Dr. Phil’s new book Family First has one feature that sets it apart from the crowded shelves of family self-help books: his chapter on divorced and blended families. He has seen first hand that the official line we’ve been given about divorce and remarriage is misleading at best and down-right false at worst. You know the the “happy talk” I’m talking about: Divorce is no problem, if....

If the mother has enough money, if she spends enough time with the kids, they’ll do just fine. If the parents continue to work together in a loving cooperative way, the children will be better off than with a family life of continual strife. If the stepdad is loving and attentive, remarriage is no problem for kids. If the children know that their parents love them, they will have minimal difficulties adjusting to the necessary changes in their parents’ lives.

Dr. Phil knows from experience that those huge “ifs” don’t automatically occur in real life. Making those “ifs” come true takes an almost super-human effort. Because he is a positive type of guy, he doesn’t focus on the negatives. But by spelling out in detail what the biological and step parents need to do and not do, he makes it clear that divorce, remarriage and stepparenting is no picnic.

Many apologists for easy divorce used to assume that a lack of money caused the problems of single parenting. But social scientists who study family patterns closely are no longer so sanguine. They have found, for instance, that adding a stepparent to a single parent home does increase the financial resources available to the child, but that the presence of stepparents doesn’t necessarily help the child. In fact, in some ways the stepparent situation is more complicated and difficult than the single parent situation. Specifically, children with stepparents are more likely to have emotional problems. Dr. Phil’s material gives a clue as to why that might be the case.

He states, for instance, “It is my strong belief that unless you as the stepparent are added to the family when the children are very young, it will most likely be very difficult for you to discipline your spouse’s children.” Now, what kinds of observation might have led Dr. Phil to that conclusion?

He has seen, and I bet you have too, situations in which the kids resent discipline from the stepparent. A child disturbed by his parents’ divorce can make family life hell on earth. A wounded child can disrupt their parent’s new marriage. It is easy enough to understand the dynamic at work. Kids naturally resist any discipline, even though they need it. Children test boundaries even though children are profoundly comforted by having limits. Unless the husband and wife are absolutely on the same page, it is very easy for kids to triangulate between them. All parents have to deal with this problem.

Stepparenting is complicated by the fact that the parents are not naturally on equal footing in their relationship with the child. The biological parent already has a relationship with the child, and the step parent is stepping into the flow in mid-stream. The children and the biological parent may already have developed an “us against the world” posture from living in what Dr. Phil calls, the “divorce foxhole,” with all its stress. The biological parent can become protective toward the child, which is fine in itself. But if that protectiveness takes the form of shielding the child from any unpleasantness, including unpleasant consequences of their own behavior, the child can end up controlling the family with his “hurt” feelings. Statements such as “You aren’t my REAL dad” or “you aren’t REALLY my mom,” become loaded weapons in the family. A vindictive child can use these wounding words as a plausible excuse for that all-too-typical resistance.

Dr. Phil handles this material very gingerly, sensitively and without judgment. But he makes it clear that being a stepparent is a genuine challenge. Reading the chapter on single-parent families with an open mind, leads inevitably to the conclusion that marriage makes it easier to be a good parent. If you are married to your child’s other parent, and are on good working terms with them, raising successful children is going to be much easier and more straightforward. The happy talk we have been given that “children of divorce do just fine” is simply untrue. Dr. Phil does not come right out and bang the reader over the head. But the conclusion is almost impossible to avoid: successfully blending a family requires a lot of work.

Pastors should consider giving this chapter to couples contemplating divorce. Dr. Phil might help these struggling couples see that divorce won’t necessarily solve every problem they now face. As parents, they will still have to interact with each other, even after divorce. Sometimes, brand new problems emerge while old problems are simply transferred to a different arena.

I have often thought that if people worked as hard at making marriage work as they do at making divorce work, they might stay married. With a more accurate image of how much effort stepparenting really takes, people might be inclined to work harder at keeping their marriages together. Dr. Phil’s new book, Family First, is just the thing to give them that dose of reality.

Marriage is hard work, but divorce is harder!

Newdow Fails To Silence Prayer This Inauguration Day!

Michael Newdow failed in his attempt to ban prayer from Bush’s inauguration. After two lower courts rejected Newdow’s request the case came before Chief Justice William Rehnquist. Rehnquist refused Newdow’s request to recuse himself from the case and then denied his claim that a prayer at today’s ceremony would violate the Constitution by forcing him to accept unwanted religious beliefs.

The woman known as "Roe" Fights to Reverse Landmark Decision

Speaking at a news conference at the Supreme Court this week, McCorvey announced her intent to request that the high court reverse Roe vs Wade.

As WorldNetDaily reported:

Norma McCorvey began a quest in 2003 to reopen the case, based on changes in law and new scientific research that make the prior decision "no longer just." She cites the sworn testimony of more than 1,000 women who say they were hurt by abortion.

"This is the day I've longed for," she said in a statement issued by her legal representation, the San Antonio-based Justice Foundation.

"Now we know so much more, and I plead with the court to listen to the witnesses and re-evaluate Roe vs. Wade," McCorvey said. "It was a dreadful day in America when the Supreme Court allowed a woman to kill her own child."

The Heritage Foundation’s Family & Society Database catalogs social science findings on the family gleaned from peer-reviewed journals, books, and government surveys. Serving legislators and staffers, journalists and writers, teachers and students, as well as clergymen and helping professionals, the Database makes social science research easily accessible to the non-specialist.

What’s Next for the Marriage Movement?

"Meanwhile, something new, surprising, and quite encouraging has apparently happened in our society. A series of recent independent reports suggests that this supposedly unstoppable trend of U.S. marital decline has largely stopped in its tracks. It now seems clear that the voices of passivity and despair have been wrong, or at the very least premature, in announcing the death of the stable, marriage-headed family. Divorce rates are now modestly declining.1 Rates of unwed childbearing, after increasing sharply year after year for decades, have changed very little since 1995.2 Teen pregnancy rates have declined dramatically.3 Rates of reported marital happiness, after declining steadily from the early 1970s through the early 1990s, have stabilized.4 Perhaps the most encouraging news is that, from 1995 to 2000, the proportion of African American children living in married-couple homes rose by about 4 percent.5 Among all U.S. children, the proportion living in married-couple homes has stabilized and may be slightly increasing.6"

These changes are not large or definitive. But they are certainly suggestive. If they continue, they will change the lives of millions of U.S. children and families for the better. For the first time in several generations, those working for the renewal of marriage in the United States may have the wind at their backs.

This much we know: There is nothing inevitable about the decline of marriage in America. What will happen to this vital institution in the future is not an externally structured or preordained historical process. It is an event in freedom, dependent upon the conscious choices that we make as individuals and as a people."

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