Stepfamilies are now the fastest-growing family type in the UK, with celebrities including Kate Ferdinand opening up about their experience as a stepmum.
In fact, it’s estimated that one in three of all families are now what we’ve come to call blended families, according to Happy Steps, the research-based stepfamily resource centre.
Yet stepmothers still get labelled with outdated stereotypes, portrayed as wicked on outright evil in films and fairytales. So to celebrate Mother’s Day, we talked to three women with very different experiences of step-parenting.
Here they share the joys and the challenges they’ve experienced when a new partner has brought more than just romance into their lives… ‘Sam’s kids made me reassess what I wanted’ Jennie Guay, 36, is a children’s author who lives with her wife Sam, stepdaughter Frankie, nine, and stepson Harrison, seven, in Cheshire. “I lived a heteronormative life until I was 30, when I came to a realisation about my sexuality.