Keeping mum

Earlier this month Simone Callaghan, the ex-wife of Australian cricketer Shane Warne, publicly spoke out about how confusing the presence of English model Liz Hurley was in her children’s lives.

Callaghan, a mother of three, told the Australian Woman’s Day magazine, she did not want Hurley encouraging her children to treat her as a second mum and it was disrespectful of her to expect them to call her ‘Mummy Two’.

Through the power of the media, she was warning the woman who had replaced her in her husband’s life to keep her hands off her children.

Emotions will often run high where step-parents are concerned, but for the sake of the children involved, it is vital that all the adults in their lives remain civil to each other and adopt a mature attitude.

Although Ireland has the lowest divorce rate in the EU, numbers are rising and by last year, almost 90,000 couples had been legally separated.

Peadar Maxwell is a senior psychologist specialising in children and family issues.

“I think that as a rule, step-parents should become involved in their partner’s children’s lives,” he says. “But the parents should hold off on introductions until there is some level of certainty in the relationship. Children should not meet their mother or father’s every date — it’s confusing for them and blurs important boundaries.

“Once the relationship is established, there are no set rules about how involved you, the potential step-parent, should become with your partner’s children. It will depend on whether they live with you, whether you have children of your own, if the other parent is still around and, most importantly, what you, their other parent, and your partner decide.”

But the step-parent may find the transition just as difficult as the children.

“Step-parents can experience difficult challenges,” warns Maxwell. “Research suggests that stepmothers tend to have a more difficult time in their role than stepfathers. And step-parents who don’t already have kids of their own or who have little or no experience with children may find the new responsibilities overwhelming. It may be the first time they have had to share the other person with children who have significant needs.

“People who are completely new to parenting will need as much help as possible from their partner and other friends and family with experience with children.

“Also step-parents often put immense pressure on themselves to get on well with their new partner’s children. But it may be impossible to ever love a stepchild as if it were your own, and this can leave many new step-parents feeling guilty and inadequate.”

However, the parenting expert says it’s not all bad news, saying “blended families often do very well if everyone is realistic about their expectations”.

Solicitor Anne O’Neill specialises in family law and is an experienced collaborative practitioner. She says new families can face a minefield of emotions.

“Step-parents need to sit down with their new partner and find out what is expected of them,” she says. “In some cases, the other biological parent may not want them to have any hand in disciplining their children, and this should be established right from the start.

“There are a lot of issues to be addressed and quite often the biological parent thinks that because he or she loves the new partner, the same will be true for the children — but this is not necessarily the case.

“From the child’s point of view, there is a huge conflict of loyalty so all the adults involved must have a clear plan of where each of them stand in relation to the children. Because when there are children involved, everything needs to be clear cut without ever involving them as a go-between the adults.”

* For more information see www.familylawireland.ieand see www.hse.ie