In today’s episode of the Children First Family Law podcast, Krista Nash welcomes Dr. Ann Ordway, a family law attorney, parenting coordinator, and stepfamily coach. Together, they unpack what it takes to build a healthy blended family, one grounded in patience, emotional awareness, and long-term thinking.
Dr. Ordway shares what works and what fails when families blend too quickly. She draws on her professional expertise and personal experience of raising seven children in a blended family. They explore how children react to transitions, how co-parents can support one another across households, and how step-parents can earn trust instead of expecting it.
This episode gives parents and professionals a roadmap for blending families that prioritizes emotional safety and sets children up to thrive.
In this episode, you will hear:
- Begin stepfamily transitions by acknowledging loss and grief
- Give each child space to adjust at their own pace
- Slow down recoupling to avoid emotional whiplash
- Approach introductions gradually, with clear communication
- Build step-parent relationships through trust, not authority
- Spend one-on-one time to strengthen individual bonds
- Coordinate with co-parents to reduce confusion and fear
- Keep children in familiar spaces when possible
- Treat stepchildren and biological children equitably
- Model respectful relationships between all households
Resources from this Episode
www.afccnet.org/About/Staff/ann
www.childrenfirstfamilylaw.com
All states have different laws; be sure you are checking out your state laws specifically surrounding divorce. Krista is a licensed attorney in Colorado and Wyoming but is not providing through this podcast legal advice. Please be sure to seek independent legal counsel in your area for your specific situation.
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Blending StepFamilies with Heart and Wisdom: Dr. Ann Ordway Podcast Transcript
Ann Ordway 00:00
Some of the things that are really important, I think, is the underscoring of the simple fact that most step families are born from loss. And so what I mean by that is that you’re talking about recoupling, where the original family has been extinguished, either through the process of separation and divorce, estrangement between the parents, sometimes death and so the children have all experienced the loss of what they knew in terms of their parents relationship. Sometimes that’s for the better when you’re talking about cases where there’s family violence dynamics. But often, even when there’s family violence dynamics, the children have to navigate a transition, and that’s not easy. Many people kind of jump into their new relationship and recouple because they think, you know, wow, this is going to be happily ever after. I’m in love, this is great. It’s a new chance at love. And those are terrific concepts. But when we don’t consider the needs of the children involved, we tend to leave them behind, and it is like they’re being dragged behind the parents’ movement toward a new life. It just makes it more difficult.
Intro/Outro 01:22
Welcome to the Children First Family Law podcast. Our host, Krista Nash, is an attorney, mediator, a parenting coordinator, and child advocate with a heart to facilitate conversations about how to help children flourish amidst the broken area of family law. As a child advocate in demand for her expertise throughout Colorado and as a speaker on these issues at a national level, Krista is passionate about facilitating and creatively finding solutions to approach family law matters in a way that truly focuses on the best interests of kids. Please remember this podcast is provided to you for information purposes only. No one on this podcast is representing you or giving you legal advice. As always, please enjoy this episode and be sure to like, subscribe and share the podcast with others you think would benefit from this content.
Krista Nash 02:12
Hi everyone, and welcome back to the Children First Family Law podcast, where we keep kids at the center of every family law conversation. Today, we’re diving into a topic that touches more families than ever before. Step families, blended families can be beautiful and they can be incredibly complex. When children are adjusting to new step parents, new siblings and new households, they often need more support than the legal system typically offers, and that’s where today’s conversation comes in. I’m thrilled to be joined by Dr. Ann Ordway, someone who brings an exceptional blend of legal, mental health and deeply personal insight to this conversation, and I do mean personal, because in addition to her decades of professional experience, Dr. Ordway is also generously sharing her own story of blending a family with seven children. That lived experience brings a level of empathy, honesty and practical wisdom you won’t find in a textbook. Professionally, Dr. Ordway, who is a lawyer and a PhD, joined the A of F and Conciliation Courts as Program Director in July of 2021 a role in which she currently still serves, supporting chapters, developments and educational programming, contributing to special projects and helping produce their widely read materials. Before joining AFCC, Dr. Ordway taught graduate level students in the counseling department at the University of Phoenix in Arizona, where she still currently lives. She’s been a family law attorney for more than 25 years, and is a nationally certified counselor continuing to work in the fields of parent coordination and child advocacy. This is someone who not only understands the systems families navigate, she understands the human sides of those stories, especially when children are caught in the middle of big changes. So whether you’re a parent in a blended family, a step parent navigating new roles or a professional trying to help kids thrive through it all. This episode is for you. Well, welcome today to our episode of the Children First Family Law podcast. I am very excited to have with us, Dr. Ann Ordway, who is going to be speaking with us today about the very important and interesting topic of step families. She has a really interesting background herself and has done a lot of work in this area, and so welcome. Thanks for doing this with me today.
Ann Ordway 04:27
Well, thanks for inviting me, Krista. I appreciate it. This is probably one of my favorite topics. I think, as you know, I practiced family law for many years in New Jersey, before I went on and got my master’s degree in clinical mental health counseling and a PhD in counselor education and supervision, but this particular topic is very near and dear to my heart because of my own step family journey, and that’s really what motivated me to become trained as a stepfamily coach, therapist and mediator through the Stepfamily Foundation in New York with Jeannette Lofas . And I’ve also had the benefit of doing a lot of work with Patricia Papernow, who’s in Massachusetts, who is considered also one of the gurus in the field of stepfamily.
Krista Nash 05:17
So that is great, and we’ve not talked about stepfamilies specifically on this podcast yet, so I’m really interested to hear the dynamics of both your personal experience and what you learned. So maybe let’s start by just chatting about, what do you think, just as an initial matter, people need to understand about the dynamics of what sort of foundational things they need to understand when we’re thinking about people that have been divorced and they’re bringing families together. You know, of course, I’m a child of the 70s. I think about the Brady Bunch. You know, it’s that sort of thing, right? All you younger people need to go find that and watch it, and Alice and the gang tell us what those foundational principles are that people need to really think about.
