Blended Families Videos

Blended Family What stepfamilies themselves, as well as the best family therapists, have known for years, is that the standard of blending is just plain wrong. By: Wednesday Martin, Ph.D. The media is in love with the term blended family. From USA Today to Star magazine to the New York Times, from 20/20 to Oprah, there s no escaping the articles about repartnering with children that don t just label such families blended, but further suggest that blending = success. That is, not blended = failed stepfamily. And the rest of the world follows suit with their practices and expectations. There are web sites for stepfamilies (many of them quite helpful and smart) with names like Blended and Beautiful and Blissfully Blended. Many of the stepfamily members I interviewed over the last three years reported that they found themselves surrounded by friends, colleagues and even therapists who cleave to the notion that these families ought to move on a trajectory toward blending all together, and that anything short of that desired outcome was, well, coming up short. Deficient. What stepfamilies themselves, as well as the best family therapists, have known for years, is that the standard of blending is just plain wrong. It not only misrepresents the reality of life for all the players in a remarriage with children; the concept is also unrealistic and harmful to stepfamilies and individual stepfamily members. Indeed, the Blended Family is what we might call a Big Lie, one of the most entrenched and damaging myths when it comes to stepfamily members getting on with it, surviving, and forming meaningful relationships with each other. What we now know, from lived experience and years of research on families of divorce and remarriage with children, is that judging these families by a first family standard that is, expecting cohesiveness, closeness, and togetherness à la a nuclear family is the surest way to miss the point entirely. Stepfamilies are not only not an effortless, ambrosial smoothie they re not supposed to be. And striving to achieve a first-family-ness is likely unhealthy for everyone involved. A good example of the damage the myth of the blended family wrecks on families is the story told to me by a man I ll call Mitch, a widowed father of two who married Jackie, divorced with a child of her own, about a decade ago. Delighted to have found a life partner to whom he felt deeply connected, Mitch nevertheless told me that his main goal in remarrying had been to give my sons a mother. For his part, he felt he should treat his own sons and Jackie s boy exactly the same, and told me that initially he hadn t even referred to Jackie s son Martin as my stepson but rather, my son. The rest of Mitch s story unspooled from this initial expectation we ll be just like parents to each other s kids, just like a first family in a way that didn t surprise me after my years of research and first-hand experience, but that has shocked and stung millions of stepfamily members over the last decades. Jackie s son resented Mitch s presumptions; Mitch s sons felt the same way about Jackie s attempts to mother them. The three kids rejected their stepparents in every way imaginable refusing to acknowledge them when they walked in the room, talking back, acting out at home and at school which led Mitch and particularly Jackie to redouble their efforts, convinced that they could knit everyone together with enough love. Spurned again and again, they soon felt rejected and resentful of their stepkids. And as the kids fought with each other, Jackie and Mitch were increasingly polarized, their partnership taking on water as they stuck up for their own kids. One day, when Jackie grew furious that Mitch wasn t paying enough attention at Martin s parent-teacher conference, Mitch exploded, feeling cut into pieces. This lead them to couple s therapy with a practitioner who was, thankfully, very experienced with stepfamily dynamics. Stop trying to parent each other s kids, they were told. And stop with the expectation that you re all supposed to blend. This expectation, the counselor told them, was creating enormous stress for everyone. Why were they pushing the idea of everyone loving everyone else right off the bat, and of erasing all their years of separate history and rituals? What was wrong, she asked, with two Christmas trees if the kids found their own way of doing it so important? What was wrong with a kid preferring his own parent? Or with a parent feeling closer to her own child than her stepchild? Nothing. In spite of it rubbing ignorant outsiders the wrong way, successful stepfamilies have learned that super-close first-family dynamics aren t necessary to have good-enough, close-enough ties that sustain and nourish stepfamily members. Residential families, more than one researcher has noted, can have a dorm-like feel: particularly where she and he both bring their own kids to the mix, stepfamily members might eat at different times, even elect not to take all their vacations together. When kids are older and living apart, even less bondedness is the rule. And it seems it is this very lack of closeness that allows stepfamilies to succeed, gel in their own way, and develop positive relationships. The National Stepfamily Resource Center, an organization that has repeatedly called for therapists and the media to stop using the term blended family, has noted that flexibility and respect for difference are more predictive of positive outcome for stepfamilies than tight knit-ness. As stepfamily researcher Dr. Patricia Papernow has noted, When stepfamilies blend, it s because someone s getting creamed. Either the parents are moving too fast and the kids are getting creamed with we re a family expectations, or the adults have this two parent model so the stepparent gets creamed. Too much cohesion too soon may make everyone around us in-laws, friends, even therapists who don t get it feel more comfortable with our stepfamily. But it s not what works for stepparents and stepkids. Lowering our expectations and letting go of the fantasy of blending is the first step to putting together something that s bumpy, but emotionally honest and workable. ©2009 Wednesday Martin, Ph.D., author of Stepmonster: A New Look at Why Real Stepmothers Think, Feel, and Act the Way We Do About the Author: Wednesday Martin, Ph.D., author of Stepmonster: A New Look at Why Real Stepmothers Think, Feel, and Act the Way We Do was a regular contributor to the New York Post s parenting page for several years, and her work has appeared in a number of national magazines. She earned her doctorate in comparative literature from Yale and taught cultural studies and literature at Yale, the New School, and Baruch College. Martin, a stepmother for nine years, lives in New York City with her husband and their two sons. For more information please visit www.WednesdayMartin.com. Photo:  Vaughn_Photography

