We sit down with Life Coach, Amy Says So by Amy Stone, to discuss how adults who are stepping into a stepparent relationship can prepare and find contentment in this new role. In this interview, Amy discusses:
• Unique challenges that blended families can face.
• How to prepare to enter into a stepparent relationship in a way that honors yourself, your spouse, and your stepchildren.
• The importance of open communication within a blended family when experiencing a shift in family dynamics.
• How to resist comparisons—marriage and parenting are not contests.
• How to lovingly detach from things that are outside of your control.
• …and much more!
If you would like to speak with one of our attorneys, please call our office at (503) 227-0200, or visit our website at https://www.pacificcascadelegal.com.
If you're interested in getting in touch with Amy, you can do so by visiting her website at https://www.amysaysso.com/
Disclaimer: Nothing in this communication is intended to provide legal advice nor does it constitute a client-attorney relationship, therefore you should not interpret the contents as such.
See less
We sit down with Life Coach, Amy Says So by Amy Stone, to discuss how adults who are stepping into a stepparent relationship can prepare and find contentment in this new role. In this interview, Amy discusses:
• Unique challenges that blended families can face.
• How to prepare to enter into a stepparent relationship in a way that honors yourself, your spouse, and your stepchildren.
• The importance of open communication within a blended family when experiencing a shift in family dynamics.
• How to resist comparisons—marriage and parenting are not contests.
• How to lovingly detach from things that are outside of your control.
• …and much more!
If you would like to speak with one of our attorneys, please call our office at (503) 227-0200, or visit our website at https://www.pacificcascadelegal.com.
If you're interested in getting in touch with Amy, you can do so by visiting her website at https://www.amysaysso.com/
Disclaimer: Nothing in this communication is intended to provide legal advice nor does it constitute a client-attorney relationship, therefore you should not interpret the contents as such.
See less
Intro:
Welcome to Modern Family Matters, a podcast devoted to exploring family law topics that matter most to you. Covering a wide range of legal, personal, and family law matters, with expert analysis from skilled attorneys and professional guests, we hope that our podcast provides answers, clarity, and guidance towards a better tomorrow for you and your family. Here's your host, Steve Altishin.
Steve Altishin
Hi everyone, I'm Steve Altishin, Director of Client Partnerships here at Pacific Cascade Legal. And today, we have life coach, Amy Stone, to discuss how adults are stepping into a step parenting relationship and can prepare to find contentment in this new role. So, Amy, how you doing today?
Amy Stone
I'm doing really well. Thanks for having me. I'm excited to be here.
Steve Altishin
Oh, I'm excited that you're here too. Before we start just, can you tell us a little bit about yourself?
Amy Stone
You betcha. All right, so my name is Amy Stone. I live in sunny Miami, Florida. And today I'm a life coach, I help step parents and adults who are in blended families find more personal happiness in this situation that is really famous and well established for being kind of challenging. And the way I fell into that is that I have been a step parent for more than 20 years, this is my lived experience. And my personal experience was that I was a little bit not what I was expecting, but I don't I can I'm upfront with the fact that I don't know that I had a lot of great expectations. But it was a little bit less than it was a little bit challenging in reality, and so it's helpful. Now I think, I like to think it's helpful to come at this and offer support and resources for people who are looking for happiness.
Steve Altishin
I love this, you know, we've had a ton of people talk about co-parenting, talk about, you know, splitting money, splitting houses, after divorce, all those things, and really haven't had a discussion about the step parenting relationship kind of like, well, everybody gets that, you know? And so I'm really excited, and I'm gonna start with, you know, this simple question, or maybe is not such a simple question. What is a blended family?
Amy Stone
Oh, that's a great question. Because honestly, it really depends on who you ask. And I think it can be a lot of things. And that's a non answer. But I'm going to be honest, I did not consider myself or call myself a part of a blended family until I was doing research for the job and the life coaching business. So I didn't realize that that was the word that is used for a family where instead what it represents generally is any family where there's an adult, where there's also children from another parent. So there's a lot of combinations of that like this could be where there has been a divorce, it could be when somebody is widowed, it could be a situation where people were never married, where there are children. And there are a lot of different combinations of this. Other words that are used to describe this or sometimes step family. And I've also seen remarriage family, which I've only seen that like in very technical documents. I've never I don't I don't know if it's commonly used. So in my case, my blended family is because I married somebody who had been married and divorced and already had children. So the blend is between me and his kids. And then the bigger extended family, which includes his first marriage family
Steve Altishin
It really feels a little like, when I'm talking with people, that speaking of step, it's the poor stepchild of families. It's like, Oh, you are, or you know, we were talking a little bit about Disney before we started, it's the step parent. You know, it's like, there's something wrong with it as compared to the traditional.