Ann Ordway 05:54
So, you know, that’s a really important question. And I love that you alluded to the Brady Bunch, because one of my favorite expressions when I was raising my own step family was I would say, Alice doesn’t live here, because the Brady Bunch really made it look simple, because they had a full-time live-in housekeeper who really assisted with the kids and made dinner and you know that really gave Mrs. Brady more time to do her hair and volunteer in the community, right? And, you know, kind of keep everybody in line. So, you know, Mr. And Mrs. Brady had time for romance and building their relationship, even though they were juggling six kids. Some of the things that are really important, I think, is the underscoring of the simple fact that most stepfamilies are born from loss, and so what I mean by that is that you’re talking about recoupling, where the original family has been extinguished, either through the process of separation and divorce, estrangement between the parents, sometimes death and so the children have all experienced the loss of what they knew in terms of their parents relationship. Sometimes that’s for the better when you’re talking about cases where there’s family violence dynamics, but often even when there’s family violence dynamics, the children have to navigate a transition, and that’s not easy. Many people kind of jump into their new relationship and recouple because they think, you know, wow, this is going to be happily ever after. I’m in love. This is great. It’s a new chance at love. And those are terrific concepts, but when we don’t consider the needs of the children involved, we tend to leave them behind, and it is like they’re being dragged behind the parents’ movement toward a new life. It just makes it more difficult.
Krista Nash 07:57
So I think it’s really poignant that you talk about it is I wrote down what you said that they’re born from loss. I’m curious, and I’ll probably jump all over the place here, because my thoughts are just spinning around all the different topics we could consider here. What happens when a parent is sort of getting out ahead of where a kid is on this you know, like, it seems very common that sometimes we have parents quick to recouple?. Let’s talk about that a little bit like, kind of timing of it. I don’t know how much time kids actually need to sort of live into this or in ways to introduce I mean, those are probably all multiple topics here that we can hit here as we talk. But my first question is there a tendency, you think of parents to want to, kind of, like, jump back in a lot and to do that quickly, and what do we need to think about about that?
Ann Ordway 08:44
So I think that it’s true that a lot of parents jump in too quickly, and it’s a little bit of a runaway train. I don’t know that there’s a magic answer for exactly how much time somebody should wait, because I think it’s very family centric and individual child centric. Sometimes one child is ready in the family and is thrilled about a recoupling, and another child just isn’t having it. And what happens sometimes is that when parents jump in too quickly, they find themselves dealing with a lot of little explosions after the fact, which really make the process that much harder and that much more difficult for individual family members, a really important statistic at the last time, I checked two out of every three remarriages with children in tow and in divorce. So that is a much higher statistic than what we’re even dealing with in terms of first marriages ending in divorce, and a lot of times it’s because they didn’t take the time to navigate the children’s issues at the forefront.
Krista Nash 09:51
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Are there any statistics about this is really like in the weeds, potentially, but is it more successful if one parent is bringing. The kids in tow. You know, if only one side of the new marriage has a child, or does that not matter?
Ann Ordway 10:04
They kind of get blended in. Because if you have somebody that’s never had children, for example, they’re learning a parenting role, and what it is to be, I’m going to say, a quasi authority figure in a child’s life without having brought that own experience, that experience on their own, from their own dynamic. So now you have kids who are used to, I’m going to say, Mom, who are used to their dad from their parent relationship. And now here’s this new guy coming in, or this new woman coming in who’s going to try and tell them what to do with no other experience, not really knowing those kids. So, you know, it kind of all folds into when there are pre-existing children. Why do some of those relationships fizzle out quickly?
Krista Nash 10:52
I have so many different situations running through as examples. I mean, I have had kids say that they’re okay with mom’s new partner, because, and again, this goes back to sort of gender roles in a situation where the mom is perhaps the primary caretaker, right? So mom has a new guy involved, or new partner involved, and the kids are like, oh, you know, I’m okay with that person, because it’s just like an add on. But dad’s new person. It’s like he’s trying to get a new mom. I’m not okay with that. What do you think of that sort of input from a child?
Ann Ordway 11:28
I think it’s normal input, but I think the reaction is really based on a lot of factors, including how original mom and dad are handling it, the personalities of the new partners, whether or not we have what I’m going to call revolving door syndrome, where, you know is this one partner who is settling into a new relationship, or, you know, is this the fifth or sixth person in the lineup is the new partner, someone with whom the primary has had a relationship that led to the breakup of the marriage, or where the children have the perception that it’s influenced the breakup of the marriage that sometimes causes resistance and even refusal to reconnect and establish some kind of a relationship. It’s also how they interact with the children. Because when you have somebody new who comes in like gangbusters, and they want to take over and they’re like, hey, my house, my rules, and they start bossing kids around, we’re changing what kids are used to. That’s another thing that can cause kids to have their backup. Yeah, so, you know, I think it’s less about whether it’s mom or dad, and more about those factors.
Krista Nash 12:43
Before we get too far into it, tell me and the other listeners about your own story a little bit, because I think that maybe it’ll weave through the other things we talk about. I know you have a really interesting personal story about families.
Ann Ordway 12:56
I do. What’s interesting about it is that my husband and I, who have now been married for 23 years. We were really good friends before we even ended up in a relationship. And, you know, such good friends that there were people who thought we were in a relationship before we actually were, but he was actually friendly with my first husband, before my first husband and I split, okay, and you know they knew each other and and you know his boys, his older boys, would come over, and sometimes we would pay them to help with some yard work. And so we had, like, a nice relationship. And then when, when my husband and I started having problems that were, you know, heading down the divorce road. It was actually my current husband who said, Hey, you two should give it a shot and go to counseling and see if you could save this, see if you could figure it out. And was he married at the time, too, he was already divorced, okay? And, you know. And so what ended up happening is, when we split up, it just happened that my current husband lost his job right around the same time, so he needed to figure out what he was going to do with his four kids, and he needed to figure out how he was going going to, you know, cover his bills, and meanwhile, I was working full time at the time As an attorney, and, you know, needed child care for my kids, so I ended up living in the town that he lived in, and we made an arrangement where he would watch my kids during the day while I was working, and they called it Camp Ordway, and I would go in the morning and bring the kids, right? Is that funny? I was Ann.
Krista Nash 14:41
Last name, I’ll remind you. Ann’s new last name is Ordway. Ann Ordway 14:45
Yeah, that’s right, yeah. So he would, you know, do breakfast together. He would do lunch with the kids. I’d come at the end of the day, I often would make dinner, and all seven kids and Steve and myself would have dinner together. So after a relatively short period of time, you know, we decided to take the kids on vacation together, and we realized, you know, hey, you know, we’re paying a lot of money for you to have a place to live and for me to have a place to live, and it’s kind of a waste, because we’re always together. So we found a big old Victorian house with seven bedrooms, oh my goodness, uh huh. And we rented it, and we moved in together, but he lived on the attic floor with the older boys, where there were bedrooms, and I lived on the middle floor with the younger kids. And we just, you know,we were kind of a family, but not really, because, you know, at the time he, you know, he was even seeing somebody, that’s why it’s wild. And we moved in right before 9/1.
