10.4 FAMILY RELATIONSHIP CHALLENGES

In the movie Life as a House, Hayden Christensen plays Sam Monroe, a 16-year-old struggling to deal with his fractured family life. His birth parents, George and Robin, suffered a bitter divorce a decade earlier, and now they can't have even a casual conversation without a fight erupting. Their constant arguing haunts Sam, who feels torn between them. Making matters worse, he finds no comfort at home with his stepfamily, in which all attention and affection is channeled toward Robin's new children (and Sam's half-brothers), Adam and Ryan. Mired in despair, Sam numbs his pain with pot, pharmaceuticals, and inhalants. But when his father George is diagnosed with terminal cancer, the family is transformed. George forces Sam to live with him for the summer, and they work together to build a seaside house. As they live and labor together, the bond between father and son is slowly rekindled, and the rifts between Sam and his mother, and between his mother and father, are repaired.

We like to think of family relationships as simple, straightforward, and uniformly positive. Family consists of the most supportive people in our lives—individuals whom we like, love, and depend on. For many people this is true. But as Life as a House reminds us, family relationships also face daunting challenges. Three of the most difficult to navigate are stepfamily transition, parental favoritism, and interparental conflict.