Well stepmoms – get ready for a new level of glitz, glam and publicity for stemotherhood – Britney Spears is going to become a stepmom. The singer’s engagement to dancer Kevin Federline was recently announced following a whirlwind three-month courtship. Her fiancé has a two-year-old daughter and a second child on the way with his ex-girlfriend.

That would be the same Britney Spears who has her clothes peeled off her in concerts and just had a quickie divorce after a 55-hour Las Vegas marriage. The media feeding frenzy surrounding Britney’s engagement and impending stepmotherhood has focused on her fiance’s ex-girlfriend, actress Shar Jackson, who extended an olive branch this week to Spears.

Jackson told Access Hollywood she does not bear the singer any ill-will and that you should “never blame the other woman.” Jackson said she wants to meet Spears so they can iron things out and “be one big happy family.” In a separate interview with People magazine, Spears said she plans to meet Federline’s daughter.

One can only hope that this future blended family will find time in their busy schedules to figure out how to relate to each other before Spears and Federline walk down the aisle. Not meeting Federline’s two-year-old daughter Corey prior to their engagement is like signing up for stepmom-boot-camp without knowing what to pack.

Britney-the-stepmom-to-be has already got several strikes against her walking into the game. Not scoping out the emotional terrain before engagement and not meeting the child or her mother are early prescriptions for a disastrous blended family situation.

At the same time, how many stepmoms can honestly say they understood their husband’s ex-wife and how they would relate before they married him? Or if they really knew what they were getting into when they married a man with children? Not many.

A lot of us were so head-over-heels in love that we just leapt into marriage with starry eyes buoyed by love. The path that takes you from being dad’s girlfriend to being dad’s wife is laden with both nuptial cherubs and poisonous fruit. A wedding alters the dynamics of not only a couple’s relationship, but also how they relate to other people. Even the ex.

I can’t say I knew my husband’s ex-wife well before I married him. But I know that for the rest of my life, I am going to have to figure out how to get along with her. Our lives are inextricably linked because she is the mother of three of my husband’s children.

I wish now that I sat down with her before the wedding and hashed out expectations about not only how the kids would function in our households, but also how we would treat each other. I was younger than she was and quite frankly, I found her a bit intimidating. It was much easier to compartmentalize and make my husband deal with her. In the ad-nauseum publicity around the Spears engagement, the only glimmers of hope are the offers to meet each other and Jackson’s concern for her daughter’s well-being.

It’s tough for any stepmom to get beyond the label and be herself. One can hope that things that will turn out well for Spears and her Romeo, but the lifestyle of celebrity do not give much pause for reflection or negotiating the boundaries and issues that arise within a stepfamily.

Even wealth and fame cannot erase the challenges in forming a stepfamily. Britney will have to shed her pop princess crown and take serious steps toward relationship-building with the other important women in her husband-to-be’s life (his ex and his daughter) if she hopes to have a viable marriage with a man who has children.

Dawn Miller writes a column on life in blended families at thestepfamilylife.com. 
Visit Dawn's blog for a daily dose of life in the blender.
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