"Many underestimate the difficulty of stepparenting" - prominent psychologist states

I read a great article today on blended families, which, through it's 'good, bad and ugly' approach gave me comfort to feel that I'm not the only person in the world who struggles sometimes with being a step-mother.

Click here for the article via The West Australian newspaper.

Besides the very interesting statistics stating that blended families in Australia will outnumber traditional biological families by 2020, the article quotes prominent Melbourne psychologist Michael Carr-Gregg in in saying, "The Brady Bunch has done more damage to stepfamilies than virtually any other show in the history of television... It's just raised these completely unrealistic expectations about starting blended families."

Oh how true are those words!

As a step-mother myself, I struggle some days to put aside my personal wants and desires and to make family decisions based on the intention of 'what's best for the children'. For me, what can really increase the difficulty of doing so are the demands that are placed on me personally by the children's biological mother (who is my husband's ex-wife).

Anyway, enough about me. The point is, creating a successful blended family unit is hard work - it takes time, patience, effort, understanding... and sometimes, it even takes professional help through the services of a family counsellor.

Dr Carr-Gregg mentions that he himself is a step-father, and becoming a step-father has been his 'greatest battle'. If a psychologist who also counsels blended families finds the role of stepparent difficult than all step-parents out there who are struggling can ease off on feeling guilty a bit.

Dr Carr-Gregg has recently published a book on the subject called "Surviving Step-Families" which is on my list of books to buy.