Watching our blended family children hang out and laugh is just gorgeous!

[Chelsea26]

Just sitting at our garden table with DP watching my children and his children sit inside on the couch together having a chat and a laugh together after cleaning away after dinner.

This is after my eldest son and his daughter have already spent a couple of hours chatting in the garden earlier this afternoon and my youngest son and his son wandered down to the shops together today.

Feeling very lucky and happy that they all get on and like each other and thought I’d post as often on here you hear the bad side of ‘blended families’ and ours seems, for the most part, to work.

The kids are
DSD 17
DSS 15
DS1 15
DS2 13

I mean God help us next year when we have A-levels + GCSE’s x 2 but for now I’m enjoying watching them hang out and be friends!

@Chelsea26this is lovely. There’s no reason why children from families with similar values shouldn’t get on and we should hear more about it .

I was a child of a blended family. I absolutely adore my step parents, im now in my 30s and go on holidays just with my step mum and step sister. They are my favourite people in the world, have always felt the same even as a child.
Im now in a blended family and my step daughter is 7 and regularly tells me how happy she is that we live together, and also requests one on one time with me.

Just wanted to say that my eldest son and his daughter confused me as well.

My dad and his step brother have just spent the day together in London and went on holiday last year. They are 79 and 83. Its worked out well for the 72 years they have been stepbrothers.

And last month they stated at the 86 year old sister's house and went to the theatre!

Oh very well done OP. Lovely to hear this!

Lovely thread Op - sounds great!

My son and his daughter, the OPs son and the OPs boyfriends daughter, not the OPs sons daughter. My son and his son went to the shop, the OPs son and the OPs boyfriends son, not the OPs son with his own son.
I obviously know you knew this and didn’t actually need it explaining………..

I was thinking the same, of course a 15 year old boy will enjoy talking to a 17 year old girl 🤣

That's great

Fabulous

I think the issues arise when there are shared children in the mix. In a scenario like the OP's where she has children, her partner has children, but they have no children together, you can see how that would work. It's when there is a huge entangled web of half brothers/sisters and step brothers/siblings that it all gets complex and unharmonious.

That’s lovely OP.

Love this!

Man, wish people would rtft

That's my immediate thought!😁

Sounds lovely OP and long may it continue. It’s easy to fall into the trap of thinking step families are a guaranteed nightmare because that’s almost all we ever hear on Mumsnet - but then only the people with problems are going to post, so it’s always skewed. And then there’s always the people like someone upthread who like to pipe up to tell everyone that no matter the reality of your own actual experience, they know that the kids actually hate it 🙄

Of course, many blended setups don't work out well for the children and that's unfortunate. I think we'd all agree on that score. A lot of adults don't think long or hard enough before taking the step of blending families.

But some blended familes genuinely do work out, and personally I think it's nice to hear about one that sounds like it's going well for all concerned.