Blended Families: Children from Previous Relationships

Blended Families
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Blended Families
Over the past five decades, the American family has dramatically changed. It is no longer what it used to be. This is due to the dramatic rise in divorce cases, cohabitation of families rather than marriage, gay and heterosexual families and more children are being born out of wedlock. This is a shift from the ideal family of companion marriage that was being popularized during the early 1920s to more freedom relationships. Before the shift occurred, an ideal American family consisted of a father who was the main breadwinner of the family, a mother who was the homemaker, and many children. Since then the society has become more inclusive with more women being financially independent which has led to the increased tension in marriages.
There are conflicts in families with both emotional and violence abuse and the children are the ones who are being affected but tend to benefit when the marriage is dissolved. However, after the divorce children suffer in their schools and become affected in their social relationships. Sometimes the parents tend to bring the unresolved conflicts into their future relationships. This has led to a change in values and culture due to the changed family structure. Today in the United States, there are gay and lesbian marriages, that have become common and open, cohabitation among the couples are raising children without marrying, divorce cases have increased, and people are remarrying, bringing children from previous relationships into the new relationships blending the families (Bales & Parsons...