Stepfamilies and Holidays: The Ties That Often Tangle
A photographer wanted to take a picture of Kathleen and Steve Hermann at home with the five children from their three prior marriages--his two, her one.
Fine. Simple. No problem.
Except that 6-year-old Kimberly, Steve’s youngest, was with her mother in Huntington Beach that day, and Tracey Schroeder, Kathleen’s 13-year-old, had gone off to a ballet class and was late returning. Meanwhile, Steve and his 14-year-old daughter Tiffani had to leave pronto or Tiffani would be overdue at her mother’s.
Tension built while lights were set up in the southern Orange County living room. Finally a quick picture was taken of the adults and the three children present--Tiffani, Holly and Steven Schroeder, Kathleen’s 15- and 11-year-olds, respectively. Recent photographs were held up to substitute for the missing children.
Coordination Is Key
“Well, now you’ve seen a stepfamily in action,” Kathleen said. “I think the hardest part about the holidays is coordinating all the different people and their families.”
“It’s extremely difficult,” Steve said. “There are five or six schedules that have to be monitored” all the time.
“We are very regulated, much less spontaneous in our celebrations than we would like to be,” Kathleen said. “Now Christmas has to be divided among four families.”
According to statistics compiled by the Stepfamily Assn. of America, more than 35 million American adults are stepparents, and one in every five children younger than 18 is a stepchild. “By 1990, there will be more single-parent families and stepfamilies than biologically intact families,” said Marilyn Wyman, president of the association’s Los Angeles chapter.
The association, which has Los Angeles and Orange County chapters, offers educational seminars and support group meetings for stepparent couples, stepmothers and stepteens. The association was also instrumental in getting the first Sunday in October declared Stepparents Day in California, Michigan, Nebraska and Florida.
During the holidays, stepfamilies’ problems--including scheduling difficulties and lack of emotional bonding between stepparents and stepchildren--worsen “because people are caught up in the rush of the season,” said David Juroe Ph.D., an Orange-based psychologist who co-wrote a 1983 book, “Successful Stepparenting” with his wife, Bonnie.
What’s more, Juroe said, the arrival of the holidays tends to “resurrect feelings about ‘the good old days’ ” of former marriages and family units. “Depression is greater in the general population (around the holidays), and it’s greater in stepfamilies, too.”
To successfully negotiate stepfamily life, “the key is education and giving up the unreal fantasies and expectations you may have about the past and present--the ‘Brady Bunch’ dynamic,” said Juroe, who is the father of six and the stepparent of two.
“Give more space to one another and work with the other home where the children are going (for part of the holidays). Try to communicate and think about what’s best for the children,” Juroe said. “Ask the children, ‘What makes Christmas or Hanukkah to you?’
“Nearly all stepkids have fantasies that someday their dad and mom are going to get together again. Many will actively work toward that happening,” he said. “The bonding between the two adults is probably more important in the remarriage than in the first marriage, because the kids will try to come between (the stepparents).”
Kathleen Hermann, who works part time as a marriage, family and child counselor and community college lecturer, agreed. “A second marriage has to be a better personality match, a better value match, a better temperament match to be as good as a first marriage, because all the stresses bring out all the problems,” she said.
She and Steve, a real estate appraiser, married in 1983. Kathleen’s three children live with the couple full time and occasionally visit their father, while Tiffani visits the Hermanns every other weekend. Kimberly lives with Kathleen and Steve five out of every 14 days.
Some years, including this one, all the children spend Christmas Eve with the Hermanns and all but Tiffani stay over for Christmas morning; other years the children stay at the ex-spouses’ homes for Christmas Eve, then go to the Hermanns’ for Christmas afternoon and night.
The Hermanns’ Christmas activities always start in early December, when they buy a large tree and begin several weeks’ worth of decorating it. Cookie-baking sessions are popular with the children, who also plan a puppet show to follow the Christmas meal. This year the family is visiting Steve’s mother in Las Vegas a few days before Christmas.
However, Kathleen said, she and Steve try to guard against letting the holidays become “overloaded.”
“Because Christmas has so much lead time to it, and the emphasis (in advertising) is so material, we sit down with the kids (before the holidays) and talk about a realistic Christmas,” Kathleen said.
“We make the gift exchange just a part of the whole thing. We always have scattered activities throughout the season. We could cancel anything just for the sake of a peaceful, relaxed atmosphere. The presence of each other is the main thing we want to enjoy. . . . Instead of trying to have a perfect holiday, we try to have a few really special moments that we really concentrate on.”
Spiritual Elements
The Hermanns, who are nondenominational Christians, also try to bring some spiritual elements into the season, Kathleen said.
Whatever a family’s religious background may be, “probably the most important thing any stepfamily can do is find ways to include everybody’s traditions, rather than to rule things out,” said Marilyn Winter-Tamkin, a Venice psychotherapist and stepparent.
Winter-Tamkin, who was reared as a Protestant, is married to Ed, who is Jewish and teaches English and living skills part-time at Reseda High School. Together the Winter-Tamkins run Stepfamily Specialists, a nonprofit organization that offers classes, support groups and counseling to stepfamilies.
The Winter-Tamkins attend a Christmas Eve service with members of Marilyn’s family, then celebrate Christmas and Hanukkah on Dec. 25. They spend a quiet Christmas morning at home with Ed’s 17-year-old son, Scott, who stays with his mother in Huntington Beach the night before, then members of both extended families gather at the Winter-Tamkins’ house on Christmas afternoon.
Presents are opened around a Christmas tree decorated with Christian and Jewish ornaments, and a menorah is lit.
It took a couple of years of the Winter-Tamkins’ 4 1/2-year marriage before they were comfortable with their holiday celebrations, Marilyn said.
Moving Freely
“Sometimes it’s good to select a non-holiday day to celebrate Christmas or Hanukkah or whatever it is, so the kids can have the sense they can move freely between the different households and different rituals,” she said. “Sometimes sticking too strictly to our old traditions can really interfere with us having the holidays we really want.”
Carole and Joe Wike of Manhattan Beach have also established some holiday traditions for themselves and Joe’s children from two earlier marriages.
The Wikes have lived together seven years and been married for the last three. Joe’s son Sean, 16, moved in with the couple 2 1/2 years ago, and his son Thaddeus, 15, arrived in 1985. Joe’s daughter Monica, 21, has an apartment nearby.
“Becoming an instant parent was kind of shocking” and required tremendous adjustments, said Carole, who was married once before. “It was a lot harder than I thought it would be.”
Sean’s mother, who has custody of her son, allowed the boy to move to the Wikes’ at his request. Joe has custody of Thaddeus but had previously allowed him to live with his mother in Hawaii.
Nowadays, Carole said, Thaddeus spends every other Christmas with his mother and Sean spends half of Christmas day with his mother in Torrance.
Carole said she feels closer to her stepchildren now than she did at first, but it’s still “kind of an up-and-down thing. There are times when I’m really aware that I am an outsider, and I probably always will be” in some family interactions. But she and Joe have worked to create year-end celebrations that increase family feeling, Carole said. During the holidays, the Wikes now attend “some kind of holiday play” as well as spending a night or two baking cookies together.
Such activities help bring more of “a feeling of togetherness” to the family, Carole said, a feeling that afterward “lingers tangibly for a while and more intangibly” later.
“All those little things add up and become a cumulative larger thing” of strengthened bonding within a stepfamily, she said.