Page 401 - Sociology and You

Section 4
Chapter 11 The Family 371 Changes in Marriage and Family
Key Terms
• blended family
• adolescents
• dual-employed marriages
• cohabitation
• boomerang kids
Blended Families
The relatively high divorce rate in the United States has created the blended family—a family formed when at least one of the partners in a marriage has been married before and has a child or children from the
previous marriage. This type of family can become extremely complicated (Ganong and Coleman, 1994; Barnes, 1998). Here’s an example: A former husband (with two children in the custody of their biological mother) mar- ries a new wife with two children in her custody. They have two children of their own. The former wife also remarries a man with two children, one in his custody and one in the custody of his former wife. That former wife has remarried and has had a child with her second husband, who has custody of one child from his previous marriage. The former husband’s parents are di- vorced, and both have remarried. Thus, when he remarries, his children have two complete sets of grandparents on his side, plus one set on the mother’s side, plus perhaps more on the stepfather’s side (Cox, 1999).
Blended families create a new type of extended family, a family that is not based strictly on blood relationships. As the example above shows, it is possible for a child in a blended family to have eight grandparents. Of
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Many new patterns of marriage and family living have emerged in the
United States. They include blended families, single- parent families, child-free families, cohabitation, same- sex domestic partners, and families with boomerang children. In spite of these new arrangements, the tradi- tional nuclear family is not going to be replaced on any broad scale.
blended family
a family formed when at least one of the partners in a marriage has been married before and has a child or children from a previous marriage
Americans knew the “Brady Bunch” family long before the term blended families became common.