Styvföräldraskapet
? Ett föräldraskap bland flera
The purpose of this study is to perform a description of how parents experience their life in a stepfamily and to examine how the parents experience the involvement from their new partner in the children?s upbringing. The issues are: (i) which expectations do the parent has on their new partner in the role as stepparent to the child, (ii) how active does the parent experience their new partners? step parenting concerning the stepchild and (iii) how does the parent expect the new family to take shape? A qualitative study has been done through interviews. The participants were sex biological parents, of which four were fathers and two mothers. The theoretical approach and design of this study is science of stepfamilies and of the role of stepparent. This study shows that the expectations the parents have on the stepparents? involvement in the parenting and how actively the new partner is in the role as stepparent to the children is contradictive. The experience is that the stepparents should act as parents, but not in all matters. The parents thought that the stepparents were inactive in their parenting because they do not do activities alone with the stepchildren and active because of their concerns in the everyday care. The conclusion is that a great deal of insecurity lies in the expectations of how to act as a stepparent and although the purpose with the stepfamily is to imitate the nuclear family this is not possible in reality.