Stepfamily configurations and trajectories following parental divorce: A quantitative study on stepfamily situations, stepfamily relationships and the wellbeing of children

A second set of questions relates to the structure and characteristics of family relationships within stepfamilies and their association with children s wellbeing. Many children have a good relationship with both their parents and stepparents. Co-residence is an important factor for building and maintaining a good relationship with all parental figures. The relationship of children with their stepfather is strongly linked to their relationship with mother, but is independent of their relationship with the father. Similarly, the relationship with the stepmother isclosely related to the relationship with the father, but not with the relationship with the mother. The relationships between the former partners and the new partner relationship are relatively independent of each other, both in terms of emotional interaction, and in terms of co-parenting. Despite the current normative climate stressing the importance of the (biological) parental union following divorce, we found relatively little coparental communication between ex-partners. Divorced mothers and fathers appear to view their new partners to be their main collaborators in childrearing. Ex-partners with children in shared residence do have more frequent co-parental communication with each other than ex-partners with children living full-time with one parent. A further issue is the relationship between family structure, family relations and child wellbeing. In general, family relationships are more strongly related to the wellbeing of children than family structures, but there are important variations according the residence arrangement of the child. The results indicate the need for more conditional framing of research questions within this field: the interrelatedness of family structures, family processes and the wellbeing of children is very complex. Finally, there are few differences in the emotional wellbeing of children with divorced parents depending on the presence of a stepparent. The results suggest that the positive and negative effects of living in a stepfamily compared to living in a single-parent family balance each other out.In addition to the theoretical and methodological reflections that follow from our results, our findings also have important implications for contemporary family policy and family law. These have to do with the almost exclusive focus on biological parenthood after divorce in recent years, and the conspicuously silence about the rights and obligations of the (increasing number of) stepparents. Finally, there are important gender dimensions associated with the evolution towards joint custody of children following parental divorce, both from the perspective of biological parents as from the perspective of stepparents.status: publishe