Stepsibling

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Charles and David are step-siblings as they are joined by the marriage of their parents Ben and Agatha.

Step-siblings are children born of two different families who have been joined by marriage. A male step-sibling is a stepbrother and a female is a stepsister. The step-siblings relationship is connected through law and is not a blood relation.

Contents

Step-siblings are sometimes abbreviated informally as stepsibs. [1]

Culture

In many fairy tales, the central character has a stepmother and the step-siblings serve as an extension of their mother. Cinderella and Mother Hulda features wicked stepsisters who take after their parents. The story Kate Crackernuts serves as a counterexample where the daughter of the evil stepparent is a loving stepsister. [2]

Many romance novels feature heroes who are the stepbrother of the heroine. The step-relationship generally stems from a marriage when the hero and heroine are at least in their adolescence. [ citation needed ]

Some family films and television sitcoms feature a blended nuclear family including siblings as the center premise. In many cases, the step-family is large and full of children causing situations such as sibling rivalry, rooming, falling in love, and getting along amongst the children as popular plot-lines. This premise gained traction with the 1968 films Yours, Mine and Ours and With Six You Get Eggroll and the 1969 launch of the television sitcom The Brady Bunch . Some contemporary family sitcoms have made the blended family sitcom more popular with the TGIF show Step by Step bringing about other shows such as Aliens in the Family , Life with Derek , Drake & Josh , and the short-lived NBC family sitcom Something So Right . The Life of Riley is a 2009 British comedy television series, shown on BBC One & BBC HD. It focuses on the lives of a blended family. Kevin and Kell is a comic strip that focuses on a blended family. The Disney Channel animated series Phineas and Ferb also prominently features a blended family, chosen by co-creator Jeff "Swampy" Marsh in part due to its under-use in children's programming, and his personal experiences growing up in such a family. [3]

References

  1. MMeyer, Robert (2001). The Child Clinician's Handbook. p. 515.
  2. The Annotated Classic Fairy Tales, p. 230
  3. Bond, Paul (7 June 2009). "Q&A: Dan Povenmire". Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved 2009-08-26.