Step Family Relations Can Complicate Caregiving

Caregiving is complicated as we've discussed many times. And "sandwich generation" adult children have additional concerns and family issues that add another layer. But then sometimes we have to add in children--adult children--from previous relationships and it's quite a dance and very complicated.

Medical crises like  cancer do not--as in the made-for-TV-movie--make everyone behave better or rise to a higher level of functioning. Rather cancer and fear and worry instead aggravate whatever tension is underlying and can bring a focus to old battles--but with new focus. "Mom always liked you best" gets replayed, and "Who do you think you are?" gets a spin and in stepfamilies the painful, "She shouldn't be with you" and  "He's your husband not my father" might get said or played out with out words.  Just a painful layer of complications.

With our Boomer demographic having such a high level of remarriage and therefore blended families we have to factor step children and step parents into the caregiving equation.

Here's an article from PsychCentral that reminds us of this serious concern:

http://psychcentral.com/news/2013/09/28/stepfamilies-can-add-to-caregiver-burden/60046.html

When Stepfamilies Face Caregiving

This week I taught a caregiving workshop and had the opportunity to talk about another layer of caregiving challenges that families face. It’s one that folks bring up one-to-one after a workshop because there is still shame and discomfort. But the truth is that the Boomer Bump that brings us so much caregiving and huge changes in our medical system also produce more stepfamilies. There are simply more of us in the 50 to 65 group. So we have more marriages, divorces, remarriages, second families, and therefore more stepparents and step kids. 

What do you do when the patient is a stepparent or the caregiving involves stepchildren? It can be that the natural parent needs extra help with their spouse but the kids are stepchildren who feel disloyal or angry, or maybe the ill parent has kids who don’t want to share caregiving duties with a “new” husband or wife.

John and I faced that and it was painful. His adult children –angry about their parents divorce --would not participate in any caregiving. And even refused to visit John in the hospital. We had so many friends who did pitch in, and that caregiving team bonded so well, that we were not hurt logistically, but emotionally the hurt was huge.

That is the tricky part of step family caregiving: there is enough old and new pain to affect everyone: parent, stepparent, the exes and even the new spouses on both sides.

Every issue that stirs the pot in family caregiving: time, money, travel, decision making, fear and facing death gets an extra jab and extra level of pain in a step family. The standard advice about having a family meeting to make a caregiving team may not work if exes are refusing to work with a new partner, or still tugging at the kid’s loyalties.

While family therapy may be the best call for stepfamilies in non-crisis time, when cancer caregiving hits there is not time or energy for that luxury. That’s when good friends and the couple themselves have to make a conscious decision to make a new family of choice.