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Ann and Dick Van Sickle of Minnetonka are taking their two young boys to spend Christmas with her parents in Cleveland. Dick has three other children who will stay with their mother in St. Louis Park. Ann also has three children. They'll stay at Ann and Dick's home with their father, who is coming up from Florida. Then around New Year's Day, the Van Sickles will gather his, her and their children and have yet another Christmas.
Holidays are never simple for stepfamilies, which have become one of the nation's fastest-growing and most dynamic social trends.
One out of five two-parent families is a stepfamily. Some experts speculate that up to a third of children born in the 1980s will live with a stepparent before age 18. And at current rates of divorce and remarriage, they say, well more than half of today's young people will be stepchildren by 2000.
The growth of stepfamilies has brought them social acceptance, generated considerable research and spawned a handful of support groups, including a local chapter of a national organization that started in September. For many single parents, getting married has provided a road out of poverty and exposed their children to much-needed role models.
Stepparenting has become so commonplace that the ranks include the nation's last president and Minnesota's next governor. Schools are modifying forms to accommodate stepparents, while a few local churches and businesses have discovered a growing desire for programs that address stepfamily concerns.
But the mainstreaming of stepfamilies also has made it easy to forget that they're not what they seem to be. In fact, as children watch the number of parents expand, it exacerbates the tension in deciding where to spend the holidays, who should go to school conferences and whom to invite to graduation.
Bob Keller of Edina will put his two...