Krista Nash
Okay, in 2001 is this, I’m sorry, is this Wisconsin?
Ann Ordway
This was actually in New Jersey.
Krista Nash
Okay, you’re in Wisconsin now, right?
Ann Ordway
I am actually in Arizona.
Krista Nash
But why am I thinking Wisconsin?
Ann Ordway
Because of the AFCC, and I’m the program director for AFCC. AFCC is headquartered in Madison, Wisconsin. Yeah, that’s why I live and I’m a remote employee. I live in Arizona, but I’m originally from New Jersey, so this will happen in New Jersey, okay? And you know, it’s really funny, because my youngest stepson, is actually visiting with me right now. And we were joking about how when we were moving into the house together, you know, he was like, you know, why do Mrs. S and her stupid children have to live with us? You know, right? So you had that resistance, right? But we were friends, and we hung out, and he was particularly close with my oldest boy, who is six months older than him.
Krista Nash 16:44
And whatwere the kid’s age range when all this started? You know, when you were really hanging out, starting dinner together, and those sorts of things.
Ann Ordway 16:52
So my oldest stepson was 14, okay? And my husband’s children were, I guess, 14,12, 10, and then his little guy and my oldest little guy were both getting ready to go into the second grade, okay? And then I had a middle. I had littles. My middle daughter was getting ready to go into kindergarten, and my baby was, I guess three, three and a half years.
Krista Nash 17:21
Okay, so 14 year olds all the way down to three,
Ann Ordway 17:25
Tthe oldest is now just turned 40 this year. Wow. Okay, and our family has since expanded, but at the time, the youngest is my daughter, Olivia, who people know from AFCC conferences, because she’s a volunteer and she’s 28.
Krista Nash 17:41
Okay, wow. Okay, so then, when did it turn to, like, actually, we’re a thing.
Ann Ordway 17:47
We’re going to be a family so relatively quickly, because it was working so well that it was Valentine’s Day of 2002 that my husband decided to invite me to dinner. And we, you know, we had gone out to dinner as friends a million times. But he, unbeknownst to me, went to my first husband and said, listen, we’re friends, and I’m developing feelings for Ann. And you know, I don’t want to pursue this unless it’s okay with you too, because I don’t want to make things bad or awkward or, yeah, you know, create a problem. And you know, my ex husband, kind of tongue in cheek, said, well, I don’t want her. You can have her. And so we went out to dinner for the first time in a romantic way for Valentine’s Day that year. And then in June, he proposed, and in August, we got married.
Krista Nash
Were all the kids in the wedding?
Ann Ordway
Oh, all the kids were in the wedding. Yeah, I have a great picture. So funny.
Krista Nash 18:44
I’m interested though. Like, so you all eased into it, right? It’s like we’re friends. We’re just babysitting together. We’re just, you know, these are old family friends. Not to minimize it at all. But like, do you think that that gives lessons to others for like, easing into it, you know what? I mean, like, did that make it way easier, you think, than sort of, like, you know, hey, here’s your new dad.
Ann Ordway 19:06
I just 100% dealt with so many cases as an attorney and as a parenting coordinator where, you know, kids would come in and they’d report, you know, dad got married last week.
Krista Nash 19:19
Yeah, I just have that in quite a few situations. It’s like the kid gets just completely blindsided, like, Hey, we’ve just gone to this new place because mom’s getting married. Or, by the way, I moved this person into the house, I just got married, right? Sometimes they’ll be like, Oh, but then I divorced this person, by the way, he’s gone.
Ann Ordway 19:39
Happens all the time too, where kids are invited to blend and bond with new people, and not just a new step parent, but also with the step parents children and a whole new dynamic and a whole new set of family rules, only to have that couple then split up and now, like I have this sister that I’ve been rooming with for the last two years, and now that’s not my sister anymore, and I’m never going to see them again. And those relationships are broken. So when you really look at attachment theory, think about what it is for a child to be invited and sometimes even forced to attach to new people, only to then have that, you know, just kind of pulled apart, and then you just never have that person in your life ever again. You know, not always a bad thing when the relationships are bad, but definitely a bad thing when the relationships are good.
Krista Nash 20:33
And when we look at attachment theory, then what do you do to kids? What do parents need to worry about, about how that impacts the kid now and later.
Ann Ordway 20:41
I think it really has an impact on trust. And what we know from Erikson’s Theory is that trust and mistrust are the primary psychosocial crisis that children build on and navigate in their first year of life, and they really learn, who can I trust? Who can I go to to have my needs met, what is my secure base from which to explore the world? And so even if they’ve done that successfully in their first year of life, you know, there were other events that happen later on. I think divorce can be one of them, especially when the other parent is not a constant, consistent person in their life that compromises trust, and it makes them think, like, Okay, well, what’s really forever, and what can I really count on? And then when you have these new relationships, and like, Oh, this is your new and in some families, this is your new dad. This is, you know, this is mom’s new partner, this is dad’s new wife. This is your new stepmom, and the kids are taught to kind of build those relationships and expect a constant, consistent, stable role in their life. Sometimes that’s not their experience, but when it is and then that’s ripped apart, that also, in my opinion, compromises trust and sends a message, which I think then impacts children as they get older in their peer relationships. I think it impacts their dating relationships. I think it also impacts their own ability to navigate coupling and marriage and family.
Krista Nash 22:17
I think it’s interesting. I know you’re aware of Ellen Bruno and her work on the Split films, and I had her on the show, and we were just chatting in her Split Up: The Teen Years, 10 years later, with the same children, which I’ll send my listeners back to the previous podcast to take a look at that. I find it I found it very interesting that the kids as teenagers now, you know, young adults and late teens had, they’d been, their little voices had been captured 10 years earlier with, Oh, I’ve gotta do all these things, and Mommy has a new husband, and I’ve got a new daddy, and I got a new mommy, whatever. And then 10 years later, we’ve got kids saying, I’m never gonna get married, or these people got taken from me again, you know, and, and so it’s interesting that parents often, I often hear parents talk about, well, this is just for me. You know, I need a new partner. I need to have hope again in love and relationships. And, you know, it’s just a friend, you know, oh, this person just brought flowers to my door, and my kid was there, even though my divorce isn’t final, and I can defend that, because this is just a friend. But what is happening to these kids in your experience and your research, that what do parents need to understand is actually happening to their children?