Amy Stone
That's right, that's right. I love that. I love that somebody told me and I don't have a source for this. So don't hold me to the accuracy. But somebody told me that the words evil stepmother are mentioned 400 times in the most popular Disney movies. And there is a pop culture sort of stigma to it. There is what's really interesting is that we talk about the first family like everybody's married for the first time to each other, that we talked about that as being you know, a normal or a traditional thing. But historically, there really has never been a time where there were not adults who were stepping in to be caregivers for other people's children. And that's where the step actually comes from in the step parent and So, one of the biggest things that I want to offer to anybody who's going through this, whether they're working with you on divorce or co parenting, or step parenting or reforming is that if for me, if I wanted to be happy with the construct of my family, it was a big deal that I let go of any preconception of what was correct or traditional in the formation of my family, I needed to be able to look at my family and be like, I love my family the way it is today. That was a big piece for me to be able to let all that go because there is stigma and there will be people who will have thoughts about you. But that's true no matter what there are going to be people who have thoughts about you, if you marry someone older than you or younger than you with different color hair than you. They think you've stepped up in terms of better looking than you other people have thoughts about us all the time. Like, if we can let those go. That's a big step toward being happy.
Steve Altishin
Yeah. And it's not just divorces.
Unknown Speaker
No, it really isn't.
Steve Altishin
Re-marriages after you're widowed, or your first marriage, but maybe not their first marriage.
Amy Stone
100%. Yes, absolutely. There's there's so every time I think that one point, I sat down, I was like, these are the ways blended families formed. And it was every time I think I've got it, somebody will come up and I'll say, Oh, I wasn't expecting that one. Okay. Yeah. I mean, there's a lot of different ways to do it.
Steve Altishin
Yep. When you were introducing yourself, you talked about that there are challenges though, and they're kind of unique to blended families. And again, then Iasked, but are they necessarily that unique? Or are there some that also really everyone has?
Amy Stone
Right. Oh, my gosh, this is such a fun thing to talk about. Because it's really easy to spend a lot of time thinking that the problems that we're going through and the things we're experiencing, are special to us. And more complicated. Yes. And there's a lot of things to scapegoat. In a blended family, there's a lot of people who are maybe a little distant, you know, there's a lot of people to blame, we're gonna blame the people we used to be married to, we're going to blame the people who live in the other house, we're going to blame, you know, the person who didn't keep the calendar, whatever it might be. But the nuts and bolts of the things that come up in in blended families are very similar, if not exactly the same that happened in families. Communication, right. Communication in a family is a big point, right? Communication in different parts of a family are a big point, money, blended families fight about money. I think that money is the top thing, any family fights about right control responsibilities, who's responsible for things inside the house, or making the money those are things that come up in blended families, but those come up in, in any family. And then one of the things that is is definitely a challenge in a blended family that I love to point out that is it's hard to live with other people, Steve, it's hard to cohabitate with other people. And in a blended family, a lot of times you have a very rapid transition between a new adult and an existing set of kids. And that's a rapid transition. But I mean, it's hard. I don't know many people who rave about living with teenagers or with their in laws, or any of those things, it's hard to live with other people.
Steve Altishin
Yeah, and I imagine that in some circumstances, there's almost two families if you're a step parent, because maybe you have a kid who's not living with you anymore, but you know, an adult, and that can, that can create tension. I also see a lot where, you know, one of the parents is a not so good divorce, and so all of that gets mixed in with, you know, because they got these kids and maybe they have these kids and they've got a "bad dad". All of that just seems like it's gotta make it more complex.
