A family assistant sent us an email at 11 PM on a Sunday. She’d been with the family for six months and she was losing her mind. Mom wanted her to bring the kids to soccer practice at the old house on Saturday. Stepdad texted her to keep them at the new house because he’d planned something. Bio dad called to confirm she’d have them ready for his pickup time, which conflicted with both other plans. Three adults, three different households, three sets of expectations, and she was stuck in the middle with no idea who she actually reported to. “I need a flowchart,” she wrote. “Or a new job. Preferably both.” Welcome to being a family assistant in a blended family. It’s like regular family assistance, except you’re juggling multiple households, navigating complicated relationship dynamics, managing custody schedules that require a law degree to understand, and trying to figure out which parent actually has authority to make decisions on any given day. We’ve placed family assistants in blended family situations across San Diego for years. Some work beautifully. Others are chaotic disasters that burn out good employees in months. The difference usually comes down to whether the adults have figured out their own dynamics before asking someone else to manage them. Let’s talk about what actually happens when family assistants work in blended families, because this is one of the most complex situations in household employment and almost nobody talks about it honestly.
The Reporting Structure Nobody Discussed
In a traditional family, the family assistant’s reporting structure is usually straightforward. You report to one or both parents. Decisions get made, you execute them, everyone’s on the same page. Simple. In a blended family, nothing’s simple. You’ve got bio mom, bio dad, stepmom, and/or stepdad. You might have multiple households. You’ve got custody agreements that dictate who makes decisions about what. You’ve got relationship dynamics where some adults get along great and others barely speak. And somewhere in all that complexity, you’re supposed to figure out who you actually work for. The best blended family situations we’ve seen establish clear reporting structure from day one. Maybe the family assistant is hired by and reports to the primary custodial parent, and everyone else respects that chain of command. Maybe there’s a written agreement that both bio parents share authority and the family assistant checks major decisions with both. Maybe there’s a clear breakdown: mom handles school and activities, dad handles medical and travel, and the family assistant knows exactly who to check with for what. The worst situations? Nobody’s clear about anything. Every adult thinks they’re in charge. The family assistant gets conflicting instructions constantly. There’s no protocol for handling disagreements. And the family assistant ends up being the messenger between adults who won’t communicate directly with each other, which is a disaster waiting to happen.
Custody Schedules That Require a PhD
Standard custody schedules are already complicated. Week on, week off. Every other weekend. Split holidays. Now add in the family assistant who’s trying to coordinate activities, manage logistics, and keep track of where the kids are supposed to be and when. We worked with a family in San Diego where the custody arrangement was so complex the family assistant kept a color-coded calendar just to track which house the kids would be at on any given night. Mondays and Tuesdays with mom. Wednesday overnight with dad. Thursday back to mom unless it was the second Thursday of the month, then they stayed with dad. Every other weekend with dad unless it was a holiday, then there was a whole separate schedule. Summer had different rules than school year. The family assistant’s job was supposed to be managing the kids’ activities and schedules. In practice, she spent half her time just figuring out the custody logistics and making sure everyone knew where the kids needed to be picked up from and dropped off at. It was exhausting. The families who make this work create systems that the family assistant can actually follow. Written custody schedules that are always accessible. Shared digital calendars that everyone updates. Clear protocols for when plans change. Backup plans for when someone forgets to communicate something important. What doesn’t work is expecting the family assistant to just remember everything, figure it out on the fly, or worse, mediate when the adults can’t agree on the schedule. That’s not childcare, that’s relationship counseling, and it’s not what anyone signed up for.
