Blended-Families.com Ask The Experts

Dr. Jean Lipman-Blumen

Co-Author of "Step Wars"

Jean Lipman-Blumen holds the Thornton F. Bradshaw Chair in Public Policy and also serves as Professor of Organizational Behavior at the Peter F. Drucker and Masatoshi Ito Graduate School of Management, Claremont Graduate University, Claremont, CA. She is Director of the Institute for Advanced Studies in Leadership at the Drucker Ito School.

"This is an outstanding book. It tackles the delicate issues surrounding the many varieties of adult step families with wisdom and wit.... It is enlivened by intelligence, a sense of humor, and is vastly above the level of most self help books. I couldn't put it down."


Dr. S. M. Siler, Brookline, MA

Professor Lipman-Blumen is the author of seven books, three monographs, and more than 80 book chapters and articles in professional journals. The Art of Followership, co-edited with Ron Riggio & Ira Chaleff, was published by Wiley, in January, 2008. Before that, she wrote The Allure of Toxic Leaders: Why We Follow Destructive Bosses and Corrupt Politicians -- and How We Can Survive Them (Oxford University Press), which was cited by FastCompany Magazine as one of the ten top business books of 2004. Her 1996 work, The Connective Edge: Leading in an Interdependent World (Jossey-Bass), was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize.

“Step Wars can help happy second marriages stay that way! It will help to anticipate, understand and negotiate the pitfalls of dealing with adult step children. This book offers sound advice about how parents in general should talk about finances with their grown children. I predict a wide and grateful audience.”

Dr. Judith Rapoport
National Institute of Health, Washington DC

In 2004, Professor Lipman-Blumen also co-authored Step Wars: Overcoming the Perils and Making Peace in Adult Stepfamilies with Grace Gabe, M.D. (St. Martin’s). Her earlier work, Gender Roles and Power, published by Prentice-Hall , brought Lipman-Blumen’s work on gender roles to an international audience. "

Professor Lipman-Blumen’s 1999 book, Hot Groups (Oxford University Press), with Stanford Professor Emeritus Harold J. Leavitt, was awarded the “Best Book of 1999” by the Scholarly and Professional Division of the Association of American Publishers, Inc. Her research has focused primarily on gender roles, leadership, followership, management, and crisis management , as well as public policy related to these fields.


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Step Wars

When a divorced or widowed parent remarries, no one is really prepared for what lies ahead--not the parent, not the spouse, not the adult children. The first shock is usually the stark contrast between the joy of the older bride and groom and the response of virtually everyone else in both their families. There's a big difference between them. The parents choose to be married. They are volunteers. The adult children are being drafted; they didn't choose this new arrangement. It is being imposed upon them.

When a divorced or widowed parent remarries, no one is really prepared for what lies ahead--not the parent, not the spouse, not the adult children. The first shock is usually the stark contrast between the joy of the older bride and groom and the response of virtually everyone else in both their families. There's a big difference between them. The parents choose to be married. They are volunteers. The adult children are being drafted; they didn't choose this new arrangement. It is being imposed upon them.

The couple usually see their marriage as a great unexpected gift and a last chance to savor love. The adult children rarely share their parent's unalloyed pleasure. They often resist the change they know the marriage will bring. And they may intensely resent being expected to act enthusiastic about it.

In virtually every adult stepfamily we studied, problems develop when these changes occur. No one is prepared for it. There are no guidelines. Each family struggles on its own. There can be a long struggle culminating in a Step War unless all the parties have the requisite tools to work out the issues that inevitably arise.

Within each of these steps, he provides both specific analysis, guidelines and techniques based on male biology, neuro-science, brain differences, unique developmental stages from youth to seniority. To illustrate these ideas in action, he's included wonderful true stories, anecdotes, and confessions from the website. The result is a practical, very entertaining, totally original way to build successful relationships for men and their partners, girlfriends, and wives.

Whether you have been in an adult stepfamily for some time or are about to become part of one, we have written a book to show you ways to navigate this difficult terrain: "Step Wars: Overcoming the Perils and making Peace in Adult Stepfamilies" by Grace Gabe, M.D. and Jean Lipman-Blumen, PhD. (St. Martins Press 2004)


Submit Your Toughest Relationship Question
for Prof. Jean Lipman-Blumen