The Road to Collective Co-Parenting: Waiting for Co-Parent Status Is Like Sitting Alone on the School Bus By Melissa D. Day, MS
Negotiating kids’ busy schedules can be overwhelming enough in one home. Coordinating them between multiple homes comes with additional challenges. Add in back-to- school season and things get even more complicated. As your stepfamily makes the transition to new teachers, activities and routines, co-parenting challenges may step out of the shadows and into the light.
As you know, there are likely a number of good reasons your partner and his ex are divorced.
Demonstrating cooperation and teamwork now, while trying to maintain equal involvement in the kids’ lives, is a challenge. Adding stepparents to the co-parenting dynamic further complicates things. Back-to-school stressors? Well, they test everyone’s nerves!
For stepmoms like you and I, co-parenting presents another layer of complexity. As females, our roles are often pitted as being “in competition” with those of our stepkids’ mothers. It’s cringe-worthy, I know. This makes it harder to find our place in the co-parenting process, leaving us to feel like Backseat Parents.
Or like the academic equivalent: the kid sitting alone (and feeling lonely) on an otherwise crowded school bus.
…To read the rest of this article, log in to your account and download the September 2017 issue. Don’t have an account? Click here to subscribe.