Before Katherine Schwarzenegger married Chris Pratt, she hired a pro to help her prepare to become his son’s stepmom.
During a joint appearance with Pratt on Tuesday’s episode of the “Parenting & You with Dr. Shefali” podcast, Schwarzenegger spoke about family life and what it was like navigating a blended household.
Schwarzenegger married the “Jurassic World” actor in 2019 and has two daughters and a son with him. Pratt also shares a son, Jack, 12, with his ex-wife, Anna Faris.
“Number one thing I say is get a stepparenting therapist or stepparenting coach, because I got that right when we got engaged, and it’s been incredibly helpful for me and also just understanding my role as a stepparent,” Schwarzenegger told podcast host and clinical psychologist Shefali Tsabary.
The eldest daughter of Arnold Schwarzenegger and Maria Shriver added that her coach was “essential” in helping her learn how to communicate with her stepchild and think of herself as a stepparent.
“Because stepparenting, like parenting, has no handbook. Because I have the benefit of being in both roles, stepparenting is extra confusing because you aren’t a parent, you’re not a nanny, you’re not an assistant. You have responsibilities in all of those areas, but you’re not either of them. It’s a confusing thing to navigate where you fit in,” Schwarzenegger said.
She also said that every family has a different dynamic, since different people might have different levels of involvement in their stepchild’s life.
“And when it comes to ego, that definitely pops up for me, for sure, and I always go back to understanding that this isn’t about me, it’s about the child,” she said.
But thankfully, they — Schwarzenegger, Pratt, Faris, and Faris’ husband Michael Barrett — “co-parent all very well, which is a huge blessing,” she said.
Pratt, who was also a podcast guest, added that stepparenting reminds him of motion-capture acting, where actors wear specialized suits with sensors to animate digital characters, because stepparents “don’t end up getting the credit” they deserve.
“If a parent is in there doing the hard work of creating structure for a child and holding children accountable — and it’s not a biological child — it can feel thankless. But it’s a really, really important job,” Pratt said.
Schwarzenegger isn’t the only Hollywood celebrity who has spoken up about being a stepparent or blending their families.
In March, Kate Hudson — who has three kids with three dads — said there are upsides to having big, blended families.
“It’s like they have so much family. They’ve got multiple grandmas, multiple grandpas, multiple dads, and moms,” Hudson said.
On a “Goop” podcast episode in April, Gwyneth Paltrow said that it was tough navigating the stepparent dynamic as it often felt “full of minefields.”
“If I look back at my mistakes as a stepmother, I should have just treated them both like my kids way faster,” Paltrow said.
Paltrow has two kids with her ex-husband Chris Martin, whom she divorced in 2016. In 2018, she married Brad Falchuk, who has two kids from his previous marriage.
Parenting experts previously told Business Insider about the common mistakes that stepparents make when trying to connect with their stepkids.
One mistake is trying to replace the stepchildren’s biological parents.
“The stepparent isn’t the biological parent, and it is OK to acknowledge that,” Sarah Epstein, a licensed marriage and family therapist, told BI. “In fact, don’t try to compete. Instead, speak directly to the child about their parent and encourage the relationship between the child and parent.”
Representatives for Schwarzenegger and Pratt did not immediately respond to requests for comment sent by BI outside regular hours.
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