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