Can a Step-Parent Take the Place of a Real Parent?
This was the question I was asked to debate on a BBC Radio Five Live programme some years ago, when one of the producers of the Richard Bacon programme came across my book, Stepfamilies on a Google search. Did I know of anyone who might argue against the premise, he asked when he rang me later. I had to tell him, I didn’t. I did, however, know plenty of people who had been successful in stepping up to become a step-parent.
Working Through Stepfamily Problems
Having divorced and remarried myself, my book was based on personal experience, plus a number of case studies: people my second husband and I interviewed for the book. Some were childless adults coping with step-children; some had their own offspring plus step-children; others were the biological parent; and yet others the stepkids themselves. Not one of them could say that they had never encountered problems. But what each and every one could vouch for was that they had worked through their difficulties – and were prepared to continue doing so.