Ann Ordway 23:30
It’s tremendous confusion, and it might be, you know, you as the parent who needs a new relationship. And you know, I don’t begrudge anybody that, and I don’t fault anybody for needing that. I think as human beings, we’re very social creatures, and I think, you know, many of us do need and want love and partnership in our lives. But I think when we have children, we need to remember that nothing is just about us anymore, and it really has to be about considering the folks that we have in tow, you know, the people that we bring along with us that are our children, that are relying on us as examples for what relationships should look like. I’m going to give credit to my husband’s former wife, who’s the mother of my step children, and my former husband, who’s the mother of my biological children, because they got on board, and we had an open door policy, and they could come and go as they please. They didn’t need to knock. We didn’t keep a locked door. And we had the kind of relationship where they, both of them, would often eat dinner at our homes. We would go out to dinner or do family celebrations for special events together. We sometimes vacation together. We’ve been to New Orleans and Disney World and Lake George, New York, and, you know, places together, including both sets of parents, and we had different strengths and different talents that we would lend to all sets of the children. And, you know, I can remember my husband’s former wife, who has since become a good friend of mine. She’s very talented with crafts and artistic kinds of stuff. And she would be the parent who would help even my children putting together the posters and the projects and the book reports that, you know, the esthetic stuff, because she was really good at it, and, you know, I was not as good at it, and I really often didn’t have the time, and she would sometimes even, like, watch the kids, all of them. So my husband and I, once in a while, could have a date night. So I mean, think, think about that, and think about what that says about those two people climbing on board and trying to do what’s best for the kids. You know, not going to tell you it was perfect, and I’m not going to tell you like, I’m not Pollyanna, and I’m not trying to say, you know, look at me. I’ve lived this perfect existence. It was hard work, but they did the work too, and the four of us were able to put the kids first. And when you can do that, that’s a gift, but it’s a gift that you’re giving your children.
Krista Nash 26:08
So I’m curious if you think that you were all able to do this. It’s pretty unusual. I think, I mean, oh yeah, sure. It’s very unusual. Refreshing, because it’s like, oh, okay, fine, get divorced. Go get a divorce. But can we, do we have to burn it all down? Do we have to ruin everybody for the rest of their lives? You know, there’s just so much toxic wasteland after divorce that these kids still suffer through that’s worse than the divorce ever was. I’m curious if you think that your role as an attorney, and your knowledge of this toxic wasteland for families helped you. How did you help these people, your own family, navigate this in a better way? Because you’re like, Whoa, I’ve seen that this can go really south. Like, what was it about you and these co parents of yours that you think fueled doing it better than others, you know, and how would other people go about doing that? You think, you know? Like, what’s the secret sauce? Did you all have it?
Ann Ordway 27:06
You know, I don’t know if it’s a secret sauce. It really was hard work. I’ve always come to the table with a belief that, because I am doing the work in the field with other people, I can’t pretend to sit on a throne with a scepter waving, you know, waving at people, telling people how to do it if I don’t walk the walk, so I have to be able to roll up my sleeves and do the work myself. Now, you know, we had hiccups, and I’m not pretending that we didn’t. I mean, we’ve had our share of disagreements but we tried to keep, especially during their childhoods, we tried to keep that away from the children, and we tried to, you know, talk when we had to talk away from the children, and we tried to compromise. And I think we each had our moments where we had to, kind of, you know, choke on our feelings a little bit and say, Hey, I’m not going to go there, and I’m not going to offend this other person, because it’s just not worth it. It’s not worth the ripple effects on what that’s going to do to the kids. And so, you know, we all sometimes bite our tongues, but I’m, you know, I’m not going to tell you there weren’t times where, you know, I’m sure my former husband wanted to put me on a ceiling fan and let me go around a couple times. He’s an electrical engineer by trade, so a very different mindset than me as an attorney and a mental health professional. So we have different ways of communicating. And you know, he’ll probably, he would probably tell you, I’m, like, a very difficult individual. But we, we tried really hard not to spill that over into whatever we were doing with the kids, and we would go on vacations, and, you know, there really were no fights. There really was not a lot of discomfort. We tried to kind of roll in. These are some of the things we can do. What is it that you might enjoy doing for a sightseeing activity, so that everybody got a little bit of what they wanted, you know. And we made sure that they got private time with the kids too. And we never shut them out. You know, that’s what I think we did well, which is that they would sleep over at our houses, you know, at our house on Christmas Eve and be there to watch the kids open presents on Christmas morning. You know, I always made sure that there were gifts for them, and they always made sure there were gifts from us, like silly little things like that that make a difference and remind the children that, hey, your other parent is important, and we would try not to undermine each other. You know, we would learn that so much.
Krista Nash 29:39
I mean, I bet it’s just you obviously were probably doing like joint birthday parties and things like that, right?
Ann Ordway 29:44
Always including their birthdays and our birthdays if we were going to celebrate. My husband and I are 17 years and four days apart, so the joke in the family that my oldest stepson started was that Daddy got his driver’s license four days before mommy was born.
Krista Nash 30:02
That’s great.
Ann Ordway 30:04
Yeah right. It was very funny.
Krista Nash 30:08
So let’s now talk a little. I mean, thank you for sharing all of that about your own family. That’s just incredible. You need to memorialize all this and give some coaching guides to people or something, because it’s so so needed. I’m thinking about sort of two paths here, of, like, kind of tips and tricks, like one I’m wondering, kind of, let’s talk to the people who are, like, considering a new relationship, or considering introducing their child to a new person. Like, what would be your tips for them, about timing, approach, things to consider, things like, guidelines for engagement of that person, kind of rules of engagement, right? Like, maybe that guy shouldn’t be disciplining your kid, you know, those sorts of things. That’s right? And we can pivot into sort of, like, I think tips for actual, like, step family, you know, now that person is in the family. Here’s some things. Like you’re saying Christmas morning. Here’s what you did. So let’s start with that first half. Like we’re thinking about, or you’re in a new relationship. You just met somebody. You’re like, When should I introduce the other parent about this person? You know? Does the kid tell the parent that have the co-parent? That happens a lot. So let’s talk about those early phases on tips of how to do this well.
