Anne Chaplin is the author of “Recomposed family, behind the scenes” at Editions Librinova.
As deconfinement has entered its second phase, a new period of intense talks is opening in blended families: will they circulate the children from one family to another according to the usual schedule? Back to school, is it essential? And who will ultimately be responsible for arbitrating and deciding: the only parents in title, or the parents-in-law who, too, welcome their children?
Because contrary to what Christophe Castaner authorized on March 16 - namely that children in alternate custody could continue their usual return journeys to their respective parents - nothing happened as usual in most of these multifaceted configurations. And for good reason: by circulating, the child could transmit the virus to the other family, or even beyond if the new spouse had children from their first marriage also commuting to a third home. The virus could thus give itself to heart joy in this potentially infinite chain of actors.
More than ever, this little world spread over several family cells has been interconnected by a virus of which the whole world had learned.Multiple factors were taken into account: if the new companion was a nursing assistant and risked, by domino effect, infecting the whole troop. If a child was diabetic, or not far from being obese. If a parent, or step-parent, could telecommute and avoid exposure to the virus. But also if one of them was really very anxious. Everyone went there with their vision of danger and the best way to avoid it.
More than ever, this little world spread over several family cells has been interconnected by a virus that is admittedly tiny, but of which the whole world had become aware. The visceral concern for the children helping, the practices in the other home were scrutinized closely. What is the point of observing a strict confinement in mom, if dad visits his brother? The slightest deviation from one parent was reported by the child to the other and gave rise to outrageous criticism on his part, but also that of his new spouse.
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By being able to circulate from one family to another, the virus has highlighted a phenomenon that everyone was already feeling, without admitting it: an invisible link unites these family cells where multiple actors pull the strings of the other. Each cell is porous. When the ex does not simply burst into the life of the new couple, the child conveys his feelings, his values and his smell of laundry, like a Trojan horse. While the spouses of a second marriage, aspiring to peace and claiming their right to new happiness, try to build ramparts and moats, the tide of children destroys in a round trip the beautiful sand castle they thought they were building.
Without status or seat, only the shadow of the step-parent hovered over the parents' discussions concerning their children.Another teaching of the clever Covid: it strikes without distinction the legal parent as the parent "without papers", the children of Monsieur as much as those of Madame. By his all-round aggressiveness, he demonstrates without appeal that everyone is affected, failing to have his say. Difficult to justify that the step-parent does not have a say in the chapter on the coming of the cherubim who are not his, if he is diabetic! However, without status or seat, only its shadow hovered over the parents' discussions concerning their children. At most, he was able to transmit his wishes to his half, and he could pray for the negotiator to respect his mandate.
Like Marie who, pregnant and considered to be "at risk", asked her partner Pascal not to take her daughter any more during confinement. Indeed: the mother is an emergency doctor ... Pascal is divided: of course he loves his wife, but on the other hand, he will miss his daughter. After having resolved this interior dilemma, it is now at the front that he is going valiantly to convince his ex-wife ... Not surprisingly, she refuses the deal: why would she please the new couple, she who has not redone his life, working hard at the hospital, and running after time to take care of his daughter? Penaud, Pascal admits to Marie his failure. The latter is troubled: it is therefore the former couple who decides on their health? While decisions about her home are made without her advice, is she really at home?
As for the ex-spouse, the feeling of not controlling anything is just as vivid. When he wanted so much, in this time of crisis, to protect his children beyond his walls. Imposing one's values and conception of hygiene in a home where another couple reigns is rather delicate. Pressure and strength of conviction were his only weapons. Jeanne tried many schemes to convince her ex-husband Jérôme of the vital nature of disinfecting door handles; but also the wearing of the mask in the street, including by the children of his new wife ... It was with a great burst of laughter that Jerome's wife welcomed the demands of the one who, in his eyes, n has nothing to say about his home and even less about his offspring.
Once the new rules of containment were enacted, lulls sometimes reigned in these families during these strange months.Once the new rules of containment were enacted, lulls sometimes reigned in these families during these strange months. Above all, it is true, when the outward and return journeys have been reduced to the minimum, and the impromptu intrusions postponed to the maximum. But with phase 2 of the deconfinement, the reopening of the “negos” sounded. While Lorraine has passed into the green zone and Léo is preparing to return to college, his father-in-law, asthmatic and hitherto preserved thanks to telework, is slowing down this academic impulse. While his father, disappointed by his son's poor grades in the first two terms, has only one word to say: "Back to class as soon as possible!" In another family, a nursing mother, who had reluctantly accepted that her children stay with her ex-husband for these two long months, now demands to make up for their July-August absence in a row! The father's new wife is desperate, she who has just rented a large house in Lozère for the whole tribe. Will she save their vacation?
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With the corona, the blended family reveals itself: it is a network of complex interactions and influences, where nothing is acquired or framed. Where the decision-makers are not what we think. Where the absent act powerfully in the shadows, or through children who do not realize it. A place where the legitimate interests and needs of the actors intermingle, but also the bitterness of the past and the jealousies of the present. Where all are in search not of a vaccine, but of the magic recipe which would make them pass from these difficult choices, these bags of multiple knots and these feelings of helplessness, to the radiant tribe of which they had dreamed so much and whose realization turns out to be so complicated.
Anne Chaplin, "Recomposed family: behind the scenes" ed. Librinova