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Discussion about how a parent's remarriage affects children is usually confined to, well, children. But adults can also have trouble coping when a parent takes a new partner, whether it's following death or divorce. "The impact of a parent's remarriage on adult children tends to be overlooked," says Susan Newman, author of the forthcoming Nobody's Baby Now: Reinventing Your Adult Relationship with Your Mother and Father (Walker & Co.). "The parent-child bond is intensely strong. A parent's remarriage causes a shift in that relationship, and most adult children find it unnerving...
...their grown children see remarriage as an attractive alternative to spending the next 30 years alone. According to the Census Bureau, approximately 13% of currently divorced 50-year-old men and 8% of currently divorced 50-year-old women can be expected to remarry at some point. Witnessing a parent's remarriage--though such unions are increasingly common--can feel awkward, even unnatural, to grownup kids. "As a child, you don't understand the courting years of your parent's life," says Amanda Dow, 31, whose father Wayne Gilstrap started dating two months after her mother died...
Coping with a parent's remarriage requires acknowledging that traditions, boundaries and plans have changed. Certain situations may prove thornier than others. A woman whose father marries a much younger person may find herself competing with the new wife for his love and attention. Another who cherishes her role as a parent's caretaker or close confidant can resent being replaced by a spouse. Other adult children may grow concerned that they'll be shut out of decisions for their aging parent. "Some people feel excluded and abandoned," says Susan Wisdom, author of Stepcoupling: Creating and Sustaining a Strong Marriage...
Under the best circumstances, a parent's remarriage can enrich the entire family. In 1986, a year after her mother's death, Joan Reckdahl's father remarried at age 74. His daughter was delighted with his new wife Agnes, then 67. "My father was a harsh, demanding man," Reckdahl says. "If he had needed support, it would have been difficult for us to take him in." Following the remarriage, her relationship with her father improved dramatically, a shift she credits to Agnes. When he died in 1994, his estate was divided among his four children, according to the terms...
...natural offspring of book clubs for adults, parent-child discussion groups--such as this one, which meets monthly in Wilmette, Ill.--have grown increasingly popular in recent years. Although the mother-daughter combination remains the most common configuration, mother-son, father-son and father-daughter groups also are coming together in libraries, bookstores and private homes across the country...