The Authority Question Gets Messy
Here’s a scenario that happens constantly: the kids are at stepdad’s house for the weekend. They want to go to a friend’s birthday party. Stepdad says yes. Bio mom finds out Monday and is furious because she doesn’t know that friend’s family and didn’t approve. She blames the family assistant for not checking with her first. But the family assistant was following instructions from the adult who was present and in charge at that moment. Was she supposed to call bio mom for permission while the kids were in stepdad’s custody? Maybe, depending on what the family’s protocols are. But if nobody told her that’s the expectation, how was she supposed to know? The blended families that work well define authority clearly. Maybe there’s a list of decisions that always require both bio parents to approve: medical care, new activities, overnight trips. Those things, the family assistant knows to check with both parents no matter who’s currently with the kids. Everything else can be decided by whoever’s actively parenting at that moment. The families that create constant problems give the family assistant no guidance and then get mad when she makes the wrong call. She’s not a mind reader. If you haven’t explicitly discussed who has authority to make what decisions, you can’t be surprised when she defaults to following whoever’s in front of her.
The Communication Hub Nobody Wanted to Be
In healthy co-parenting relationships, the adults communicate directly with each other about the kids. In less healthy situations, they communicate through the family assistant. Guess which situation is more common? The family assistant becomes the messenger. Mom tells her to tell dad something. Dad tells her to tell mom something back. Neither adult wants to talk to the other directly, so they route everything through the person who works for both of them. It starts with logistics and escalates to conflicts. We’ve watched family assistants get pulled into the middle of parental disputes they have no business being involved in. Mom wants to know if dad’s new girlfriend is spending time with the kids. Instead of asking dad directly, she asks the family assistant to report back. Dad wants to know if mom’s following the agreement about bedtimes and screen time. Instead of addressing it with mom, he asks the family assistant to monitor and inform him.
This is completely unfair to the family assistant and it’s a guaranteed path to burnout and resentment. Nobody wants to be a spy. Nobody wants to be caught between adults who can’t have direct conversations. It’s uncomfortable, it’s inappropriate, and it’s not what they were hired to do. The families who avoid this trap establish from the beginning that the family assistant is not a communication channel between the parents. If adults need to discuss something about the kids, they talk to each other directly. The family assistant can facilitate logistics, but she’s not relaying messages about co-parenting disputes.
Household Logistics Across Multiple Homes
The kids need their soccer cleats, but the cleats are at dad’s house and they’re currently at mom’s house. The homework assignment that’s due Monday is in the backpack that got left at stepmom’s place. The favorite stuffed animal that the toddler can’t sleep without is three houses ago in the custody rotation. Managing kids’ belongings across multiple households is a logistical nightmare even without a family assistant. With a family assistant, it becomes part of the job, except nobody’s quite sure whose job it is to solve it. Some blended families buy duplicates of everything so each house is fully stocked. The kids have cleats at both houses, school supplies at both places, clothes and toiletries everywhere they might need them. That works great if everyone can afford it and has space for duplicate everything.
Other families expect the family assistant to be the logistics coordinator who makes sure the right stuff moves with the kids at each transition. She’s packing and unpacking, remembering what needs to go where, tracking down missing items, and basically being the mobile storage unit for the kids’ entire lives. The families that handle this well create systems. Transition bags that always go with the kids and get restocked at each house. Shared lists of what needs to travel and what stays put. Clear protocols for who’s responsible for making sure the kids have what they need at each location. What doesn’t work is leaving it to the family assistant to figure out with no guidance and then being annoyed when the kids show up somewhere without what they need. If you haven’t thought through the logistics, she definitely hasn’t either.
When the Adults Don’t Get Along
Some blended families are friendly and cooperative. The bio parents communicate well. The stepparents are integrated smoothly. Everyone puts the kids first and makes it work. Those situations are lovely for family assistants because everyone’s on the same team. Then there are the other situations. The ones where the divorce was brutal and the adults still hate each other. The ones where the new stepparent is trying too hard and the bio parent is resentful. The ones where there’s ongoing legal conflict about custody or finances. The ones where pickup and dropoff involve tension you could cut with a knife. Family assistants end up in the middle of this whether they want to be or not. They’re present for tense exchanges. They witness conflicts. They see how the adults treat each other and they’re trying to maintain professional relationships with people who are actively in conflict.