Find out how you should go about disciplining your step-child when entering a new family.

For many kids, money means the magical card that comes out of mom's wallet or cash obediently emerging from an ATM. Parents lead the way in teaching kids respect for money and the value of budgeting, saving, and buying just what you can afford. It's never too early to teach kids that money doesn't grow on trees and there must be money in the bank before those credit cards and ATMs can be used. This Season may be the perfect opportunity to teach kids the object lessons regarding money. Author: blendedfamilynews Keywords: "holiday season" kids budget "new economy" gifts "financial realities" "Emily Bouchard" blendedfamilies economy family money Added: December 9, 2008

The Holiday Season, customarily a time for splurging and generous gift giving, is likely to be a challenge for many families this year as they struggle with the new economic realities of job loss , mortgage meltdown and general financial insecurity. Parents and children, inundated with enticing television advertisements, promotions and glittering in-store displays, may need to face the reality of a scaled-back Holiday Season, even though it's difficult to resist impulse buying when it's meant to be the season for giving and getting.

The Holiday season is fast approaching and for many it's a mixed blessing--Holiday Stress mixed with Holiday Cheer. Who isn't charmed with sparkling store displays, eager children, and all the delicious cookies and candies everywhere? And a major high spot is organizing relaxed quality time with family and friends at Holiday dinners and gatherings. There are high hopes and a variety of pressures to ensure joyful celebrations.

The Holiday season is fast approaching and for many it's a mixed blessing--Holiday Stress mixed with Holiday Cheer. Who isn't charmed with dazzling store displays, eager children, and all the tempting cookies and candies everywhere? And a major high spot is arranging comfortable quality time with family and friends at Holiday dinners and parties. There are high expectations and multiple pressures to guarantee happy celebrations.

Blended-Families.com present some guidelines for returning graduates and their parents to help spell out expectations and develop a plan for the graduate to transition into independent adult living.

Adult stepfamilies can be satisfying and heartwarming when parents, adult children and grandchildren work together as a healthy and happy family unit. This video is about the ground-breaking book, Step Wars by Grace Gabe, M.D. and Jean Lipman-Blumen, Ph.D. which gives helpful strategies parents and adult stepchildren need to deal with common anger issues.