To think blended families don't work?

[4China]

I actually would quite like to be proved wrong here and hear lots of happy stories about it all coming together well.

I suspect it's more likely to work when the kids are very young and grow up with another person in a parent role, rather than if families are blended in later life.

My own experience of a blended family is negative and has led me to think that children hardly ever like their step-parents and step-parents don't really love stepchildren like their own (which I think is understandable) although they may care for them and do their very best by them, and that the dynamics of two families living together - some perhaps part time (like I was) - just don't work and lead to all kinds of tensions and resentments. Biological parents have to juggle spending time with their own children and forming a relationship with stepchildren. People co-parent side-by-side despite families having different parenting styles and some children being raised differently for half or a percentage of the time by another party.

Not sure if I can think of a better way to do it though because lots of people split up and lots of people fall in love with new people that they want to be with and that's understandable. I guess maybe people need to stop trying to pretend it's a thing and just parent their children separately. In my case I think half the problem was the parents having this 'rose-tinted' view of what our new family would look like and finding it hard to accept that the kids didn't like each other or their step parents!

I'm not sure if the question here is wrong. Bringing up DC is tough, even when you just give them one set of rules / boundaries, how hard must it be for the DC who are living with two sets of rules / boundaries?

The problem is (IMO) DC need to be confident in their boundaries and clear on the rules. So maybe the question is wrong. Is it step-parents / blended families that are hard, or is it living day-to-day with two different sets of rules that makes life tough?

I absolutely don't mean to imply that anyone should stay in a relationship which isn't working for them - I can't imagine what it must be like living in an unhappy household. But I wonder whether the difficulties which arise aren't necessarily caused by step-parents / step-siblings, but by the circumstances.

From a personal perspective, it worked for me because I had one home, with one set of rules. The others were people I visited once each week (though I've built a very strong bond with my half-sister). I felt confident and secure in my home. I knew the rules, and I learned the consequences if I broke them. So it was easy. But that was back in the days before shared residency. I know I probably am being unreasonable, but I do worry about DC having to constantly adapt from one set of 'house rules' to another.

As for the 'DC must come first' idea - fine. As long as you're clear on the difference between wants and needs. DC wants do not come before adult needs.

I disagree with that.

If the child 'wants' an expensive toy of item of clothing, then that is a want that clearly does not usurp an adult need for food, for example!

That can become a little more complex, though, if a situation arose where you had been offered a new job with far more money but it involved moving and changing children's schools. Then, it would be a weighed up decision - most of us wouldn't move a child halfway through year 11 - how much more money, what are the new schools like - and so on. A child needs stability but they also need material things and that decision must be made taking both those factors into account. It isn't enough (IMO) to state 'well they might want me to stay single, but tough,'

There is a thread about lodgers right now where most people agree that having two strangers hanging round your kitchen is a bad thing. Yet don't people stop to consider that's how your child might feel if you have your boyfriend around, especially if his children are there too?

Unlikely it's great you've made a decision that you're happy with not to have relationships until your DC are older. Fantastic. That doesn't mean it's the only way. Life is not so black and white. In some circumstances moving a new person into the house may be wrong. In other circumstances it may definitely enhance the child's life. There is no 'one size fits all' solution.

But unlikely you are assuming that the prescense of a step parent automatically means a child doesn't feel safe/loved/wanted. Several people on this thread (myself included) have had positive experiences with step parents that involved feeling safe/loved/wanted, from childhood to adulthood. It just isn't the case that blended families automatically screw with children. Clearly not given examples to the contrary! Again I will repeat earlier posts of mine - it depends on the people involved and the specifics of the situation.

I appreciate that. But all too often, I think parents believe a stepparent enhances a child's life because they desperately want to believe it when the reality is different. Sometimes, not always :)

unlikely, do you not think that it is a good thing that DC see their parents as human being who have needs too? That it is a good thing for DC to recognise that the whole world doesn't revolve around them? Much like parents in nuclear families who still make time to go our to dinner etc without DC.

The separation between needs and wants is tough to figure out. I'd argue that everyone needs happiness in their lives. And I think it is better for DC if their parents are happy rather than unhappy.

The balance between DC needs / wants and parent needs / wants is tough for every family. Which is why I think the real reason it is hard in blended families is that it is hard for DC having two sets of expectations.

I was a single parent for 4 years. I thought about staying single even after I met dh, I wanted to do it on my own. I took advice from my very good friend who's dad wasn't around and his mum had stayed single. He told me if I loved dh to go for it, boys need men and I 100%believe my dh is a massive advantage in my ds life. He treats him exactly like his own, and my ds gets to grow up in a a happy secure loving home and see what a healthy relationship looks like too. My ds was at the very top of my priorities when I decided to move in with dh and marry him.

Yes, of course, but I certainly don't think that my 'needs' come at the expense of her happiness, comfort or safety. If that sounds like an exaggeration, read back through the thread.

She comes first, simple. And since there are only two of us, since she comes first, I naturally come last, except she is like an extension of myself so I don't.

