Book Review – Step Wars by Drs. Grace Gabe and Jean Lipman-Blumen
How many times have you heard of empty nesters, whether divorced or widowed, falling in love and getting married and thinking to yourself, “how wonderful and how perfect?” After raising a family, now is your chance to experience a happily ever after relationship, where you can focus solely on each other and nurture your marriage without having to deal with raising each other’s children.
Younger remarried single parents face the common blended family stressors of shared parenting responsibilities, children in transition, dual family budgets, step-sibling rivalry, and conflicts with ex-spouses, all of which dilute the energy of the family. adult relationship and leave little chance. for the couple to focus on each other.
In fact, most of the stepfamily literature focuses on younger stepfamilies because older second families are supposed to avoid the normal challenges of the blended family and are perfectly prepared to focus on and enjoy each other. of healthy extended mixed family relationships that only add to their combined happiness. It sounds too good to be true, and it usually is.
In his groundbreaking book, step wars, Grace Gabe, MD, and Jean Lipman-Blumen, Ph.D., detail the interesting and unique dynamics of the adult adoptive family. After analyzing in-depth interviews and focus groups among a cross-section of remarried parents and their adult children, the authors have written the definitive book on the true story of stepfamilies and adult children.
Grace and Jean have identified five common anger issues, called the Five Furies, which are surprisingly shared by both parenting couples and adult children. Although these widespread fears and worries are important factors in relationships with stepparents, there are different points of view about who causes the problems.
1. Fear of abandonment and isolation. The fear of losing a relationship that depends on emotional and/or financial support.
2. fidelity to the family. Worrying about changes in allegiance, especially when members of the original family worry that the father will lose his old allegiance after remarrying, when stepchildren feel that the new spouse’s children have too much influence, or when either parent spouses feel that there is too much loyalty towards them. the old family.
3. Favoritism. Worry about who is number one in each family and who is given top priority.
4. finance. Fear among adult children of losing money or property they expected to receive, and for parents, the notion that their adult children are more concerned with their inheritance than with the parents.
5. Focus on yourself to the exclusion of others. Anger that a parent or adult child cares only for himself and no longer cares for others.
step wars contains a plethora of real, relatable relationship examples that expose major issues between adult stepchildren, their parents, and stepparents, and provides encouraging and practical advice and strategies for parents and adult children.
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