មាតិកា
In-laws: the mandate of daily education
Separating is never easy. To rebuild his life either. Today, nearly 1,5 million children grow up in stepfamilies. In all, 510 children live with a step-parent. Successfully maintaining harmony in your home, even after a difficult divorce, is often the challenge of separated parents. The new companion must take his place and take on the role of step-parent. What will the daily education mandate for step-moms and step-dads actually change? How will the children experience this new measure?
Family law: the mandate of daily education in practice
If the FIPA law does not give “legal status” to in-laws, it allows the establishment of a “daily education mandate”, with the agreement of both parents. This mandate enables a mother-in-law or father-in-law living in a stable manner with one of the parents, to perform the usual acts of the child’s daily life during their life together. In particular, the step-parent can officially sign a school record book, participate in meetings with teachers, take the child to the doctor or to an extracurricular activity. This document, which can be drawn up at home or in front of a notary, certify the rights of a third party to care for the child in everyday life. This mandate may be revoked at any time by the parent and will end in the event of the termination of their cohabitation or the death of the parent.
A new place for the step-parent?
Will the establishment of such a mandate have a real impact on the daily life of blended families? For Elodie Cingal, psychotherapist and counselor in divorce, explains “when everything goes well in the blended family, it is not necessary to claim a special status”. Indeed, many children, living in reconstituted families with step-parents and children from a previous union, grow up with a step-parent, and the latter regularly accompanies him to extracurricular activities or to the home. doctor. According to her, it would have been more interesting to give a legal status to the “third party” than to opt for this half-hearted mandate. She even adds that “ when the relationship is difficult between the mother-in-law or father-in-law and the other parent, this can accentuate the conflicts. It is possible that a step-parent who takes up a lot of space takes even more and claims this mandate, as a kind of power. “In addition, Agnès de Viaris, psychotherapist specializing in family issues, specifies that” the child will thus have two different male models, which is healthy for him. ” On the other hand, in the case where the main custody is given to the mother, and where the biological father sees his children only one weekend in two, and therefore, de facto, spends less time with his children than the stepfather. “This new mandate will accentuate this inequality between the father and the stepfather” according to the psychotherapist Elodie Cingal. Céline, a divorced mother living in a blended family, explains that “for my ex-husband, it will be very complicated, he is already having trouble having a stable relationship with his children”. This mother believes that we should not give more space to the step-parent. “As far as the school meetings, the doctor, I don’t want it to be the father-in-law taking care of it. My children have a mom and dad and we are responsible for these “important” things in their daily lives. No need to involve another person in this. Likewise, I don’t want to deal with my new companion’s children more than that, I want to provide them with comfort, care, but medical and / or school problems only concern the biological parents. ”
However, this new granted right, a watered-down version of what could have been a true “third party” status, confers a little more responsibility, wanted and claimed, on the in-laws. This is the opinion of Agnès de Viaris who explains that “this advance is a good thing so that the step-parent can find his place and does not feel forgotten in the blended family. “A mother from the Infobebes.com forum, living in a reconstituted family, shares this idea and is delighted with this new mandate:” in-laws have a lot of duties and no rights, it’s just degrading for them. Suddenly, even if it is for small things that many in-laws are already doing, it allows them to be recognized ”.
And for the child, what does that change?
So for whom is it different? The child? Elodie Cingal explains: if competition or conflicts exist between parents, ex-parents and step-parent, this will strengthen them and the child will once again suffer the situation. He will be torn between the two. The child has been separated from the start anyway. For the psychotherapist, it is the child who promotes the success of the blended family. He is the link between the two families. For her, it is important that the step-parent remains “a lover” the first year. He should not impose himself too quickly, this also leaves room for the other parent to exist. Then, over time, it is up to him to be adopted by the child. Moreover, it is he who appoints the “step-parent” and it is at this point that the third party becomes the “step-parent”.