Hello, stepparents, and welcome. I am delighted to have you join me today because I had the special privilege of interviewing the fabulous Dr. Patricia Papernow, who is the world’s leading expert in stepparenting and blended family dynamics.
Today’s episode will be just Part 1 of my interview with her. I’m so excited to have you join me. Without further ado, here we go…
MARIA NATAPOV:
Hi, everybody. Thank you for joining us. We are here with the fantastic Dr. Patricia Papernow. Welcome. We’re so excited to have you!
Dr. Papernow is an internationally recognized expert on stepfamilies. She integrates a deep understanding of the research with four decades of clinical practice and a wide variety of clinical modalities including psycho-educational, systemic, and trauma-informed. The recipient of the Award for Distinguished Contribution to Family Psychology from the APA Couple and Family Division, Dr. Papernow is the author of one of the classic books in the field: Surviving and Thriving In Stepfamily Relationships: What Works and What Doesn’t. She is also the co-author (with Karen Bonnell) of The Stepfamily Handbook: From Dating, to Getting Serious, to Forming a Blended Family, as well as dozens of articles and book chapters.
Dr. Papernow is a psychologist in private practice in Hudson, MA, and the director of the Institute for Stepfamily Education. We are so excited to speak with you! Clearly, without a doubt, you are an expert in this field. It’s such a pleasure to get to pick your brain and have you share your wisdom with us. I would love, before we begin to dig into a bunch of questions I have for you, for you to share your personal journey and maybe an “aha” moment that brought you to this work.
DR. PATRICIA PAPERNOW:
I’m glad to be here. I’m so glad for this information to be in the hands of people who can use it. I got into this because of my first marriage. I married a guy with two daughters, 5 and 9 when I met them. A couple of years later, I needed a dissertation and I was allowed to write what’s called a qualitative dissertation, meaning talking to people rather than counting numbers.
I could see that my family was changing. My stepkids were now seven and eight, and 11 and 12. Some of the kids were changing, but something in the family system was changing. So I wrote my dissertation on stages of development in stepfamily relationships, looking at how to step down and change over time, and what the different patterns are of how stepfamilies change. I got hooked. I finished my dissertation in 1980. Then I learned lots of different clinical models that I’ve since folded into this work. And I’m still learning, because there’s still so much to learn.
First-Time Families vs. Stepfamilies
MARIA NATAPOV:
That’s so fantastic, and it’s so needed. Of course, I’m a stepparent myself, so I can fully relate to everything you’ve just mentioned in an overarching way about the experience of being a part of a blended family. I would love to begin with hearing your thoughts on what is different about the stepfamily versus the family of origin, if you will?
DR. PATRICIA PAPERNOW:
I call it a “first-time family.” Family of origin meaning the one you were born into; first-time family meaning a family where both parents are the parents of the kid.
The difference—and it is a fundamental difference—is that in a first-time family, the couple usually has some time to make a relationship. To establish some trust, to enjoy each other without interruption, to get to know each other, to get to know even the things like, “I hate how you load the dishwasher.” That starts to become kind of ordinary. To begin to develop some rhythms of being with each other. In a first-time family, children enter the adults’ established relationship. They enter hard-wired for attachment to both of their parents, and both adults are pretty much hard-wired for attachment to the child.
Over time, the family starts to develop ways of doing things—rhythms of being together. The next child, and the next, are born into that already established adult relationship, but also the family network of, you know, we like this kind of ice cream, we like to go to this kind of place, we go here in the summer. We eat Grape-Nuts. Those things develop over time.
In a stepfamily, the pre-existing relationship is between the parent and his or her child or children, and also between the parent and the children’s other parent. The stepparent enters as an outsider to all of that. The children’s attachment is to their parents, not to their stepparent. And even though step-couples are often very much in love, the shared rhythms and shared understandings aren’t there yet.
For example, in my family, is Grape-Nuts a form of cardboard or a breakfast cereal? In my family, it was a breakfast cereal. My daughter and I married into a family where my daughter opened the cabinet door of the pantry at my husband’s house for the first time, and it was floor-to-ceiling sugar cereal! Every sugar cereal you’ve ever thought of. Her eyes got as big as saucers. So we’re not going to ask his kids to eat Grape-Nuts. Are you out of your mind? But I want my kid to eat Grape-Nuts.
There’s that difference right away. They’ve all grown up one way; my daughter’s grown up another way. Not only the attachment but also the shared rhythms of how we do things are shared between parents and children, not in the new step-couple and not between stepparents and stepkids. That’s a very different story.
The Myth of the “Blended” Family
MARIA NATAPOV:
Yeah. And I’d love to ask you further, then. Since we’re starting at the beginning of this journey, you talk in your book about the cycle for establishing and building that new connection, and establishing these new rhythms and relationships. I would love for you to share a bit about that, because I think it’s fascinating. It’s obviously difficult to assign a timeframe for every single situation, but I know that you’ve noticed some of that in your work. Could you elaborate on that?