Amy Stone
It definitely does. And it is similar if I was to draw similarity, we all come into our marriages or our relationships with previous historic relationships, whether that's with our parents and our siblings and our aunts and uncles or it's a previous marriage, we're all bringing those relationships in so I'm not gonna I'm not gonna sugarcoat it if you've got a high conflict divorce if you've got a lot of people in families are dealing with very, very serious things if you've got mental health issues and substance use issues and you know, any of the really really hard things that happen in families that's not easy no matter when it shows up but and it does get more complicated but I you know, if you have a bad relationship with, say, your mother in law, the resolutions and the strategies for working that out or are in my ex variants actually quite similar to the way we're going to manage any other relationship that might be going south, right. So that the issues are definitely, you know, can be unique. But the techniques and the tools we use to figure out how we want to live, tend to be very common. And that was surprising to me when I began to like, sort of flesh it out. But I thought also very, very helpful, because then it's like, oh, I have experience with this, or I have some tools, because we were bringing our strengths into it. And the thing that I like to just sort of draw people to is, we all have a choice of how much we're going to fight with the people around us at some point, right. And, um, if, if you want to fight all day long, that's, that's great, right? But there, if you want to turn around and say, Okay, today is the day that I figure out how I want to act in this family, and how much I'm gonna you know, what I want this to look like, that's a choice and a blended family, just like it is in the group that you work with, you know, your running club, your poker group, all of those things, how we interact in those groups, we have some we have some agency and how we show up.
Steve Altishin
Yeah, yeah. And that kind of gets us to the heart of this. And you, you are a coach.
Amy Stone
I am a coach.
Steve Altishin
And you know, a lot of people kind of go, is that different than a therapist, what is a coach, but it, it kind of makes me think that again, we were talking a little about this before and, you know, you don't just rah, rah and listen. You you provide, you know, advice, and, you know, zig this way and zag that way. So what kind of advice, let's talk advice that you can give that, you know, help step parents--step parents for some reason for me as hard.
Amy Stone
Yeah, you're stumbling over that today.
Steve Altishin
It's too many p's.
Amy Stone
I hear you.
Steve Altishin
I was gonna say step parents are preparing to enter a blended family. So let's I am that and I come in to you and I go, What do I do?
Amy Stone
What do I do? I love it. When people I think that people are ahead of the game. And people do about half the people I work with do come to me before they make this decision. They're like, what do I need to know, to do this the right way? Yeah, I love that. They're thinking ahead, because I did not think ahead. I got into it. And I was like, Whoa, I didn't realize it was gonna be like this. And so I have the benefit. One of the things that I think is really great is I have the benefit of I have been doing this for 20 years. And I sat down. And I said what are the things? What are the lessons that I think I've learned along the way that made a difference. And I wrote down a list and then true story I reviewed and with my husband, I forced him to go out to dinner, and I took me it was after one glass of wine because I needed a little bit of courage. Let me tell you, if you want to get your husband's attention, your partner's attention, tell him you're gonna start a business, we're going to talk about your family because that that gets the attention. I said, Hey, I've got this list of things that I think are things that I've learned over the last several years, we're going to kind of share him with you. And I was really nervous that he was going to, you know, not agree or any of those things, but turned out that when I listed him out, he said no, I think that's I think those are the things that we've worked on over and over again, in all this time. And and that's where that's where I start with people. When when they come to me, that's the you know, that's one of the things that I give to people straight off the bat. Because I have a lot of reasons when I don't want to present like I knew this when I went in I did not. And I think it's helpful for people to know that I'm still here, my stepkids still speak to me. So it can be done. I very much enjoy my life. And and so that's that's where I start.
Steve Altishin
Well, you're a winning coach.
Amy Stone
Right, it's great. And you know, it's not really a competition. But you mentioned, you know, what is the difference between a lawyer, I'm not a lawyer, but a therapist and a life coach. And there is a pretty significant difference, right, like, so I observe the line. But one of the things is that like a coach, right? You people come to me and they say, I would like to feel better in this. And so we're working towards that we're working towards what are some things that we can do to enjoy this portion of our life better, whereas a therapist is, you know, maybe working on healing and therapy, right. And a lawyer is working on the things while you're the lawyer like the things that lawyers do. litigating and arguing contracts and rural following.
Steve Altishin
So I know you talked about communication, talking about communication, and that's a big deal, you say, especially kind of being open and that kind of stuff.
Amy Stone
That's the first one I lead with is open and humble communication. And so that would you like to know what that is? That's usually when people say that people read it, and they're like, What is that every what does it mean?
Steve Altishin
Yes, I think of humble and I know a lot of people think that means subservient and it doesn't.
