Being a Stepparent: Live-In and Visiting Stepchildren

Quantitative and qualitative data are presented to document certain aspects of the experience of stepparenting in a subsample of 109 stepparents. A focus is placed on the locale of residence of stepchildren as a variable affecting stepparents' marital life, attachment to stepchildren, and stepchildren 's relationships with stepparents' own children. For this sample, the stepparenting experience, particularly for stepmothers, was a more positive one with live-in stepchildren than with those who live elsewhere. Stepsiblings' relations were also more positive when they lived together rather than visited. The arrival of a child born to the remarried couple had a different impact on the stepparent-stepchild relationship, depending on the gender of the stepparent and the stepchild's locale of residence.