Blended Families

• Publication year: 2018
• Author: Tiffany L. Andrews

Blended Families

Tiffany L. Andrews

Tiffany Andrews is a Certified Family Law and Child Welfare Law Specialist who has been practicing i dependency law since 2006 and family law since 2008. She is a 2005 graduate of the University of the Pacific McGeorge School of Law and graduated with a Bachelor's of Science in Criminal Justice from the California State University of Sacramento in 2001. She is sworn in to practice in the State Courts of California, the federal court of the United States District Court, Eastern District of California and, in 2014, into the United States Supreme Court.

Most courts today recognize the importance of family education. We frequently see attorneys requesting and/or courts ordering parties to some sort of parenting and/or co-parenting classes. It is also not uncommon to have clients who have had premarital counseling and/or even divorce counseling. Perhaps it is time to start thinking about adding a blended family module to the list of resources to which attorneys and courts can refer clients.

According to GoodTherapy.org, blended families, or stepfamilies, are becoming increasingly common. Studies show that nearly half of marriages in the United States end in divorce and that at least half of the nation's children live with a biological parent and the parent's partner, who is not the other biological parent. That person might be called a stepparent or a "bonus" parent."¹

Many family law litigants may have already found themselves in new relationships before the dust on their judgment settles or their divorce or legal separation is even finalized, often with children caught in the middle. Sending them to blended family counseling and/or providing them with resources on how to navigate the new family systems they are finding themselves in may avoid many headaches and hurt feelings. It may also help to decrease the amount of calls or emails lawyers get about how the new stepparent got your client's son or daughter's hair cut without his/her permission. Many of us family law attorneys have stories like this.

Just to put things in perspective, some examples of the blended family issues that I have witnessed in my own career over the past decade include:

• The client called complaining because she went to her child's baseball game and when she got there the stepmother had dressed herself and the client's daughter in matching pink T-shirts.
• During a visitation exchange in which your client was accompanying her new partner in exchanging his children with his ex, the ex (upon seeing your client) refused to get out of the car and literally threw the children's backpacks out the window in front of the children.
• The biological mother learns that the father has decided to start dating and drags the parties' children over to the father's house late at night to confront the father and make the father tell his children that he has elected to not be with their mother anymore and that he is now dating someone new.
• The client's ex is allowing his/her new girlfriend and/or boyfriend to do the emailing and/ or texting about the children and your client becomes infuriated.

Do any of these examples sound familiar?

"The joining of two parents and their respective children can create challenges, as children may be accustomed to different parenting styles and family routines. As they adapt to the new family structure, children are likely to experience stress due to visitations or conflict between their biological parents, between one parent and the other parent's new partner, or with their stepsiblings. Before...