Nearly half of all people are predicted to be part of a stepfamily at some point in their lives. Starting (or continuing) that journey with an understanding of the unique dynamics of blended families can help smooth the ride, improve your relationships, and help to make it a supportive environment for kids and adults alike. This episode will help get you started.

Amy Stone is a mentor and coach for stepparents. She is a mom, a stepmom, and a grandma. She is a certified life coach but it is her personal experience as a wife and stepmom pushed her to create her own unique path to happiness. Today she shares her lessons learned and tools with others who find themselves in a similar situation.

When she's not coaching she's usually running or swimming or biking - Amy is a 7-time Ironman Triathlon finisher and an avid marathon runner.

 

Learn more about Amy:

Website: https://amysaysso.com/

​​IG: https://www.instagram.com/amysaysso_coaching/

FB: https://www.facebook.com/theamysaysso/

 

Learn more about Karin:

Website: https://drcalde.com

IG: https://www.instagram.com/theloveandconnectioncoach/

 

TRANSCRIPT

Intro:

Karin: This is Love Is Us, Exploring Relationships and How We Connect. I'm your host, Karin Calde. I'll talk with people about how we can strengthen our relationships, explore who we are in those relationships, and experience a greater sense of love and connection with those around us, including ourselves. I have a PhD in clinical Psychology, practiced as a psychologist resident, and after diving into my own healing work, I went back to school and became a coach, helping individuals and couples with their relationships and personal growth. If you want to experience more love in your life and contribute to healing the disconnect so prevalent in our world today, you're in the right place. Welcome to Love Is Us.

 

Episode:

Karin: Hello and welcome, everybody. Today we're gonna be talking about stepfamilies, or if you prefer the term, blended families. And this is a subject that's near and dear to my heart. As someone who grew up as a kid in a stepfamily and at a time when there wasn't a lot of good information about how to do that in a way that works best for kids and the adults as well. But also now, as an adult, I have a stepfamily. I'm not a step parent, but my husband is a stepfather to my kids. And so I see that it's really important for us to have more of an understanding of those dynamics and the challenges that come along with it, with the rewards. So when I started coaching, I was working primarily with step families, and I still work with a lot of step families, but have expanded my audience a little bit. But I'm super excited to have my guest today, Amy Stone. She is a stepmother, a long term stepmother, and now is a mentor and coach to stepfamilies, and she was just a joy to talk with. She really knows her stuff, and she's got a great sense of humor, and I felt like we could talk about a million different things. So I hope you get something out of this episode. Perhaps I will invite her back. She also has a podcast of her own called Amy says so. So I hope you like it. And thanks for being here. Here we go.

 

Karin: Welcome, Amy.

[02:24 ] Amy: Hi. I'm so happy to be here. Thanks for having me.

[02:27 ] Karin: Yeah, I'm excited to have you. This is an important topic, and I have been on the lookout for the right guest to have to talk about this, because it's something near and dear to my heart, and I wanted someone who really knows her stuff, and I think that's you.

[02:47 ] Amy: Thank you. Thank you. I accept that compliment.

[02:51 ] Karin: Oh, wonderful. And we'll get into your podcast and everything toward the end. But I just want to start out with asking, where are you in the world?

[03:02 ] Amy: I am in sunny Miami, Florida.

[03:05 ] Karin: And you said it's getting warm there.

[03:07 ] Amy: It is. I mean, this is the time of year. Starting in February is the time of year where people are really drawn to the tropics because it's warm here and that's. So that's spring break. Right. So we're finishing out spring break. I don't know if people saw it, but Miami actually did an anti spring break campaign this year, which it was fine. There were still plenty of people. But now, now that we're recording this, right at this start of April, it is, it's getting tropical hot here. But that, that's what drew me here. I came here for warm weather and I try really hard not to complain about the warm weather.

[03:48 ] Karin: Yeah, I can relate to that. In Oregon, we complain all the time.

[03:53 ] Amy: About the weather, whether it's cold or hot or it's, you know, I think.

[03:57 ] Karin: We have this ten degree window where, where people are happy, right?

[04:01 ] Amy: No, absolutely. And, you know, we sort of on reverse seasons, like, I'm not in the southern hemisphere, but it's, you know, it's delightful here in the winter and then in the summer it gets oppressive. And so, you know, that's the reason the snowbirds are such geniuses. Right. Like, if you have a place to be when it's hot here, that it's not hot. That's like the ideal situation.

[04:27 ] Karin: Yeah. So tell us what you do for work.

[04:30 ] Amy: Okay. So what I do, I'd love to share this with you, is I am a mentor and a life coach for step parents.

[04:36 ] Karin: And how did you come to do that work?

[04:38 ] Amy: So I came to do that work. The way many people come to mentorship and coaching is that I am a stepparent. My step kids are now adults, but when I met them for the first time, they were quite young. So I've been a stepparent for over 25 years and I was doing coaching, fitness coaching and endurance coaching, and I added life coaching. And then once upon a time somebody said, what is a place where you could really make a big impact? And I was like, oh, you know, there is this thing I've done that was tough. That was tough. And I might be able to really support people there.

[05:19 ] Karin: Wonderful. Yes. We do need more people who know how to navigate step family life because it is a higher degree of difficulty. It's different than a non blanded family. There are different things to consider. So I appreciate people like you.

[05:39 ] Amy: Thank you. Yeah.

[05:41 ] Karin: And why is it helpful for people, even those who are not in a blended or a stepfamily, to know a little bit about stepfamilies?

[05:52 ] Amy: So this is a great question, and if your audience doesn't know, you actually, let me have this question with a little bit in advance. So I got a chance to think about it, and the first thing, actually, was a little bit of sort of imposter syndrome, where I was like, oh, is it. Is it important that other people would know? But then I was like, okay, no. Here, let me answer this question. The dynamics of existing in a blended family are helpful for people to know because there are so many people who are living in this situation. So I live in the United States. You live in the United States. The data is wonky. And so, like, I just will be upfront about that. Like that you've always got to question information about this, and I encourage people to just question the life out of any statistics I give. But the estimate that I have recently from Pew research is that four out of ten marriages today include a remarriage. Right? So those are people who are potentially stepparents. Maybe not. Like, it's not. It's not a one for one answer, but there are a lot of people who are engaging in potentially this construct, even if. And the other thing I always point out to people is, even if you don't choose this as your path, your kids might choose this as your path. And interestingly, if you have kids and they get remarried and you are an in law, congratulations, you're in a blended family. It's a very, very similar dynamic between an in law and the new family members that it is for a stepparent. So it's a very helpful set of complexity. And what's super interesting is that that mother in law role is vilified just like the stepmom.

[07:33 ] Karin: Yeah. Yeah.

[07:34 ] Amy: Isn't that crazy? Isn't that crazy? Like we. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[07:38 ] Karin: And, you know, I also think about, you know, couples who remarry much later in life or who lose a partner and then remarry, and then they have adult kids. And that adjustment is still really hard for a lot of families.

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