Abstract
Objective: To investigate if divorced parents celebrate their children's birthdays with their respective ex-partner and current partner, and whether they do so "jointly" with both.
 Background: Family rituals like birthday celebrations are important and meaningful events in people's lives, but little is known about who partakes in these in contemporary postdivorce families.
 Method: We assessed whether divorced parents celebrated their child's birthday together with their ex-partner (i.e., the child’s other biological parent), current partner (i.e., the child’s stepparent), and jointly with both. Dutch Data (N=2,451) was analyzed using linear probability models.
 Results: Most parents celebrated the child's birthday without the ex-partner, but with the current partner. One quarter celebrated with both. The ex-partners' presence was more likely when parents' and their current partners' relationship with the ex-partner was good; and less likely when parents had repartnered and when the ex-partners had sole custody or additional biological or stepchildren. The presence of the current partner was more likely in case of coresidence with the biological parent and when the ex-partner had a new partner; and less likely when the ex-partners had sole custody and when parents’ relationship with the ex-partners was good.
 Conclusion: Child-related family rituals mostly involve the "new" stepparent rather than both biological parents. The effects of relationship quality, co-residence, repartnering, and having additional biological or stepchildren highlight the importance of (step)parents' willingness to interact with each other, structural opportunities for parent-child interactions, and parents’ shifting loyalties from their ex-partner to their new family.
Highlights
Rituals are recurring family practices ranging from the ordinary to the extraordinary (e.g., Christmas and birthday celebrations) (Johnson, 1988)
Existing studies offer little leads about how these more recent and emergent types of postdivorce families practice family rituals. In this large-scale, quantitative, study we investigate with whom divorced parents practice family rituals, focusing on the child’s parental figures
To show how family rituals in postdivorce families reify the old or new family and when that is the case, we focus on the family structural and qualitative determinants of which parental figures celebrate children’s birthdays together in postdivorce families
Summary
Rituals are recurring family practices ranging from the ordinary (e.g., family dinners) to the extraordinary (e.g., Christmas and birthday celebrations) (Johnson, 1988). They are imbued with special meaning and commemorate, honor, and celebrate important occasions during the year and life course (Fiese et al, 2002; Imber-Black & Roberts, 1998; Wolin & Bennett, 1984). It is presumed that all families practice family rituals (Fiese et al, 1993), but who partakes in them differs between family types (Bakker et al, 2015; Berg-Cross et al, 1993; Costa, 2014). Little societal norms exist promulgating with whom family rituals are to be celebrated (Cherlin, 1978), leading to potentially great variation within the group of divorced parents
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