The difficulties of stepmotherhood : a comparison between stepmothers who have no children of their own and stepmothers who have their own children

Relatively few studies have examined the difficulties of the stepmother, but research suggests that compared to other stepparents, stepmothers without their own children have the most difficult task. This preliminary study describes the difficulties of the stepmother by comparing two groups of stepmothers; those who have no experience of their own children, with those who have children of their own, either from a previous marriage or from their present marriage, or from both. A convenience sample of thirty-one volunteers, who are full-time stepmothers, constituted the sample. Subjects were limited to white middle class South Africans. A two-part, semi-structured interview was conducted on each subject: Part one consisted of open-ended questions intended to provide an overall view of the particular circumstances of the stepmother. Part two consisted of information elicited by means of psychometric testing. The McMaster Family Assessment Device is used to assess the family functioning and thereby investigate the difficulties of the stepmothers. The Rutter Child Behaviour Questionnaire is used to determine the range of behaviours with which the stepmother might need to cope. Information regarding the stepmother's early childhood relationships is elicited by means of the Adult Family Relations Test. After the interviews and tests had been scored. the subjects were divided into two groups: One comprised of twelve stepmothers who had had no experience of mothering prior to their stepmother status; the other comprised of 19 stepmothers who had either one or two children of their own. Statistical analysis was conducted on the scores derived from The Rutter Child Behavior Questionnaire (t-test) and The McMaster Family Assessment Device (Hotellings Tz). The Family Relations Test was analysed by means of percentages and standard deviations. The demographic details were presented as percentages, and where applicable. Chi squared tests were conducted. Findings suggest that stepfamily functioning in the situation where the stepmother has no children of her own is different and less healthy from that in the family where the stepmother has children of her own. These results are largely consistent with the literature, but as regards the actual difficulties that contributed to the differences between these groups,findings remain tentative.

Grantor dc:publisher.institution

Department of Psychology

Year dc:date.issued

1987

Author dc:creator

• Price, Ruth Nanette

Advisors dc:contributor.advisor

• Dawes, Andrew
• Saayman, Graham

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/11427/14322

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:open.uct.ac.za:11427/14322