Ann Ordway 31:14
So again, I think some of it is individual and family centric. I don’t think there’s a cookie cutter approach, but there are some guidelines. The first thing is, I think that the individual needs to be sure that they themselves are committed to this relationship, and that the new person is committed to them. You know, get a sense that this is what you want, that it looks like it’s working, that it’s in a good place, and you think that it has the potential to really move forward before you start introducing the new person to the children. I think that’s critical. I personally think it’s beneficial to introduce a new person initially, from a friend perspective, and kind of like, you know, we’re going to hang out with my friend Jim and his kids, or, you know, my friend Joan and her kids, or if they don’t have kids, you know, even just my friend Joan, but I think that’s helpful first, because you’re not putting the kids at a place where they’re on guard and they’re like, Oh my God, what’s going to happen next? You’re really giving them a chance to get to know somebody. But I think, you know, plan what you’re going to do, are you going to have a picnic together? Are you going to have a barbecue or, you know, you have a pool in your backyard, and you’re going to invite them over for a swim. Are you going to go to a local carnival, or to the movies or something, but make it kid centric and kid friendly, and kind of set it up so that the kids can have a good time. Give your kids information about the people that they’re going to meet. You know, oh, my friend Jim has a daughter your age. Or, you know, my friend Joan has a son who’s, like, a lot older than you guys, but we thought it would be fun for you guys to meet. So, you know, think about age appropriateness. Think about what the kids like and something that they can do that’s going to be fun for all of them.
Krista Nash 33:06
Before you keep going, let me ask you a question. Do you think it’s better to avoid having these introductions happen in a child’s home or in the new person’s home?
Ann Ordway 33:16
I think it depends. I think it really does depend. Sometimes having the person over to your house. If you’re going to have a barbecue in the backyard and you have a pool, that could be fine, because you know your child, and if that increases your child’s comfort zone, then that’s great. And if, if you don’t think it’s going to and you think your child’s going to feel infiltrated, or that they’re going to have their backs up because of maybe being loyal to the parent that doesn’t live with them in your home anymore, then you’re probably better off planning to go out and do something, you know, bowling or a movie or a carnival. So you really have to be aware of your own child and what they need and make it about the children that are involved. I think that helps.
Krista Nash 34:00
Okay, so let’s keep going then. So, like, I’ve got things in my head, like, don’t force the kid to call the person something specific that you know, not like, Hey, this is your dad now, or papa or something, right? Or maybe, what about, like, the timing and pacing of this? So let’s say, Okay, I’m committed to this person. I’ve decided in my head, you know? I mean, I’ve heard people put time frames on, I know it’s totally individual, but like, maybe I need to have been seeing this person exclusively for three months or six months, or, I don’t know, sometimes people put things in their parenting plans that say you have to have kind of this level of, quote, commitment, you know, to be able to demonstrably have shown that you’re serious about it. Do you think the person should tell theco-parent about it first?
Ann Ordway 34:43
I think it’s probably better and more palatable for the co-parent to hear about the new relationship before it is introduced to the children. I mean, there’s nothing in the world like Johnny running in the front door saying, Mommy, mommy. Guess what we did this weekend?e went to his wedding, and now I have a new mommy, and her name is, you know, Jane.
Krista Nash 35:06
Talk about incremental trust building, right?
Ann Ordway 35:10
Not good, you know, even if, like, even shooting an email or having a phone call just to say, Hey, I just wanted you to know that. You know, I’m seeing somebody. Hey, I just wanted you to know that, you know, now, been seeing this person for, you know, this period of time, and I think it’s going to start to get serious. So I’m going to introduce him or her to the children. I think when you can do that, it’s helpful. Now, I’m not going to say you can do that where there’s a family violence dynamic, or when you have a co-parent that’s really over the top, or where you’re, you know, when you have safety risks, I mean, safety is always first and always paramount, but because sometimes in those kinds of dynamics, introducing a new partner does agitate, and it does cause, like a flare up, and being aware of that, and you know, being prepared to kind of cope with that and navigate that, and prepare your children to cope with that also, so they’re they’re kind of braced if you’re going to go on with a new relationship, is helpful. But I think in an ideal world, being able to communicate to your co-parent before you introduce them to your children, I think that’s helpful. And I’m also going to say, don’t introduce them on Friday and get married on Sunday. I think it’s really important to give some time to navigate and build relationships and see how it goes. And it’s for the parents to massage that a little bit. And sometimes that might mean if each of you in the new relationship has a son who’s eight years old, but children of other ages, it might actually be a good thing to also try to spend time just with the two eight year olds and break it down. It doesn’t have to always be all seven together. When my husband and I started, you know, being in that place, we also took time to spend with his oldest, two boys, and I did some things, just like at one point, it was just me and his daughter that would go and hang out and go to the mall or do something fun and get our nails done or something, so that we could also build individual relationships, not just a collective relationship.
Krista Nash 37:22
I think it’s interesting you say that because I just interviewed Marcia Klein Pruitt, who I know, you know, for the podcast. And we were talking about fathers, actually that was our topic. But we were talking about how these lock step parenting plans and we get into this mode where it’s like everybody’s got to do the exact same thing, and like the dynamics of being a parent and dragging three kids, or in your case, seven kids, from ages three to 14, like to all their stuff and all their school stuff. And even when you’re an intact family with your own children, it’s really hard to cover all that, but we expect single parents to do it, and we don’t give parents the freedom to say, I’m going to do one thing with one kid, or maybe we should split them up a little bit and take different weekends, or, like you’re saying, you know, invest in those kids, not as a full unit, but as, yeah, individual personalities, handling it differently…
Ann Ordway 38:13
And making the kids feel special, and, you know, giving them special time and allowing them to emerge as individuals and have their own relationships, not just a collective relationship. You know, I don’t like Paul because my two siblings don’t like Paul, but, you know, maybe I like Paul because he’s nice and we have a good relationship. That’s not a bad thing.
Krista Nash 38:37
Yeah, so we’re saying, Give kids some space. Don’t like, rush into it, you know, kind of meet the kids where they are, make sure you’re serious about the relationship. First, tell the co-parent. This is a little bit of a bizarre question, but you can tell I’m a family attorney when I ask this question. I’ve been there. Yeah, I’m like, a lot of parents are, like, really paranoid that, and sometimes for good reason, that their ex is going to choose some violent person, or, like, you know, abuser, or just a bad, you know, I don’t know. So we get a lot of like, I want a background check on this new person. What do you think of that? Like, is it sort of like, you know, what? Everybody should just say, no problem. I’ll do a background check. You know, sometimes we get, but other parents are like, that’s so controlling. Obviously, I’m a fit parent. I can make decisions about who’s around my kid. What do you think about this? And what do you think parents should do about that request, or even if they should ask for it? I think
Ann Ordway 39:30
I think it depends if there’s a good reason. You know, I had a case where a dad wanted a background check on mom’s new partner, but this was mom’s like, third or fourth new partner since the divorce two years ago, and he was going to be moving into the house. And it was, they came from a small town, and the kind of the word on the street was the guy was a little bit notorious, and he had himself been married four times, and mom was going to be his. You know, fist, and there had been some background that alluded to domestic violence and some criminal stuff, so dad had a good reason. And in that particular case, even the court thought dad had a good reason and ordered the background check and said that, you know, he couldn’t sleep over, couldn’t move in until some of that was done. And it ended up, in that particular case, it ended up that it was prudent, because even though mom wasn’t happy about it, some things came up that were not good, and then she had to make a choice, and the judge said, I can’t tell her she can’t be with him, but you know, if she is going to be with him, then I’m going to suggest that we look at switching primary custodial homes to dad, and that’s exactly what ended up happening in that particular case, in my opinion, tragically, Mom opted to be with her boyfriend.
