Blended Families

Families are rapidly changing, there are many different variations of the structure for the actual term of what we call ‘Family’.

Due to the amount of divorce in society these days, single parents are more and more prominent. From these past failed marriages where I’m sure the couples thought they were in the relationship that they were going to be in forever, copulated and bore children to solidify the relationship, time passes, the couples decided not to work it out when they’ve gone through hard times and at the end of the day found it too hard to be together. Like-minded people at a similar stage in life tend to gravitate toward each other, forming the Blended Family.

You really have to be careful because when people get together, they sometimes, not all the time, think about themselves more than their children. The children then have to come along for the ride. Which can work out amazing, or can just end up really, really bad.

Have you ever noticed a child who is with a parent that they look nothing alike? You might be in a line, and you see a little boy with his dad, but you notice that he doesn’t call him Dad, he calls him Mike or Steve or something like that. These days this is happening more and more, with stepparents becoming the norm as well as an extended family looking after 1, 2 or more of the children from a select family.

Communication between the 2 parties is crucial because you can’t forget that the children can be very persuasive when it comes to playing the parents against each other. Then you have the stepparents that have to at times put up with resentment and anger from the children. This can be a tricky subject because kids are so good at embellishing the truth and making either or both of the parties out to be the bad or negligent parents to the other party.

As well as communication, you need to have the resilience to be able to be a part of a blended family because there are many things that can put a spanner in the works – and boy do the kids find the most obscure and amazing ways to make you look like you aren’t doing a good job. But when you do find that amazing balance, when all parents are communicating and on the same page, the blended family can work so well.

Personally, I am a part of a rather unique blended family – Where I bring along my 3 boys into the mix, and my partner brings along 3 of her own boys and 2 girls. It is a crazy but loving house with a lot of sass and really funny 1 liners – There are usually 1 or 2 perpetrators in a house (My house is full of them).

So, to end off this blog, be yourself, roll with the punches, there’s going to be tears, there’s going to be lots of laughter and in the end, there’s going to be lots of love.