To think MN is horrible about blended families?

Posters screaming LTB at the slightest bit of conflict between dc and stepparents

The first rule of MumsNet Club is "You must LTB"

Partner cheated? LTB

Partner left some dirty washing in the sink? LTB

Partner walked past a member of the opposite sex on a busy high street and didn't immediately cross the street screaming "I'M IN A RELATIONSHIP!! I'M IN A RELATIONSHIP AND I LOVE HER!!!"? LTB

The problem with blended families is that many of them aren’t blended, they still have huge, indigestible lumps in them.

Well, firstly I don't think anyone should be moving 'strangers' in. And secondly, plenty of children share their father with other children.

There's a high level of judgement and 'holier than thou' in your post, it's pretty unpleasant.

It's never done with the child's best interests at heart though, it's done because the adults want it.

I'm a lone parent and I'll stay single rather than force a step parent on my DS.

Jesus Christ the ignorance of that poster!

Yup, I had a friend who blended her family. She took on his children and she cared for them deeply. She looked after them as her own and they were incredibly well bonded.

So when he was shagging about a year later and took his children to set up shop with another woman it was traumatic for everyone, bar him. He just rolled on by.

With all due respect, I think this sounds like a problem with your mother in general. Anyone who was violent and neglectful to you is not going to be capable of attending to your emotional needs or feelings within a blended family.

I am a stepmother and my children have a stepfather. We might not always get it right but we certainly do not delude ourselves that everything is rosy or perfect and the kids just have to get on with it.

@Simonjt I'm adopted and I don't think of myself living in a blended family. I see a blended family with stepparents as a very different scenario to be adopted.

I remember a thread from a few years ago, and the OP was wondering what was wrong with her DD who was about 11. Her behaviour and emotions were causing concern and she was very different from when she was younger. Now obviously age might have had some bearing but it also turned out that the OP had divorced the DD's father. The DD also had a younger sister. Both parents then got remarried. The new partners also had children, and then the mum and dad had children with their respective new partners. So the DD had gone from living with her parents with her younger sibling, to living between 2 houses and gaining about 10 siblings. And the OP needed it pointing out on the thread that this might have impacted her DD adversely. In the OP's eyes they were just one big happy blended family, it had really not occurred to her that her DD might not be as happy as the OP was.

Are your parents separated? Do you have step-parents?

What does having children of your own change, in terms of looking back? Genuine question.

For me it made it even more unbelievable that they could treat their own child so badly. I would never make my children feel uncomfortable in their own home, having to put up with a stranger moving in. Having to share their father with other children.

It puts how spectacularly selfish the decision to blend really is, for most families.

There are of course exceptions.

I think the problem comes from those step parents who are happy to move in with their new partners (and their children) but don’t think that they should be expected to ‘feel the same’ or to treat their step kids in the same way as their own kids etc.

fine - if you can genuinely love the children you move in with (or who live with you part of the time), then you are likely to be a great person step parent. If the most you can muster is a vague positive regard, then frankly, get out of their space.

I lived with housemates/partners of friends for most of my twenties. There is nothing worse than living in a house with someone you know doesn’t really like you that much. It’s miserable. And I was an adult, and these weren’t people who were supposed to care about me.

I had an extremely traumatic time after my parents split and they both moved their new partners into their homes. It was not my parents splitting that did the damage, it was having to adjust to near strangers moving into the homes where I was supposed to feel safe. My brother developed extremely poor mental health as a young adult and he points to this time in our lives to be the place where it started. I am always glad when I read parents on mumsnet talk about their determination to put their children ahead of their need for a partner. My parents were determined to tell anyone who would listen how happy we were with the new arrangements, they were just trying to project what they wanted to be true.

Please could someone enlighten me… is a blended family when you mix two parents (who are in a relationship) with each separate children that they had before the relationship.

or is it still blended if say single mum meets man who has no kids & then they have a child together and live with the woman’s pre existing children. Are they both blended families or is it just the first one? And for those saying it’s bad, which is the least bad in your opinion and why?
(just curious)

My biological parents were violent to each other and violent and neglectful to me and my siblings. However, the absolute worst, most emotionally damaging thing to happen to me in my childhood was not their abuse or their divorce. It was my mother moving her boyfriend in with us, then marrying him and having another daughter. I loved my little sister, but I wish with all my heart my mother had never started another family, especially while I was starting my teens and forced to live in the house with a new child who was now the complete focus of both of the "parents" in the household. It completely changed my mother's relationship with her existing children as she suddenly and drastically shifted her focus away from us right as we were becoming adults. My mother would say that she still did what she had to for us, and she would say that it was great for us having a father figure and more financially stable household, because that's what she wanted to be true.