Krista Nash 40:52
I mean, we see that sometimes I have cases like that too, and sometimes a parent has a really good gut feeling, I mean, a bad gut feeling that something is off, and it is difficult and hard to prove. But, you know, sometimes a background check would show that I think my perspective, too, is the proactivity of I like to see parents being good, proactive, co parents, and not making a battle about it in that way. It might be worth saying, Hey, I’m dating this new person, and this person’s moving into, you know, introducing the child, and then maybe it’s not at the introductory phase that you offer a background check, right? Like, it’s not like they’re becoming the parent, and they’re not moving in or anything like that. But let’s say you have little kids, and you now are more serious. You’re like, I am going to be with this person. This person is moving into my home and going to be around a lot. I’m going to just give you a background check, right? Instead of forcing the other parent again, I think it kind of goes to that incremental trust building, right? Like, if that other parent, and you know, and you know this about your co parent, that that parent is going to be a worrier, for example, like, let’s, let’s genderize it. Let’s say it’s a mom that’s going, you know, going to be awake all night, worried that the new girlfriend is some, or boyfriend, or whatever it is, some somehow a risk to this person’s children. If the co-parent knows that, to me, it’s like, know who you’re dealing with, right? Like, just be like,here’s the birth date, here’s the background check. I ran it for you because I thought it might concern you. I mean, what do you think about that?
Ann Ordway 42:16
I don’t think it hurts. I don’t think it hurts. I also think making an introduction is helpful.
Krista Nash 42:21
Don’t get a point like an introduction to the grown ups, yeah?
Ann Ordway 42:26
And sometimes that’s about like, let’s go out to dinner and or let’s go out for drinks. And it’s, you know, me and my new partner, and you know you and your new partner, or, you know we’re just you, and let’s sit down and let’s chat. And you know, prepare your new partner that there are going to be questions, and, you know, it’s going to be an open dialog. Because, you know, after all, you know, what kind of parent am I if I’m not interested in who my children are going to be spending time with?
Krista Nash 42:52
I love that, and it’s a really important point. Like, you know, you can’t get to the point you’ve gotten with your husband and your situation with your children if you can’t even introduce the person. You can’t even sit down and have a conversation, which is just so devastating to kids, like they’re trying to navigate these two worlds, and the parents won’t even talk. You know, they want to say hello, they won’t make eye contact. They’re right. It’s just horrible. So forcing yourself, even if it’s not comfortable, I mean, it sounds like you, it’s, I’m not trying to make it sound like your whole situation was super easy, but, you know, you had to work through things, but setting a tone, expecting more of a tone of collaboration as a team that is on the same group project with these children, I think really can say, hey, let’s have a meeting. You know, instead of keeping it all so separate and divisive.
Ann Ordway 43:39
Absolutely and sometimes, you know, new people are not going to necessarily get on board. So you know, we’ve navigated that too, where you know we would invite their partners to come and join us for dinner or celebrations or whatever we were going to do, and not all of their partners were on board.
Krista Nash 43:58
Like, I am not going for Christmas Eve to both of your ex’s house. Right? Exactly. Start invited, right? I mean, that’s really different. Okay, so what if you’re a parent that’s already messed this up? Okay? Like I have done everything wrong. I moved my new hubby in and introduced my kids in the kitchen to my new husband, and then I divorced him and I got a new hobby. And, you know, it’s just this revolving door. I’ve already caused a lot of pain for my kid. Like, what are the ways? It’s probably an obvious answer. But what do you say to those parents about, you know, maybe I’ve done this wrong, but I want to kind of fix it.
Ann Ordway 44:33
I think therapy is really helpful. And, you know, for the kid and the parent, or for who, well, I think for everybody. I think, you know, I think that the parent that you just described probably would benefit from individual therapy to really take a look at the choices that they’re making and how they can make better choices. But I think having therapy between that parent and their children is also beneficial, and part of what might have to happen. And what I would do, certainly, if I was in that situation, is I would encourage a level of acknowledgement, ownership and even apology by that parent where, you know, Hey kids, these are some of the things that I did. This is what I see as having been the impact to you, and I’m sorry, and let’s talk about how we’re going to navigate this differently going forward.
Krista Nash 45:24
Do you think that parent should apologize to their co-parent? Sometimes, yeah, sometimes, I mean, I you know, these are statements I make sometimes where I’m like, people are like, what I don’t know anything to that person, and I’m like, can we not just shift our mindset a little bit here? We still do have an obligation to each other to to raise these humans together, and if it would help raise humans better together, and like, make it more of a positive and flourishing situation, why would you not do that? Right? So it’s kind of like we just get into this really oppositional approach all the time that is so counter to the flourishing.
Ann Ordway 46:00
And we really need to also, you know, we also need to have our CO parents back. Sometimes I remember a time where my son said to me, you know, I want to know why you and dad got divorced. And, you know? And he said, Dad said, A, B and C. And I said to my son, do you love me? And he said, Yes. And I said, and do you know that I love you? And he said, Yes. And I said, and do you know me well enough to know that the things that I do in this life are well thought out, and I would never, on purpose, do anything to hurt you? And he’s like, yes, and I’m like, then you don’t need an answer to that question, because that’s for grown ups, and that’s between me and dad and, well, dad said, okay, and I respect dad’s right to say that, because dad’s dad’s view of what happened, I’m not going to share my view.
Krista Nash 46:51
Do you go to dad then and say, stop talking to the kid about this?