Amy Stone
Oh yeah. No. And I think, you know, there's a lot of there's a lot of subservient advice in, in relationship counseling, I am not very good at being subservient. So that's not what I mean. So open to me is that it is really helpful to be willing to talk about really anything in a family, be willing to talk about anything that comes up the things that need to be talked about, talk about them directly with the people that need to be spoken about, you know, like, if you're if you're unhappy about the color of the carpet, you know, be willing to say, you know, I really this carpet color is not my favorite, right? Be willing to talk about it. That's a ridiculous topic, right? But the things that come up in a family are really big. Who's going to pay for the wedding who's going to pay for the house, hey, I lost my job. Hey, I think that, you know, cousin Susie's in trouble again, you know, oh, my gosh, if you sit me next to your Uncle Phil, at Thanksgiving, I might cry. Those are conversations that we have to have in families. And then the humble part is arguably more important. I often don't know what other people are thinking about things. And here's the other part of this. Sometimes I'm wrong. I've learned in my life. And so I found that in a family conversation, or really any conversation that if I can remind myself, that I might not be right. And more important, it doesn't probably usually matter if I'm right. When I go into the conversation, then the conversation will be more helpful overall.
Steve Altishin
Yeah, yeah. You said by myself, how does myself fit it? I mean, how do you think about yourself? That, to me, would be kind of challenging.
Amy Stone
Oh, yeah. Yeah. So do you mean, the in the conversation or just Who am I in the family now, just in the family? Yeah. So this is a this is arguably, and this isn't not a completely formed thought. But I think that this is one of the just crucial points of conflict in for a new step parent or a second spouse, is that it's a rapid identity change, that doesn't have a lot of systemic support. So if you are becoming a first time mom, you've got 40 weeks of like biological and procedural support, while you're stepping into that change. When you become a step parent, it really is like one day you are a single adult, and the next day, you've been given this title and this role with no instruction manual. So it's a very rapid thing. And so the process of figuring out, and this is different in every family, right? You know, what is my role in this family? What are people going to call me? How do I think of myself? What does it mean, you know, all of those things, that's a, that's an identity shift. And identity shifts are always hard. So shifting from a kid to an adolescent, not an easy change, shifting from an employee to a retiree. That's a big one. There's, there's lots of life changes that we go through. Sometimes there's more support to them than others. And this is one that's a rapid one. So for figuring out who I was, like, right now in my family, like I am the mom to my two kids, I am the wife to my husband, I'm the stepmom to my two stepkids, and the roles have changed over the years, like, what are my responsibilities? Those are changed over the years. And really, truthfully, in the first five years of our marriage, there was a lot of confusion over who is supposed to do what we had to open and humbly communicate. Hey, am I is it my job to do this? I don't know. I'm not sure I want to do this.
Steve Altishin
Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's gotta be tough. Also, you're stepping in to someone else's relationships, you know, and they're on going. I mean, what do you do about that?
Amy Stone
Well, first, you ignore it because you don't know it's there. And then you worry a lot about it. There's actually for me, I felt very much like I was outside of a lot of things that were happening in my family. And then I realized that we were going through this process sort of set and I did not realize this on my own, like other people helped me figure it out. We I was stepping into, like, sort of traditions that were already there. And some of the traditions are real obvious, like holiday traditions and birthday traditions. Those we know, right? But in my house, my husband and his daughter had a pattern of where they wanted to sit on the couch and I didn't know about that. And they didn't they do didn't know that they didn't realize that I didn't know they didn't see it as a pattern, it was just the way they were living, you know. So all of those invisible things that are sort of culture in the in the preceding family, they carry them forward. And so it's a very unglamorous process of, you know, figuring it out and seeing it and realizing that no one's doing it on purpose. And then picking what you want to keep and picking what you're going to read you and what you're going to make your own. And sometimes that's new traditions. Sometimes it's honoring what was already there, which I think is a really, really important thing. I mean, the day that I picked up on the fact that it was important for her to sit in that spot on the couch. I was like, Oh, I get it, that's fine. I'm totally fine with that. Right? I'm totally fine with that. But before I realized that, that's what it was. I was very frustrated. And I also honor the fact that neither of them were aware that this was a pattern they had. Right, it's very hard to have these conversations, because nobody knows it's going on, you know, these are the things you do without noticing.
Steve Altishin
Yeah, it makes me think you know, of like, the first dinner you sit down to, and, you know, someone says, There's mushrooms in here, right?
