Katherine Schwarzenegger On Stepparenting Chris Pratt's Son, Jack
Chris and Anna married in 2009, welcomed Jack in 2012, and separated in 2017. Their divorce was finalized a year later in 2018, by which point, Chris was already dating Katherine.
Jack is now 12 and a big brother to his dad and stepmom's three kids: 4-year-old Lyla, 3-year-old Eloise, and 8-month-old Ford. Now, during this week's episode of the Parenting & You with Dr. Shefali podcast, Chris and Katherine got real about the challenges that come with blending a family, revealing she even hired a 'stepparenting coach' to help.
'I got that right when we got engaged. And it's been incredibly helpful for me and just understanding my role as a stepparent,' Katherine said, admitting that her coach/therapist has been 'essential' in her journey with Jack.
'Stepparenting, like parenting, has no handbook,' she said. 'Because I have the benefit of being in both roles, stepparenting is extra confusing because you aren't a parent, you're not a nanny, you're not an assistant. You have responsibilities in all of those areas, but you're not either of them. It's a confusing thing to navigate where you fit in.'
Katherine said that 'every dynamic is obviously very different,' but that she, Chris, and Anna coparent 'very well,' calling it a 'huge blessing, which takes a lot of work.' 'It works when everybody is willing to put in the work,' she added.
Chris agreed that being a stepparent can be tricky and sometimes feel 'thankless,' comparing it to motion-capture acting, in which an actor's physical movements are recorded before being projected onto a digital animation (think Avatar). 'It's a tough job,' he said. 'Stepparenting is a little bit like mo-cap acting because, in the end, you don't end up getting the credit you deserve.'
'Children are children and they're on their own paths,' he continued. 'They're probably having to continually process the fact that they are children of divorce. If a parent is in there doing the hard work of creating structure for a child and holding children accountable, and it's not a biological child, it can feel thankless. But it's a really, really important job.'
I can't say I've ever heard of a stepparenting coach before, but it sounds like it did the trick for the Pratt family! You can listen to Chris and Katherine's full podcast appearance here.
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