Ann Ordway 46:56
Absolutely
You should. I’m like, What are you thinking? It’s a problem, right? Yeah. But, you know, but, you know, I think, I think things that also really matter like that, and they’re not always easy to navigate, but it’s really helpful when the new partner doesn’t move into mom’s house or dad’s house. But rather, if there’s a way to get a new house together and have fresh ground, because then what you’re not doing is you’re not forcing the 14 year old daughter to share her room with the eight year old stepsister, right? Even if they have to share a room, you’re developing a new room that they share with new rules and new guidelines for how to share. And so if you can do that, that’s really helpful, if you could figure out things in advance, like, you know, why do my kids have to leave their school system in order to be in the school system that you know, my new husband’s kids are in, which, by the way, is exactly what we ended up doing. But we had been there before but then we stayed in the same town because the kids were already in the school system, all of them, so we didn’t want to upset the apple cart again, but, but, you know, think about that. How come I have to leave my town, my friends, my school, my you know dad right around the corner to go live in that town where he lives with his kids to make it easy on his kids. And you know, those are things that come up.
Krista Nash 48:27
I’ve seen a situation where we had a marriage that I’m sure there are lots of problems in the marriage, but ends in divorce because of an affair with someone, and then that person and the children move into the marital home of the other children and take over the bedrooms. Oh, yeah. And, you know, meanwhile, this, like the little kid that is left in the wake of this the bed, you know, the parent, the the parent is like, oh, you know, well, I mean, you weren’t coming over anyway, so I just gave these other kids your room, and now we got new mom, new kids in your house, in your room. And the kid is like, I am never, ever going to come there. I will never come see you. And, you know, you talk to these parents and you’re like, what were you thinking? You know, like, what do you want this little kid to do, you know, like, how are we going to write this? Are we going to get rid of the house? Are we going to let this kid come and, like, redo her room? Are we, how do we make it better? It’s like, all this is just not very well thought out.
Ann Ordway 49:21
No. And how do you make one set of kids feel like it’s not their home, like they’re visitors, because they show up with suitcases and they don’t have any of their own things, and it’s not my home. One child says, like, every other weekend, I feel like this Infiltrator is coming into my room and taking over. And what happens when you try to match up that 14-15, year old girl with this 6,7,8, year old little girl, and now you know this one’s reading the other one’s diary, and that one’s ripping…
Krista Nash 49:55
I mean, I’ve been in situations where we literally have, like, pre decree, nnot divorced . You know, parents starts dating somebody, and all of their children are coming. None of these people are actually divorced. All these children and the new girlfriend are coming to the home, and they’re invading these kids rooms. And, you know, again, big age differences, you know, like these kids are just like, what is happening.
Ann Ordway 50:22
You really have to think about those things. And you have to think about also when you’re kind of navigating. It’s really helpful if you can schedule so that the children are with their other parents more or less at the same time. So it’s really great when you know my husband’s kids and my kids are with their other parent for Christmas Eve, overnight to Christmas morning or every other weekend, and they’re the same weekends. And that really accomplishes two things. When the children are all at home, it’s all of their home, and they’re bonding and interacting with each other, and you’re functioning, you know, as a family, but it also gives the couple an opportunity to have some downtime, so that they can have a date night, and they can get to know each other and navigate all the things that most people do when they’re newlyweds. A totally different thing. I mean, you know, the Brady’s showed up on Carol and Mike’s honeymoon, you know? I mean,
Krista Nash 51:19
I loved that show. I watched the show all the time, absolutely back with my rabbit ears TV, you know, before cable, right? That’s crazy. So okay, well, I know we only have a couple minutes. Let’s end optimistically. I love that you have such an optimistic story of how amazing your step family situation has been. I loved your idea about Christmas Eve and you know, you’re getting gifts for other people, talk about a few other things. Maybe that would be good, positive ways that when you’re in this Family Zone, you can affirm each other. You know, I don’t know if there’s tips about sporting events or birthday parties or parent teacher conferences or discipline agreements. You know, like we’re going to talk about this as CO parents, all four of us and do it together. Give us some of those, like, how you actually navigated some of those. You know, good ideas.
Ann Ordway 52:06
Show up if you are a step parent, show up at your step children’s special events, whether it’s the first Holy Communion or the baseball game. Be there. Cheer in the cheering section and be a part of it and let that child know that they are important. Consider equity and inclusion. Don’t treat one child better than the other. You know one shouldn’t get an X-box for their birthday while the other gets a bobble head figure and a T-shirt. You should be equal, or at least close to being equal, and treat each child special. If one child gets a birthday party, the other child should get a birthday party, especially if they are of similar ages, navigate and discuss as a new couple things that are going to be like, money related, who’s working, who’s not working, who’s paying for this, who’s paying for that. What is your budget like? What’s in the budget? And try not to make decisions about any big ticket items without discussing, you know, your eighth grader wants to go on the eighth grade trip, and that’s going to be, you know, $800, Well, are you paying for it? Are the other parents contributing? How are we going to work this out? But talk through those things- rules too. Not everybody thinks the same. I’m going to tell you that I was very big on my little kids only being exposed to, like Disney kind of stuff, whereas my husband’s children were much older, and they liked horror films and they liked, you know, they liked some of that more intense stuff with the PG-13 or even R and you know, what I consider to be inappropriate language, you know, talk about those things up front and have ideas about, you know, about what is acceptable and what is going to be on the TV When the little kids are around, and what shouldn’t be. Some of that I found out the hard way. You know, when my four year old came home, or, you know, came to me and told me she had seen a heartfelt month ago. Oh my gosh.
Krista Nash 54:13
Did you have firm lines, though? Or do you recommend lines where, even though you’re blending, his kids are his purview with his ex, and your kids are your purview with your ex. Like, even though you don’t agree that a horror film is appropriate, you’re not going to navigate that with the kids directly. He does it himself. I heard a lot of parents say, Well, I just have a firm rule that my new husband doesn’t discipline my kids, or things like that. How did you all navigate that?
Ann Ordway 54:43
That’s probably the area that we didn’t navigate as well as I would have liked. Looking back, I do think it’s important to really talk and to set up, you know, parameters. You know, this is what’s a hard and fast rule for me, and this is where I’m flexible. You know, I certainly didn’t say that his kids didn’t want. Watch horror movies, but I did say they couldn’t watch horror movies with around your kids my little ones, right? But some of that you can’t control, because you know, an older kid’s going to do what an older kid’s going to do, and like I found out with my four year old when she was exposed to a horror movie when she’s having nightmares.