It absolutely was not good in any way for me or my full siblings. I have never and would never say this to my mother or, of course, my half sibling, because what would be the point? She was self-absorbed enough to conflate her happiness with that of the "family" and each of the children she had already brought into the world. She would be too self-absorbed to take in this information which would be at odds with the narrative she created about her actions. And her self-absorption meant her children all learned that it was easier to protect her feelings than speak up for our own. That continues until this day.

So, she would and does say that our blended family worked, and it absolutely, positively did not, and she will never know that. Possibly some others who are sure the arrangement that benefited them was also great for their children are in the same position, being protected by children who know their mother is too selfish to hear the truth about their experiences.

Couldn't agree more.

I can’t believe the negativity spouted here!!

Blended families can be absolutely beautiful, and when they are, they are far far better than any family living in a toxic household with both biological parents.

i do think there is something in the kids meeting eachother when young though. I think is far easier to integrate then, rather than introducing older children.

I remarried and we first introduced the kids when they were 1,5 and 7 and I can honestly say everyone is very happy and loves eachother very much. Of course there are moments, as in all families, but I can say without doubt, for us it works and the kids lives are far better than they would have been like should I have stayed with their father or been on my own.

I think it's impossible to form a full judgement. You can't re-run three versions of a childhood for the same person - one in which they stayed in their nuclear family, one where they grew up with a single parent and one where they were in a blended family.

It's so easy to scapegoat the notion of the blended family. We don't know if the alternatives would have been any better... or worse.

I know people who call their step parents 'mum' or 'dad' and have a better relationship with one of them than with the bio parent. I also know people who hated being in a blended family. I find it difficult to draw a conclusion that blended families are a 'bad thing'. It surely depends on the blended family and the individuals involved.

What does having children of your own change, in terms of looking back? Genuine question.

The biggest threat to any child is an unrelated adult living in their home. I saw a statistic the other day from maybe Jordan Peterson (or someone similar) saying that the risk of child abuse goes up a 100 fold when an unrelated adult moves into the home.

I've seen more failures than successes. It depends onthe parents mostly. Do they move the new family in because they the parents want to live together, or did the children come to love the stepfamily in the years before moving in together?

You can have a relationship without moving in together. Plenty of couples live apart until the children have become adults.

Absolutely pisses me off that children from blended families are largely ignored! Op is defensive and determined that she's doing the right thing.

I know someone who moved her new boyfriend in and that decision drove her daughter out of her childhood home and to move in with her dad. I couldn't blame her. Imagine being a teenage girl, going through so much stuff and then you are forced to live with a man you are not related to.

I've now known enough families of all descriptions to understand that, really, the only people to judge whether a family is genuinely happy are the people within it - and even then, perspectives will vary. I don't think I could confidently make a judgement that almost any of the families I know, whether nuclear or blended, are truly happy. Whether or not they are functional, perhaps, but not whether they are happy. Interesting that so many pp seem confident in assessing this.

This is the best post on the thread so far.

My dad would say we were a successful blended family. As a child I would have agreed with anything if it had made life easier. As a now 40 something woman I've felt able to challenge and push back against my toxic step mother. She's been in my life for 30+ years and controlled access to my dad, who has hugely enabled the situation. Its been far from healthy or positive.

Despite being a step mum myself and having a step mum and a step dad, I'd say in my own experience only a very tiny proportion of blended families are actually healthy psychologically for all members. Most are deluding themselves. When the children are grown and independent of the situation they will be able to find their voice to challenge the IG fantasy family picture their parents have created.

One thing that makes me want to bang my head against the wall:

When a woman post on MN that her child has asked her not to move her new partner in, the answer is always "Tell them you don't care, he's moving in and that's that, you can't let a child run your life."

Then you get posters who insist that their children are completely happy to have a stepfather and dismiss anyone who warns them that those children may say otherwise when they grow up.

How the hell do people not make the connection? Children aren't telling their mothers how unhappy they are because their mothers have already outright told them they don't care! They've said point-blank that having a boyfriend/husband is more important to them to their own children's feelings, well-being, and even safety.

Because they don't work. It's like putting a square peg in a round hole. Someone will always feel unsatisfied, left out, irritated, etc. There are exceptions, obv, but that's all they are. IMO.

I'm a single mother, divorced when daughter was 3, she's 12 now. I haven't lived with another man since the divorce and not planning to. At least until she grows up and moves out. Neither she, nor me need the aggro and drama.

I do gave a partner, but we don't live together and don't encroach on each others' space. Home is for relaxation, it's a safe space where you can rest, recharge, be yourself, slob around, let go. I fully understand my DD not wanting some dude who is not her family member in her home, I wouldn't either if I'd be her.

I couldn't never love someone's children as my own, and the idlyl would wear extremely thin extremely quickly, should they be 'difficult'. And I'd always side with my own child over my partner/his child(ren). And frankly, I really couldn't be arsed playing families with children who are not mine. So all that said, I cannot expect a man think otherwise, therefore no 'blended families' for us.