Amy Stone
It's right, no, 100% It is like being a guest in your own house for a little while is a little bit how it feels. But it's one of those things is when you think about it in our houses, you know, we could sit at any place we want at the dinner table, right? Or the kitchen counter or right? But families tend to get into a habit of everybody sits in the same place. And then you know, you invite a girlfriend or a boyfriend over and they sit in the wrong spot and everyday way. That's not your chair, you didn't know that. But that's not your chair. That's a little bit about what's going on.
Steve Altishin
I know you talk about committing to working on the relationships, because that's obviously important. If I said, Well, what do you mean by commit? How do I go about this? How do I start committed?
Amy Stone
Oh, how do you start committing? For me, it was an awareness of the fact that the relationship by itself, what could be thought of as something that needed attention, right, instead of just the work of being together? Thinking of this is my marriage and do it? What am I willing to put what would help my marriage and thinking of the family? And like, what kind of family do we want to build? And so thinking of it conceptually as its own thing, and not just me, and you and me and them was a shift that I made that was like, Alright, if I'm going to work on the relationship, what would that mean? You know, so that was one of my first shifts.
Steve Altishin
I think we talked a little bit in the beginning about, you know, you want to end up by being happy, right? If you're one of your step kids loves to do something, but just for whatever reason, that doesn't necessarily make you happy watching for whatever reason, how do you get yourself to the point where you can be happy? I mean, who's in charge of you being happy?
Amy Stone
What in my opinion, I'm the only person in charge or maybe unhappy and you're the only person in charge is up and happy. And that is one of the and I would apply that out to all the other emotions, too. That is one of the hardest things in in this whole adulting gig. I won't give step parenting the credit for this. But the fact that, you know, I just can't make it anybody else's job to create my happiness was, you know, it's just, it's exhausting sometimes, but I'm in charge of my own emotions. And it's funny, I don't know, it's interesting that I focus on happiness. Within the family space. It's like, you know, we talked about commitment, and we talked about love. And we talked about passion. And we talked about all of these things. And happiness for me, is a worthwhile goal in itself, like not happiness. 10 days from now, not happiness. 18 years from now, when they move the kids move out of the house, not happiness when something we win the lottery. But figuring out how to enjoy the life, maybe not 24 hours a day, blissfully joyfully happy but generally contentment is, I think, a valid goal for people who are in families. And it's funny because we don't work on it very much. We don't talk about it very much. Like there's a lot of attention in the family space about fixing problems, diagnosing issues, getting married, getting divorced, separating cohabitating co parenting agreements, all of these things. And if I could stand on top of the mountain and just say, what would it take for you to be happy? Like if you spend five minutes in the morning and say, These are the things that I think would make me happy? You know, I think that's really important work. I do.
Steve Altishin
Oh, that makes so much sense. It's, I mean not many people get divorced because they're happy. Right?
Amy Stone
Right. But how many Yeah, right. And a lot of people are happy when they got divorced, right, which is, which is a truth after the divorce. surveys say a lot of people are happy. But you know, there are definitely things that carry through no matter what What and so you're figuring out how to be happy. Regardless of what else is happening is it is that I mean, you can't ignore. I don't live in a land of rainbows and unicorns. So I don't want to make it sound like I'm postponing that. There's like utopian bliss, wherever you are. But you know, figuring out the things that you enjoy, so that you can include them are good. So say you've got a kid, a step kid who's in travel sports, right? Travel sports are a massive family commitment. Massive, right? I don't know if you've been through this, right. And even if you love that sport, say you also are passionate about the sport that this is travel sports will beat the joy out of everybody in the family. Like it's just a it's a brutal commitment, figuring out how to pack a lunch that you're going to enjoy or how to get, you know, listen, I will be happier if I have the deluxe chair and the cart, so I don't have to schlep this stuff for hours in and out of these tournaments. Stuff like that makes a huge difference in day to day life.
Steve Altishin
I want to ask two more questions, I'd love to 30 more, but we're running out of time. So I'm going to ask two more. One of the things that you say, or people do, I think we talked about, is they compare, they compare this marriage to that marriage That can't be good.
