Introduction

According to Allan and colleagues (2013: 139), ‘kinship rarely involve[s] just two individuals. Rather, particular family relationships are routinely embedded within a wider network of family ties’. In other words, kinship work, or kinwork, is collective intimate practices (Jamieson, 2011, see Chapter 2 in this volume), negotiated duties and obligations which make (or break) a step/family (Finch and Mason, 1993). I begin this chapter by examining invisible kinwork in stepfamilies, focusing on the unacknowledged yet essential role biological or adoptive fathers play in shaping steprelationships, looking specifically at the start of a romantic relationship between them and the stepmother – as understood by stepmothers. By shedding light on these ‘invisible’ contributions, or indeed, their absence, in this chapter, I aim to challenge gendered assumptions and examine the nuanced interactions between stepmothers and biological fathers during the stepfamily formation process. Next, I examine conflict management within stepfamily structures, situating it within the broader context of stepfamily obligations and the contested dynamics between stepmothers and biological fathers arising from differing parenting styles and expectations around authority and discipline – which place them on different planets (Hester, 2011). Finally, I focus on the importance of stepmothers’ biological families, especially parents, in stepfamily in/stability. Stepmothers relied on their biological families as bridges, helping integrate the new stepfamily members, but sometimes their biological families built walls.