Some stepfamily experts say it takes seven years for a stepfamily to blend. As I approach my seven-year anniversary, I have to agree.
I’ve had plenty of time to think about something as obvious as the change in our children’s birth order and its effects, yet the thought that my oldest son had become a middle child smacked me in the face one recent night, and it really stung. I lamented that my oldest child had gotten lost in the shuffle and my stepson, who had gone from being the youngest to being in the middle, had gotten misplaced in the deck, too.
With my intelligence analysis roots driving me once again, I had to find out more about how remarried parents can help their children through the effects of changing birth orders.
There certainly is no lack of resources on birth order, or as psychologist Kevin Leman puts it in “The New Birth Order Book,” “the science of understanding your place in the family line.”
I thought I had been sensitive to the fact that my son would no longer be the first in the family to experience great events, such as proms and graduations. The spotlight would no longer shine first on him like it did when he had crawled, walked or got on his first school bus. And my stepson, who had always had the attention that often comes with being the youngest, would no longer be the child for whom there would be an emotional final graduation party.
While I am truly happy and supportive of every momentous occasion in each of our five children’s lives, I found myself struggling with the future “what ifs”: What if an older child’s college graduation falls at the same time as a younger child’s high school graduation? What if the family focuses on an older child’s wedding or his new baby one day and the focus falls away from a younger stepsibling’s special senior year? How could I have done this to our family members, and how can I help them now?
Clearly, I had to follow the advice in “Worry,” a book written by Edward M. Hallowell: “There is such a thing as wise worry. It is our reaction to worry that counts.”
My anxiety began to melt as I read one small paragraph from Mr. Leman, “The key to understanding how friction can develop in a blended family is to know that once the grain of the wood (the personality) is set after age five or six, every birth order is set as well … the first born is always a first born, a middle child is always a middle child, and so on. Blended families do not create new birth order positions.”
Another light bulb went on with “a last born isn’t suddenly going to change his personality because a divorce and remarriage make him a middle child in the family. … When a child who is born into one birth order lands on another limb in his blended family tree, do not treat that child as something he is not.”
It is OK for my son to be in various roles and hold different responsibilities, but I need to remember who he really is. The best way to do that with our children goes back to something very basic — good communication.
Meri Wallace, a child and family therapist for more than 20 years, and author of “Birth Order Blues,” believes marriage impacts birth order and recommends, “When blending a family, it is important to talk to the children and address the changes they are experiencing in the very beginning.”
Unfortunately, I didn’t initiate a specific conversation about birth order with my children during our first stepfamily years. But, now I have an opportunity to open the door of communication with my two sons. How do they feel about their shifting places in the family line, the pros and the cons?
After seven years of firsthand stepfamily experience and my continuous focus on remarriage issues and resources in my career, I still needed a reminder: Talk with your children; address how their lives continue to change; and give each and every one of them special attention whenever you can.
• Paula Bisacre, founder of Remarriage LLC, is the publisher and executive editor of reMarriage magazine (www.remarriage magazine.com), a quarterly publication that provides practical solutions for the growing remarriage community. She can be reached at publisher@remarriagemagazine.com.
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