Krista Nash 55:16
right, right,
Ann Ordway 55:18
And you know, you have to have those conversations with the kids too, like this is why I feel strongly about this. But things like bedtime, you know, I don’t know some of it, we just kind of found our way. And, you know, the good news is, like, I could have a conversation with my husband’s former wife and say, I really don’t want my little ones, you know, watching her movies, and she’d be like, I totally agree with you. I never liked it. What do you let them do that way? So sometimes a step parent can actually be your friend more than a foe, and sometimes the former spouse and the step parent actually get along better than the co-parents get along, and they can run interference, and they could be the person to dialog and hang out together and sometimes navigate some of the things we’re talking about now. Discipline is hard because there’s a difference between kids that are coming into your home every other weekend and kids that are living there full time. And whether we want that to be true or not, it’s true, you’re going to have different rules. What happens on Saturday, you know, when kids can stay up later, maybe, or when they can have a treat and eat chocolate at bedtime, versus what you’re going to be doing on Tuesday night, which is a school night, and when kids live in your home full time, you have to have a level of authority, I think. And at least, you know, there’s levels of respect, and there at least has to be a level of respect. This is an adult who lives in our home, who has, you know, who is an authority figure in like, what they say matters. But if it’s something that’s problematic, the parents, the new parents, right? The parent and the step parent should talk about it, and then it probably should be the primary parent who is the one to lay down the law, right or impose the punishment, you know? And kind of get there, but you’re going to have different viewpoints. And so some of it you have to talk about upfront, not after the fact, not after it happens. Try to foresee, try to talk. Try to decide. You know, sometimes it’s as simple as, Do we even want to? Do we want to have more children? Do we want to have a baby together?
Krista Nash 57:27
I mean, that’s another interesting dynamic, right? Like, what about them when you have your own together?
Ann Ordway 57:32
So Jeannette Lofas, from the Stepfamily Foundation in New York, used to call that baby maybe. And, you know, right? It’s cute. And, you know, the whole thing is especially like, sometimes, you know, here’s dad who’s marrying a much younger wife who doesn’t have children of her own, and wants to, and now all of a sudden you have dad’s 14 year old who’s like, Well, I’m not going to be the built in babysitter. And that’s the role they end up taking.
Krista Nash 57:57
Where you often have, like, that new child very favored. It’s like the Cinderella problem, right? You know? Well, that was different, because I guess she brought, I don’t know, she brought the stepsisters in, so I guess that was different. But it’s like, still, still though, you know. But you often get these stories of, you know, my stepmom doesn’t care for me. She only cares about this new kid or this new baby, you know, with my dad or whatever, it can cause a lot of problems..
Ann Ordway 58:19
Because that’s hers, you know, and that’s why that individual time is so important. Like my stepdaughter actually with my own two daughters, who were much younger, they pretty much planned our wedding, and I was perfectly content going down to the courthouse and having a judge marry us, and they wanted a party, and they wanted matching dresses and tuxedos and flowers and a cake and the whole but, and so we kind of let them have a voice. Did your exes come to your wedding? My husband’s former wife did okay. She came to our wedding, and, yeah, she was there, and she gave us a gift, and she helped monitor the house and supervise the kids while we were gone. And my three went to their dad’s house, and, you know, he was supportive and positive, and so it was, yeah, I mean, we just kind of always worked together, and then we ended up with we, we have two grandchildren that we are raising who we just recently were able to adopt nine children together, of nine children between us. But you know, even when the two youngest were babies, we all lived in the same house together. So I had nine kids living under one roof.
Krista Nash 59:29
You know, you all have an outstanding story. I just love it. You need to write a book. I’m lucky about that. Yeah, you well, but you worked at it, and I think you’re a really good example. I mean, not everybody can do exactly how you did, but there’s certainly a lot of tips and optimism and ways to do it better. Do you have any concluding thoughts you want to share that we haven’t covered, or just any, like parting words for our listeners, about step families and things to think about?
Ann Ordway 59:53
You know, I think it’s real, and especially the younger people are when they separate and divorce. Years, the more likely they’re going to recouple. And you know, sometimes that means bringing children together or having more children. And I think it’s just really important to into new relationships with your eyes open and to remember that once you bring children into the world, it’s not just about me anymore. So put your children first. Have those conversations beforehand, like I get it when your heart’s on fire. You can’t wait to, you know, to start a new life with somebody that you’re in love with, but slow down, think it through, make plans, have conversations and navigate some of the tricky stuff up front. Doesn’t mean there won’t be any tricky stuff later on, but it’s okay to have a coach or a therapist or, you know, a lawyer, help you figure out what to do, but don’t be rash. Don’t be hasty. It’s okay to say, I’m sorry. It’s okay to be wrong, and it’s okay to compromise. And I think if you open your eyes and you enter into the relationship, from that, that perspective, you too can get through it, and you too can be celebrating, you know, 23 years of marriage and still be friends with your exes and you know, and have them be a part of your children’s lives, and you get to be a part of your children’s lives. And most importantly, in an ideal world, sometimes your children end up being really good friends, and they can get together at one of each other’s weddings, and they’re laughing and joking and kind of, you know, mostly at our expense, of course, but celebrating each other and thinking like, Hey, this is my brother, or this is my sister. Because I think if you do it right, kids don’t always look at it as like the step word the step goes away and it just becomes, this is my brother. This is my sister. And it can be, it can really be a beautiful thing, notwithstanding all the bumps in the road and the hiccups.
Krista Nash 1:01:52
Well, thanks a ton for doing this with me. Today. I’m gonna have to have you back on to talk about more things in the future. You are such a wealth of information. We didn’t even barely scratch the surface of all of your vast experience as a lawyer and a doctorate in all these great things. You’re like my superhero. So thank you for being here today, and of your generosity of time, and just for the example you are of, and I think it’s really optimistic, which I love.
Ann Ordway 1:02:17
Well, thank you so much for inviting me and like you’re fabulous at this, and I love your podcasts, and you’re doing such a great job and such a great service, I think, to people in general, but also for professionals. So thanks for including me and having me be a part of it.
Krista Nash 1:02:31
Wonderful. Okay, well, I appreciate you, and I will have you next time and for now. Goodbye,
Ann Ordway 1:02:36
Goodbye. Thank you. You’re welcome. Bye.
Intro/Outro 1:02:40
Krista is licensed in Colorado and Wyoming. So if you are in those states and seek legal services, please feel free to reach out via ChildrenFirstFamilylaw.com that is our website where everyone can find additional resources to help navigate family law as always, be sure to like, subscribe and share the podcast with others you think would benefit from this content.