The best family assistants in these situations have incredible boundaries. They’re friendly and professional with all adults. They don’t take sides. They don’t get involved in disputes. They focus completely on the kids and let the adult drama happen around them without engaging. But that’s exhausting to maintain long-term, especially when adults try to pull you into their conflicts or use you as ammunition against each other. We’ve had family assistants quit excellent jobs because navigating the adult relationships was too stressful, even though they loved the kids. If you’re hiring a family assistant for a blended family situation where there’s ongoing conflict between the adults, be honest about that during hiring. Don’t pretend everything’s fine and then expect the family assistant to navigate a war zone. Give them the information they need to decide if this is a situation they can handle.
The Kids Who Play Adults Against Each Other
Smart kids in blended families figure out pretty quickly that different adults have different rules and different levels of information. They learn to work that to their advantage. And the family assistant often sees it happening before any of the parents do. A kid asks stepdad if they can have a sleepover. Stepdad says yes. The kid conveniently forgets to mention that mom already said no last week. Or they tell the family assistant that dad said they could skip homework tonight, when dad said no such thing. Or they claim mom approved something that mom definitely didn’t approve. The family assistant is stuck in an impossible position. Do you fact-check everything the kids say, potentially undermining their honesty and your relationship with them? Do you take their word and risk facilitating something that wasn’t actually approved? Do you constantly verify with multiple adults for every little thing, which is exhausting and makes you look like you don’t trust anyone?
The families that handle this establish verification protocols. For big decisions, the family assistant checks with the appropriate parent regardless of what the kids claim. For small stuff, maybe there’s more flexibility. But there’s clarity about what requires confirmation and what doesn’t. The families that create chaos treat the family assistant like she should somehow magically know what’s true and what’s manipulation, and then blame her when things go wrong. That’s not fair and it’s not realistic.
Different Rules at Different Houses
Mom’s house has strict screen time limits. Dad’s house is more relaxed about it. Stepmom has different food rules than bio mom. The kids are supposed to have consistent bedtimes but everyone defines “bedtime” differently. And the family assistant is trying to provide consistency while adapting to completely different environments. Some families want the family assistant to enforce their specific rules even when the kids are at the other parent’s house. That’s tricky because you’re essentially asking an employee to override the parent who’s currently in charge. Other families expect the family assistant to adapt to whoever’s rules apply at that moment, which means constantly switching expectations. Neither approach is wrong, but you need to be clear about what you want. If you expect your rules to apply everywhere, that needs to be discussed and agreed upon by all adults, and the family assistant needs explicit authority to enforce those rules even at other households. If you want her to defer to whoever’s house the kids are at, she needs to know that’s the expectation and she won’t be blamed for the kids experiencing different rules in different places.
What’s unfair is expecting the family assistant to somehow enforce consistency that the adults themselves haven’t agreed upon. She can’t make all the houses operate the same way if the adults in those houses want different things. That’s a co-parenting issue, not a family assistant issue.
When Step-Siblings Are Involved
Now let’s add another layer: step-siblings who have their own custody schedules, their own parents, and their own sets of rules and expectations. The family assistant who was hired to care for the bio kids is now also responsible for stepkids on weekends, or maybe full-time, depending on the family structure. Are those kids her responsibility or aren’t they? Does she have the same authority with them as with the bio kids? Can she discipline them? Make decisions about their activities? Or is she supposed to treat them differently? Some blended families integrate completely and expect the family assistant to treat all kids equally. Others maintain clearer boundaries where the family assistant has primary responsibility for certain kids and a more limited role with others. Both can work, but only if it’s explicitly discussed and everyone understands the arrangement.
What doesn’t work is leaving the family assistant to figure out her role with step-siblings on the fly. She needs to know what’s expected, what authority she has, and how the family views her responsibilities toward kids who aren’t biologically related to her primary employer.
