From Tami: Blending Families

Blending families is tough. Everyone hopes and dreams for that perfect blend—the kids become like siblings, everyone respects everyone, we all love each other madly all of the time—but very few people get that lucky. Especially when the kids are already a bit older.

Don’t get me wrong, my blended family is well blended. It is just that the blend-level seems to fluctuate. Sometimes hourly.

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I had four kids before I remarried. My husband had seven. We were trying to blend eleven kids, from teen to toddlers, and we had no idea what we were getting ourselves into.

Because you aren’t just blending “families.”

You are blending personalities.

Parenting styles.

Personal history.

Personal space.

Learning styles.

Hobbies.

Holiday traditions.

Etc. (Yes, etc. gets its own line. ☺)

We had kids the same ages with vastly different personalities and needs, who were used to being parented in vastly different ways. Do you keep those disciplinary differences, and invite accusations of favoritism? Do you overhaul your parenting style, confusing your children? There are no easy answers, which is why each blended family is different. Everyone has a learning curve, and that’s okay.

We have it mostly right, by this point, but we definitely still make plenty of mistakes. My step-children and I love each other, my children and my husband love each other, the kids love each other. But there are days when I want to run screaming from the house, hide in a hole with a book and a bottle of wine, and pray that no one finds me. I think that is a natural part of parenting, and especially step-parenting, and that’s why I’m writing about this today.

Because I want every step-mom who feels like a failure at family-blending to take a deep breath and remind yourself that you are doing an incredible job. You are not the only one struggling with making it work, it comes with the territory.

And that’s why you’re a SuperMom.

Tami


2 Responses to “From Tami: Blending Families”

  1. Misty Arlington on

    This is awesome! Blending 11 kids is a struggle, we had a hard enough time blending our 3! How many years did it take for your family to start developing relationships? Or did it happen a lot quicker? It took us some time but now we are all pretty close and it feels great. Me and my husband are even considering a step parent adoption with rapidadoption.com but we aren’t sure if we will do that yet.

    Reply
    • Wow, Misty, amazing to hear. With such a huge family, our blending process was all over the place. My fantasy at the beginning was that we would all realize how lucky we were to have each other and we’d all fall in love and that would be that. Nice and neat. In real life, I now know, it doesn’t work that way. Relationships cannot be forced but mutual respect can and that was our first rule. Affection with some of the kids took off immediately and for some it took longer but it did happen. My best moments come when I see the kids looking out for one another each other and realizing that they too consider themselves part of one family.

      Best of luck to you in everything. If you do decide to adopt a child together, it certainly sounds like he or she will be joining a wonderful, loving family. Thanks so much for sharing with me!

      Tami

      Reply

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