Step Families Support Group

Traditionally, a stepfamily is the family one acquires when a parent enters a new marriage, whether the parent was widowed or divorced. For example, if one's mother dies and one's father marries another woman, the new woman is one's stepmother. Unless one bioparent of a stepchild is deceased, typical nuclear stepfamilies do not live in one house, consisting of three or more parents, biological and otherwise. It's also possible, in a less strict sense, that the new mate chooses the role of full- or part-time caregiver without marital commitment.

In a simple stepfamily, only one stepparent has a prior child or children. Usually this is thought of in terms of minors, but the children of a stepfamily can also be adults. Stepbrothers and stepsisters exist in a blended or complex stepfamily. In any case, any subsequent children fathered through the new marriage are one's half-siblings instead of stepsiblings, being related through one blood line, that of the one biological parent. Having a new child does not change the identity of stepfamily, nor does legal stepchild adoption.