I refute that the only way to find happiness is by moving a man in! I am very happy and single. My life is free from complications, stress and disagreement. I have many friends and our relationships are warm.

I was happy single too. I was doing very well. Then I met dh and fell in love and k ew he would be a great addition to my ds life as well as mine. If I didn't think it would be positive for ds I wouldn't have gone ahead.

I'm sure you wouldn't, but I do think as someone succinctly put it on the first page, parents and children can have vastly different ideas about whether something was positive or not.

Well you can only go down one road at a time so we won't know if not marrying would have been more positive. Your dd might say like others have she would have thought it positive for you to have a relationship.

Unlikely moving a man in is certainly not the only way to find happiness, noone is saying that! But it's perfectly normal to want a relationship. It's tough being a single parent and having noone to share the burden with. And children thrive when they live in a happy household.

As I mentioned before, my mum never had another relationship after she divorced my dad. Much as I loved her, as I got older I felt like I was the only thing in her life. She was very over-involved in my life. When I went away to uni she was desperately unhappy, and I felt so guilty.

And now I'm a single parent. Much as I adore my DC, and put them at the centre of everything I do, I would hate to think I'm going to spend the next 10-15 years with no meaningful romantic relationship.

unlikely, parents ideas of positive vs DC ideas of positive can vary vastly in nuclear families too!

When you say her happiness came first do you mean literally, or did you decide when her happiness was reasonable vs unreasonable and teach her the difference? ie if it made her happy to snatch a toy from someone else you'd have (obv) taught her that was wrong because the other person's happiness counts too.

FWIW I don't think that being in a relationship is the only route to happiness, and many people (including myself) are happier alone. I just think there needs to be some assessment of whether the DC happiness, at the expense of the parent's happiness, is reasonable. Teaching DC 'your happiness is the only thing that matters' seems like a risky president to set.

There have been quit a few comments along the lines of "well that happens in non-blended families too !"

True.

But it is not as "tit for tat, so it's all even Stevens really", when you look at the picture in terms of comparing groupings. The findings seem to be....

a tendency towards better outcomes for
Children from traditional family set up, both parents living with their own kids.
Children from intentional from onset single parents (eg via sperm donation)
Bereaved children (who lost a parent)

a tendency towards poorer outcomes for
Children from non-intentional single families.
Step children from blended families.
Subsequent children (living with both bio parents) from blended families.

I think there has been a lot of refinement in terms of identifying sub-groups within sub-groups over the last decade and a half. It is also encouraging that there is a move towards following results in later adulthood and also tracking subjective measures such as feelings and perceptions rather than just objective measures like educational attainment, earnings and records of delinquency. In time I think that will build an even more nuanced picture of what specific contexts tend to mean in terms of children's outcomes.

And if that does come into being I wouldn't put money on the current emphasis on parental happiness being a path to child happiness going unchallenged.

It is possible that in the future there will be a significant shift in:

-how we define making a priority of children

-how and in which contexts we validate and support childhood trauma, sense of loss, fear, anger and pain.

-the timeframes we expect children to "bounce back" in, and the extent to which we expect them to "bounce back".

-the extent and the frequency we expect children to adjust and accommodate adult needs/wants based on assumptions of an innate "resilience" and "adaptability".

Possibly the very first sign that there has been a shift in perspective will be when a decidely less toothless, societal response meets the arse of parents who create family/children and then go on to consider it /them as "optional".

Atomik that looks very interesting, do you have a link to a source?

Yes, I'd like to see sources.

And I think it would be helpful if we all acknowledged that while loving parents - living together or not - are a key part of emotional well-being, that there are also big, big issues that also shape whether are children have a happy future or not. Well-funded schools, decent health care, an equal society which doesn't practise discrimination, enough housing, safe spaces to play, the sense that as they grow up there will be jobs for them to go to. Working conditions that mean parents can be part of their children growing up. Living wages. A community.

And while one case hardly disproves an argument - my daughter is one of those 'subsequent children (living with both bio parents) from blended families' who is supposed to be having some kind of 'poorer outcome.'

She's doing very nicely at one of the most competitive universities in the UK, enjoying her course, making friends - looking forward to coming home at Christmas et etc.

I'm worried about the world she's growing up into. But I'm not that worried about her - if that makes sense.

The worst part for many of us finding ourselves in a 'non intentional single parent' setting is the plunge in financial circumstances that comes with it. My ExH just left. That was it - gone. To pursue his own happiness with OW. Fuck me, fuck the children.

Atomic is right about the odd societal response to this. My children's father suffered no adverse consequences for his decision to walk away and behave in the most cold and calculating way over money, behaviour, and seeing the children.

Conversely, I had to deal with the children's needs on my own, including that whole massive new need of feeling abandoned and being forced to be nice to and share with OW's DD every other weekend. They were 3 and 5.

Funnily enough, the one who came in for the most societal venom was me, the single mother.

