were tortured and killed reflects on the family -- and village -- she lost in Guatemala
(08/03/98)

Lusting after "Lolita"
By Justine Brown
A lifelong affair with "Lolita"
(07/31/98)

Reality bites
By Karen Grigsby Bates
By making the irrelevant Mike Tyson case a big PR issue, NOW demonstrates again that it's run by imperious, out-of-touch white women
(07/30/98)

The dictator in the house
By Ros Davidson
The dark side of polygamy
(07/29/98)

Sins of the fathers
By Ros Davidson
A polygamist's tale
(07/28/98)

BROWSE THE MOTHERS WHO THINK FEATURE ARCHIVES

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Mamafesto
By Camille Peri
Why it's time
for Mothers Who Think

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The author of a new study on stepfamilies says there are coping strategies for stepparents.
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STEPFAMILIES: LOVE, MARRIAGE, AND PARENTING IN THE FIRST DECADE
BY DR. JAMES H. BRAY AND JOHN KELLY
BROADWAY BOOKS, 270 PAGES

BY LORI LEIBOVICH | Not all stepfamilies bond as seamlessly as those mythical Bradys, whose picture-perfect mugs graced television screens in the early '70s. Mike and Carol -- both mysteriously widowed -- joined their respective broods (three perky blond daughters and three freckled, brunet boys), and despite a few made-for-TV skirmishes, all problems were resolved in the span of a half-hour sitcom.

But as anyone who has been a part of a real-life stepfamily can attest, the "Brady Bunch" scenario was largely a farce. Join a man and woman who have weathered previous marriages, add a few kids and maybe a new home, and problems can flourish: jealousy and rivalry among stepsiblings; stepparents with differing views about discipline; couples trying to forge a marriage while tending to the needs of their own kids and their partner's. With lots of love and the best of intentions, many couples enter into second and third marriages with the hopes they will this time "get it right."

There are more than 20 million stepfamilies nationwide and by 2007 they are expected to outnumber nuclear families in the United States. Yet more than half of all stepmarriages fail, usually within the first three years. Why are the chances for stepfamily survival so tenuous? What makes some stepfamilies function beautifully and others fail miserably?

A nine-year longitudinal study of 200 families, sponsored by the National Institutes of Health, asked these and other questions. The study has been billed as the "the most comprehensive analysis of stepfamilies ever," and its findings have recently been released in a book by Dr. James Bray and John Kelly, "Stepfamilies: Love, Marriage, and Parenting in the First Decade." Salon spoke with Bray, an associate professor of family and community medicine at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, about conflict resolution, parental guilt and the Cinderella syndrome.

First, describe the group you studied.

We studied 200 families -- 100 nuclear families and 100 stepfamilies. We started the study in 1983 and ended it nine years later. We interviewed these families, gave them psychological tests and went into their homes and videotaped them to see how they worked together.

Were the families from geographically disparate areas?

When the study started, all the families were from the Houston metropolitan area. But by the end about 30 percent of our sample had moved away from the Houston area. Some went all over the country and some went all over the world, and we followed them and kept up with them.

Were there black and white families?

No, they were all white families.

Was that for any particular reason?

It was for two reasons. The main reason is, we had limited funds, so we had to limit the number of families. And second, we suspected there may be some ethnic differences, and this was a way of not adding what we call "error variance" to the study. If blacks are really different from whites, you won't get a very clear picture of anything. But actually it turned out we were wrong about that, because some other studies have looked at black and Hispanic stepfamilies and they're quite similar.

What is significant about this study besides the sheer length of the project?

We looked at three things: How divorce and remarriage impact children, what is the family life cycle of a stepfamily and finally, we wanted to see how stepfamilies were different from nuclear families, particularly what kinds of things made a successful stepfamily.

N E X T+P A G E: The wicked stepmother