The Schedule Coordination Madness
You’ve got mom’s work schedule. Dad’s work schedule. Stepmom’s work schedule. The custody calendar. School schedules for multiple kids potentially at different schools. Activity schedules. Doctor’s appointments. Extended family commitments. And the family assistant is supposed to coordinate all of it. In a single household, that’s already complex. In a blended family with multiple households, it’s nearly impossible without excellent systems. We’ve seen family assistants managing five or six different calendars, trying to ensure that everyone knows where kids need to be, who’s responsible for pickup and dropoff, and what happens when schedules conflict. The families who make this workable invest in shared calendar systems that everyone actually uses and updates. There are regular check-ins to coordinate upcoming weeks. There’s a clear point person who makes final decisions when schedules conflict. There’s respect for the fact that this level of coordination is a significant part of the job, not just a minor detail.
The families that create chaos expect the family assistant to just make it all work without providing tools or clarity. When things fall through cracks, they blame her for not keeping track of information that was never clearly communicated in the first place.
What Good Looks Like
We’ve seen blended family situations work beautifully with family assistants. The common factors are always the same: clear communication between all adults, defined roles and authority, systems for managing complexity, and respect for the family assistant as a professional trying to navigate something genuinely difficult. The families that succeed have regular meetings where all adults sync up about schedules and expectations. They’ve documented who makes what decisions. They’ve created protocols for handling common situations. They treat the family assistant as part of the team, not as a referee in their conflicts. They’re also honest during hiring about what the situation actually involves. They don’t pretend the arrangement is simpler than it is. They acknowledge the complexity and look for family assistants who have the skills and temperament to handle it. And they pay accordingly because managing a blended family requires significantly more skill than managing a traditional household.
What Doesn’t Work
What doesn’t work is hiring a family assistant and expecting her to fix co-parenting problems. If the adults can’t communicate effectively, can’t agree on basic parenting decisions, can’t be civil to each other, adding an employee to the mix won’t solve those issues. It’ll just give you one more person who’s stressed and caught in the middle. It also doesn’t work to hire someone and then not give them the information, authority, and support they need to succeed. You can’t keep the family assistant in the dark about custody agreements, parenting decisions, or household expectations and then be frustrated when she makes mistakes. And it definitely doesn’t work to treat the family assistant as a message carrier, spy, or therapist for the adults. She’s there to support the children, not to manage the grownups’ relationships with each other.
The Conversation to Have Before Hiring
If you’re a blended family in San Diego or anywhere else considering hiring a family assistant, have some hard conversations first. Among the adults: Who has decision-making authority about what? How will you communicate about the kids? What are the protocols for handling disagreements? What rules are consistent across households and what varies? How will you support someone trying to navigate this complexity? Then during the hiring process, be honest with candidates about what they’re walking into. Describe the custody arrangement. Explain the household structures. Be clear about reporting relationships. Discuss how you handle communication and coordination. Give them information to assess whether this is a situation they can handle. The right family assistant for a blended family is someone with exceptional organizational skills, strong boundaries, great communication abilities, and the emotional intelligence to navigate complicated relationship dynamics without getting sucked into drama. Those people exist, but you need to be honest about what you’re asking them to do so they can make informed decisions.
It Can Work
Despite everything we’ve said about the complications, family assistants in blended families can work incredibly well. The kids get consistency and support across households. The adults get help managing complex logistics. The family assistant builds meaningful relationships with multiple family systems. But it requires intention, clarity, and respect for the difficulty of what you’re asking someone to do. Blended families are complicated. Don’t pretend they’re not. Build systems that account for the complexity. Communicate clearly. Support the person you’re asking to hold it all together. And if you realize you’re creating an impossible situation, be willing to adjust. Maybe you need two different family assistants, one for each household. Maybe you need to simplify before adding an employee. Maybe you need to sort out the adult relationships before asking someone else to manage around them.
Family assistants can be incredible assets to blended families. Just make sure you’re setting them up to succeed rather than asking them to perform miracles without support.
