Not only is blending families difficult, it brings with it an infinite combination of relatives and offspring. For instance, when my husband and I married, we each brought two children to the union who became step-siblings. However, my two stepchildren already had three half-siblings from their mother's
This confusing array of offspring has its occasional compensations. On Mother's Day, I received telephone best wishes from a step-step-daughter, my husband's first wife's child, as well as from my own children and stepchildren. On the occasion of my youngest daughter's high school graduation, I entertained my ex-inlaws, ex-husband and his wife, and their child. As the visiting "ex's" prepared to leave, my ex-husband's two-year-old daughter gave me a goodbye kiss and hug. I felt like a grandmother to my ex-husband's child, which is decidedly better at this stage in my life than being the mother. When the new baby arrives, my "ex" will be forty-seven-years old; when that child graduates from college, he will be seventy. Heh heh, life is fair after all.
The children often have other views about the fairness of the new combinations, which upset the established family order. My stepdaughter was the youngest in her family and enjoyed the blessings and attention of that position when suddently I brought in a younger youngest and another girl, at that. Life is fair, literally in this case, because my youngest child has been replaced as youngest in her father's new family by a new baby sister. Dr. Kevin Leman, author of The Birth Order Book writes about these combinations: "...I am tempted to say a bit facetiously, 'Your only hope is to sell the children. You could get a good price for them on the coast!'"
Juggling positions is broadening I'm sure, if we all survive, but so is selling out and going to Africa as missionaries. However, we are learning about altruism right here at home without going to Africa. The swelling number of siblings, parents, and relatives requires more savings for Christmas presents and other holidays and more people to fit into the wedding party for those contemplating the "Big Day" and thoughts of dwindling and divided fortunes for the money grubbers waiting for their inheritance.
Blending families is sort of like taking a deck of Rook cards and throwing them together with a deck of Old Maids and trying to play a game. You can't play the old games with the blended deck. For example, my stepchildren don't like my cooking, won't eat vetetables, and splash Catsup on everything from toast to chicken. I've adjusted--I cook smaller portions of stuffed cabbage, spinach pie, and shrimp creole and buy lots of Catsup and Rague sauce. When my college-bound daughter is home from the University and requests "our" old favorites, I am redeemed.
I know that a rejection of my cooking does not equate to a rejection of me, at least I know that mentally, but I was raised in a family that showed affection by cooking and eating. I've struggled with extra pounds all my life because of that old family conditioning, and it would be lightening, as well as enlightening, if I could learn to show and receive love in other ways. Shuffling the deck of family rules is good, but it's not easy.
I'm sure that the writers of the Brady Bunch took the above situations and resolved them satisfactorily in thirty minutes. Elbert Hubbard said, "A school should not be preparation for life. A school should be life." And, so it is with the blended family. We are resolving our issues as we live them just like a regular family. It could be that we are a regular family, even if our family tree shows ungainly branches and appears asymmetrical in shape.