DR. PATRICIA PAPERNOW:
Well, I think the first thing is that the language of “blended” reflects a longing. We want to have a family where we’re all connected to each other. It doesn’t reflect the reality. You’ll notice that in The Stepfamily Handbook, blended is in quotes. Because “blended” is the language that we all use, but it is not the reality. In the best of all cases, it’s a several-year process. And there are some major challenges that make it difficult.
For instance, remember I said that in a first-time family, usually both parents are in love with the kid and the kid needs both parents? In the stepfamily, the parent is in love with the kid; the stepparent is not. Every time there is a child present, the attachment is between the parent and child, and the stepparent is left out. Being left out is painful. We’re hardwired to feel good when people close to us turn towards us. When they turn away, it does not feel good.
In a first-time family, I watch my daughter parent her little toddler. She parents, and her husband’s thrilled. He parents, and she’s thrilled. In a stepfamily, if I’m going to take care of my kid, I have to turn away from you, my partner. And if I want to turn towards my partner—especially for children over eight or nine—I’ve turned away from them.
The Insider/Outsider Challenge
DR. PATRICIA PAPERNOW (cont.):
I call that the insider/outsider challenge. Parents are torn. Both scenarios are really difficult. Part of what’s hard is it’s one thing to empathize with each other when you’re having the same experience. It is really different, and takes a lot more skill and self-regulation, to empathize with each other when we experience things very differently.
So when the stepparent says, “I felt really left out,” the parent’s like, “Huh?” Not because they’re an idiot, but because they have a totally different experience. One of the things that successful step-couples do is they manage to be curious about each other and develop some empathy. Some people are better at it than others.
MARIA NATAPOV:
Definitely. I can certainly, 100%, relate to how you’re describing this. I love how, in the book, you so thoroughly paint the picture. It really takes the ability, awareness, and effort to step back and notice all the nuances of what’s going on. Who are they? What are their inherent needs? And starting to blend those personalities and needs.
DR. PATRICIA PAPERNOW:
Well, I actually think one of the dilemmas is if you start trying to blend right away, you’re actually going to be really frustrated. You’d be better off trying to “hold both.” Can I, as a stepparent, get curious and be a little less defensive when my partner says they felt left out when I was having a fun time with my kid? Can a parent get curious about what it’s like for the stepparent when she says she was left out?
It turns out that successful stepfamilies and struggling stepfamilies face the exact same challenges. Successful stepfamilies just have much better interpersonal skills. Skills to be able to calm and soothe yourself, to take a breath when you’re upset. John Gottman calls it having a “soft start.” To start with some kindness rather than, “Why’d you do that?” Just say, “Gee, that was a little hard. Can you tell me about it?”
MARIA NATAPOV:
Would you say it’s equal parts of that curiosity and self-regulation, as well as communication?
DR. PATRICIA PAPERNOW:
They’re totally related. You can’t communicate if you’re trying to be totally flat.
The other thing that really helps is having a map. It really helps to know that if you are a stepparent, you are going to be left out, and you’re not going to like it. And it really helps for parents to know that your kids may not really be too pleased about your partner—not because your partner is doing anything wrong, but because kids experience a new couple as a loss. There’s a loss of parental attention when parents fall in love.
Creating Space for Both Parents
MARIA NATAPOV:
Something I work on with my clients is this notion that when you’re turning towards this new person, it’s almost like a little bit of a rejection for the child, because there’s such an acute awareness that this person is here and my other parent isn’t. Kids inherently always want that reunification. At the very least, we’ve had to talk a lot and explain extensively about creating space for that other parent to be around, even though they’re not physically present.
DR. PATRICIA PAPERNOW:
That is critical. I talk about five challenges:
- The Insider/Outsider Challenge: What we just talked about.
- Children’s Differing Experiences: Kids feel differently about stepfamilies than adults do. They experience losses and a loyalty bind (“If I start to care about my stepmother, I’ve been disloyal to my mother”).
- Parenting: Tasks in a stepfamily pretty routinely divide parents and stepparents.
- Creating a New Culture: How do we become an “Us” in the presence of “Us and Them”?
- Ex-Spouses/Co-Parents: Making it okay for kids to love both of their parents.
In fact, it’s not divorce that is the most robust predictor of poor well-being in kids; it’s parental tension and conflict.
MARIA NATAPOV:
I just so appreciate you sharing your thoughts!
Thank you so much for joining me for my interview with Dr. Papernow. You definitely want to make sure to tune in next week for Part 2 of our conversation. You don’t want to miss it! See you then.
(Want more? Listen to Part 2 and Part 3 of this interview for more of Dr. Papernow’s tips and insights!)
Relevant Links for this Show:
- Patricia Papernow
- Patricia Papernow LI
- Surviving and Thriving in Stepfamily Relationships: What Works and What Doesn’t
- The Stepfamily Handbook: From Dating, to Getting Serious, to Forming a “Blended Family”
Related Episodes:
- Interview with Dr. Patricia Papernow: Part 2
- Interview with Dr. Patricia Papernow: Part 3
- Your Stepchild’s Loyalty Conflict – Part 1: Background
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