Stepfamilies shouldn't be held to ransom by a punitive tax system

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/may/10/stepfamilies-held-to-ransom-punitive-tax-system

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Of all my favourite funny-because-it's-true jokes that I've seen in stand-up routines over the past couple of years, Chelsea Peretti's comment on her parents' divorce is one that particularly sticks with me. "My parents divorced when I was one year old," she says, "so I don't really remember any of the details. But luckily my mom does, so she's been really helpful."

Cue familiar laughter from all of us whose memories don't stretch as far back as our own parents' doomed marriages, but who have somehow acquired a blow-by-blow account of every time their father just wouldn't pull his weight and every time their mother was completely unreasonable, courtesy of the horses' mouths. Many have even had that knowledge enriched by surrounding relatives. I personally have heard so much about the courtship, wedding, honeymoon, my birth and the handful of holidays my parents took me on as a baby that I could, with mere hours' worth of notice, write a series equal in both length and trauma to the Hunger Games.

When one of my cousins-a-million-times-removed contacted me from Australia via Facebook to tell me that she'd been composing a family tree and I was on it, I was awestruck with admiration. If one decade-long relationship could reduce me to terminal exhaustion, what on earth must hundreds of years of genealogy do to a person? It doesn't bear thinking about.

If your parents divorce as early as mine did, there's a reasonable possibility that you'll eventually become part of what is now euphemistically termed "a blended family". This, essentially, takes lots of ingredients from past screw-ups and chucks them into a mixing bowl together, hoping they might eventually stick. For one blended family you will need: a parent, preferably fresh from a particularly acrimonious divorce; a step-parent, who may or may not like kids and may or may not have any idea what they've got themselves into; and any number of children, all on a spectrum from "mildly irritating" right through to "determined to turn your delicately blended family into unrecognisable sludge, ASAP". It's a recipe that only the hardiest of people attempt.

And yet I was sad to learn that, according to the ONS, stepfamilies are in "dramatic decline". Jokes aside, and despite my healthily cynical take on the whole thing, I do believe that blended families – when properly managed by the participants – are a good thing. They can provide positive, lasting relationship role models to children; the introduction of new siblings can be an opportunity for life lessons in tolerance and compassion; and, as my own single mother often reminds me, the presence of a supportive partner is an asset that cannot be overstated in the ever-changing obstacle course that is parenting.

The spectre of the "evil stepmother" may loom large over us, but in reality very few blended families are abject failures. My own experience of stepfamilies was often difficult, but it hasn't shaken this view. The idea, put forward by various social commentators in the Telegraph, that financial disincentives for unmarried couples to live together have contributed to a decline in stepfamilies (and yes, they count in ONS statistics as stepfamilies even if the partners aren't married) is depressing. It suggests that the happiness of potentially millions of people is being held ransom by an out-of-touch tax and benefits system. If you think that sounds like hyperbole, consider that 4.2 million children in England and Wales do not live with both of their parents.

The coalition government hasn't been kind to kids of divorce. When single parenting charity Gingerbread announced that the bedroom tax would apply to separated parents who shared custody of their children (according to its guide, "children who visit regularly but are not always part of the household" have had their bedrooms recategorised as superfluous "spares"), it wasn't exactly cause for celebration. And while a decade-long decline in stepfamilies can't be attributed to David Cameron and Nick Clegg alone, they have shown very little interest in the realistic nature of UK families today. The belief that these children's homes and the construction of their families should be decided and governed by taxes is stubbornly persistent – and it should be cause for outcry.