I agree with New York in her statement that: I just think there is a lot of naivety, wishful thinking and, sometimes, downright selfishness from people embarking on step families - and the lasting damage to children when it goes wrong is awful

I do think that a lot of the time it's what the parents want and so they kid themselves that it's great for the kids and I think that's what bothers me the most. The kids then have no voice and are stuck in a life that is damaging or unhappy for them, so that their parent can be happy. :(

I do wonder how much of adults decision are economical and situation driven. Person has affair there choice is move in with that person or have to find a room to rent / move back to parents. Children then never get the chance to build relationship on 1 to 1 and even worse if extra DC are thrown in. Their dad becomes an instant step dad before the child gets to come to terms with the family split. Many of the successful families here seem to be when there has been a period of transition or the child never had or had little memory of the two parent living together.

Re read post it seems gender bias, it is just that more often than not women remain in the family home, and equally I have known women move partner (usually affair) straight into the home after split.

Chopsticks

I wish there was a source. It would have made for a considerable time saving It's the result of 15+ years of reading anything that isn't behind a pay wall. Trawling through references to find out more about the stuff that is behind a pay wall. And then begging sister and BIL to help me in my quest to discover any obvious flaws in the methodology and statistics. Ferreting out the back story of authors to shine a light on any potential for cherry picking and bias. Chanting my mantra of "correlation is not causation" lest I forget it...in my excitement of finding something that appeals to my own bias.

That's not to say it would take 15 years to read a significant amount of sources in order to get a good idea of the general picture. Google and search strings like "outcomes for children of X families" throws up results that can then be waded through in days and weeks rather than a decade and a half. I just happen to be a slow reader when it comes to academic writing.

It's thrown up some interesting ideas as to what the "crux" of the matter may be, in terms of how children can be set at an advantage or disadvantage. Especially when you look at the groups that tend to be found to have better outcomes. Because the classic, traditional mantra of "two parents good, one parent bad, this is the factor that counts !" is not upheld.

It appears to be more a case of ... the factors that may be the ones that primarily count are:

1. avoiding causing trauma in children's lives

2. inconsistent societal/parental attitudes towards children's pain where trauma cannot be avoided.

Which is better news than "children of single/blended parents are DOOMED!" Because eventually we may be able to create a more level playing field for children of all kinds of families by utilising findings on a practical level, once we have distilled them to identify specific stratagies/attitudes that make the majority of the difference.

I'm not saying we'll necessarily get to a point where there won't be any notable difference at all in outcomes for children from various types of families. But we might be able to make a considerable push forward in terms of mitigating the impact of significant familial events on children's futures. Potentially that is an awful lot of lives and outcomes improved.

However (IMO) there are sticking points that could significantly slow down that from happening. If the answer is recalibration of the equation of parental wants/needs/happiness v children's wants/needs/happiness and a very significant change in the validation/support of children's pain then there will be groups with a fixed ideology that will leap all over the data, cherry pick the bits they like and turn the rest into a stick to beat people they disapprove of with.

Which which slow down any progress considerably. Because the thrust in the 70s to de-stigmatise came from a good place.* Naturally people will be resistant to moving towards what they might suspect is as a return to that kind of blanket social stigma.

* I remember my 7 year old friend sobbing over the double whammy of losing her dad AND becoming a pariah in the 70s. I've never quite healed the additional wound of emerging from the rubble of my exploded family in the early 80s to discover that the conservatives had labelled the family I did not chose for myself as the "root of all evil in society". That was hardly a solution to children's pain by any stretch of the imagination.

This is an area where there are many well resourced groups with very fixed, but wildly conflicting ideology. And they all seem happy enough to chuck real live children under the bus rather than let go of the their articles of faith. Becuase from their persepctive there is no bus chucking going on. The blinkers won't let them see the big fat wheels squishing small people. And the effect of that could well be that findings struggle to gain traction in real families, in real lives.

Now I have depressed myself.

As a teacher my anecdotal observation is that blended families don't work for very many children. 50:50 care seemed to cause particular problems if both parents had new partners and go on to have another child. One girl told me that she didn't belong anywhere. She spent half the week with her DM, SD and DB and then the other other half of the week with DF, SM and their DC. She felt she was joining two different family groups as an outsider, didn't truly belong to either and didn't have anywhere that was truly home . I have taught several children who have expressed similar feelings.

When I divorced my DC's father, I made the decision not to introduce a new partner into their lives - they are more or less grown up now and I will soon be on my own as they leave home but I feel that I made the right decision for our particular circumstances.

Yes, I took the same view Ready and am glad now. It's simpler for the children and anyway I'm not sure I'd want a man moving in now.I can't see the point.

I would like to see sources backing up the claim that children with a dead parent do better than kids from second families where the parents are still together. I find that very very hard to believe. Saying that ad someone who lost a parent at 8.
Have to agree with mariannne that's there's lots of factors that come in to play and too many variables to be able to say step children will be damaged and have worse outcomes because they are step children. There was a study not long ago that found the most reliable marker for educational attainment was how educated the mother is regardless of her relationship status.