Blended Families

First comes love then comes marriage then comes the baby in the baby carriage. Not one for bending to the whim of a rhyme, I started with the baby. You…

Do you shared parent? Co-parent? Parallel parent? A plethora of empty terms that, for me, fail to express the emotional complexity of raising a child between separated parents. Christmas is…

My words may be clumsy, stumbling, likely sound self-involved. Perhaps they are. Honesty and raw feelings don’t always translate smoothly onto a page the way my heart wants them to.…

Single parenthood Being a single parent, was my choice, made with consideration and with courage. I own it rather that describe it as being coerced upon me by a crumbling…

From two to three My son calls my partner by his first name, to adults we describe him as Leo’s ‘stepdad’ though we are not married. Scandalous shock horror.  No…

Motherhood Whilst it stumbles along slowly in those first few exhausted weeks has flown by for me in a haze of being. Being patient, being tired, being proud, being angry,…

I have a father, obviously, it is a biological must for procreation. (Unless my mother is some kind of reproduction wizard, or is a biblical dungarees wearing miracle.) My dad…

Shared parenting, co parenting, separate parents…So many words and so many feelings. Two days a fortnight. Friends urge me to drink copious amounts of wine when my little boy visits…

Did you plan your pregnancy? My son was unintended. I won’t say unplanned because I had always planned to have children. Always imagined being a mother. I had white picket…