Amy Stone
Yeah. No, it's so easy to do that they're right. It's so easy to do. It's so easy to compare. And a lot of times there are similarities, right? A lot of times there are similarities, they can be a little bit freaky, but it's not a competition. And if we go into it trying to win, I don't know. Like, I mean, if they you might think you're there's never there's no judge, there's nobody who comes out it ever says listen, you win today, here's your gold store, you did it better. You did PTA better than the first, you know, the the other person. And in fact, my experience is that it with that competitive mindset. With me, I didn't realize how much work there was, is really what it was. So I was like, I'm gonna work real hard at this. And I'm gonna, you know, people are gonna say I did such a good job. What it was people were just so happy to have somebody else pick up some of the work. It's like, oh, thank you. Yeah, it's so nice to have some help. You can do as much as you want. And so it's very hard not to compare things to other dudes putting in the houses. You know, they're spending money in the way I didn't want, you know, they get to go on vacations, and we're paying for braces. I'm not gonna say that. That is a lot of fun to think about. But you know, thinking about what somebody else gets to do has never made me happy. Right versus focusing on what do I want to do that is going to make me happy?
Steve Altishin
Yeah. Okay, I was on your website. I love your website, by the way. We'll talk about it in a bit, it's really cool. But I saw a term that I have to admit, I kind of went, 'Huh'? And it was learn to lovingly detach, lovingly detach. What do you mean by that?
Amy Stone
So detachment is this idea, you know what detachment detachment is this idea that you can observe what's happening around you without getting involved with not without participating in the emotions of whatever's going on. And I add the word lovingly to that, because I really think that that helps with understanding the process. detaching from things that are happening in our family can feel really heavy and really, really emotionally draining. And for me, it's very helpful to say I'm doing this for love, right. So there are a lot of times in a blended family where as the step parent, it's, it's not really anything that I am involved in, this is more when the kids were little right, and the parents would have something that they were doing, and I'm not really involved in it. And a lot of having that focus that I'm doing this for love, love of Me Love of my husband, love for the kids. I'm going to let these people do this other thing, even if I don't agree with it, right? Even if I you know, think that it's gonna come back to bite me in the butt. I'm just gonna back off and let it go. And and also, you know, because you're like, what's the other option, you know, detach out of resentment. Like, we do that a lot. Like I see a lot of people do that, that I'm not getting involved, even though I know the way it should go. And so loving detachment is the other way. It's like, okay, right. I'm here if you need me. I'm watching this happen. I totally trust that you guys got this and I love you. I'll be here if you need me. That's loving detachment.
Steve Altishin
That's one of the, to me, that's huge, that really is, and maybe the hardest.
Amy Stone
It's not always easy.
Steve Altishin
It's not always easy, but we have run out of time. I hate that. But, I'm gonna still say, let's talk for just a few minutes. You're a coach. So some of the stuff we talked about is always a little bit in the generalized version, but you know, someone comes in to you, you're talking about them and these kinds of things. So can you tell us a little bit about, to everyone, how they can get a hold of you?
Amy Stone
Absolutely.Yeah, so my name is Amy Stone, which is like a super common name. But the name of my business is Amy Says So, which is a play on the whole thing about because I say so as a mom. So Amysaysso.com is my website. And that is where I try and funnel everything. All of the amazing stuff there. So I have some free resources that people can have and that's where you can find other ways to reach me. And that's amysaysso.com. That's where all the magic happens.
Steve Altishin
I love it. But what if someone from Oregon calls you up and says, Can I get some coaching?
Amy Stone
Yeah, I coach everywhere all over the place. I actually, because I'm not giving legal advice or tax advice, I work with very much an observed line. I'm coaching on what the situations are. And so I coach people all over the world. Yep.
Steve Altishin
I love it. I love it. Well, Amy thank you so much. Thank you for being with us. It was so cool. You know, you were able to make, you know preparing step parents to enter a new relationship understandable and informative. And you know, when you can do that, for someone like me, you that's been successful. So thank you so much.
Amy Stone
Happy to be here. Thank you,
Steve Altishin
Everyone else, thank you for joining us. If anyone has further questions on today's topic, you can also post it here and we can get you connected with Amy, so don't worry about that as well. Until next time, stay safe, stay happy and be well.
Outro:
This has been Modern Family Matters, a legal podcast focusing on providing real answers and direction for individuals and families. Our podcast is sponsored by Pacific Cascade Legal, serving families in Oregon and Washington. If you are in need of legal counsel or have additional questions about a family law matter important to you, please visit our websites at pacificcascadelegal.com or pacificcascadefamilylaw.com. You can also call our headquarters at (503) 227-0200 to schedule a case evaluation with one of our seasoned attorneys. Modern Family Matters, advocating for your better tomorrow and offering legal solutions important to the modern family.