To think MN is horrible about blended families?

[kungfullama]

I've seen so many posts recently that just leads to think MN sees blended families as second class somehow.

Threads where ex wives are behaving horribly and withholding contact but are being defended because 'they were left' so somehow have the right to pass their bitterness onto their kids.

Posters screaming LTB at the slightest bit of conflict between dc and stepparents as if conflict doesn't ever occur in traditional families too.

Insinuating that new partners are just flash in the pan 'boyfriends' even when the relationship is long term or they're married.

Blended families can be complicated and the dynamics might be slightly different. But I know for a fact my dc lives are so much better with their bio parents apart and made considerably richer with the involvement of their two loving stepparents. I don't see us as being lesser than a traditional family. Not sure why others do.

My mum would have said that my life was better with the addition of a step parent and step siblings too, but she was wrong.

Blended families are very rarely in the best interests of children, they can cause a lot of difficulty and heartache and they often exist because parents put their need for a live in relationship ahead of their children’s needs.

I know some blended families are genuinely happy and successful but it is rare. Usually the parents project the idea that everyone is happy because it suits them to believe that, but in reality the children would rather just live with their biological family.

I think each person is talking with their own situations and experiences behind their opinions. Normally it's a case of women being left with the grunt work of being expected to do the running around after all the kids, which obviously causes extreme resentment.

I know a few blended families and the mums always say how happy they are and how well the kids get on, but I hear very different stories from the kids via my son.

Blended families are almost always horrible for children which the parents wilfully ignore for the sake of their convenience.

Ask your children what they really thought when they are in their 20’s. It might not be such a rosy picture for them.

I agree. I think it's rare for a blended family to be in the interest of the children involved.

I know quite a few people who talking glowingly about their step parents /step siblings as adults. And in some cases see a step parent as more their parent than a biological parent.

Like you say op, "birth" families can be grim. It's not a binary.

I've certainly heard the theory that one reason divorce has been low for years, compared its peak in 1993, is that it's the children of those divorces choosing not to do that with their own families.

There are just too many examples of children who’ve been forced to put up with a new man moving into their home and having to get on with his children “because we’re all a family now”; or being sidelined by their step-parent once a new half sibling is born who said step-parent naturally loves and looks out for far more than their step-children.

The parents will pretty much always say that everyone loves each other when the reality is the children don’t have much option but to put up and shut up.

Bloody hate the term "blended families" you're just a family!

Most of the blended families written about on here are absolute shit shows, it's not hard to work out why people don't like the idea.

As a child and adult, my parents (divorced) relationships have done nothing to make my life better- although I love my siblings from parents second marriage. But also all that’s meant is less support as a child and adult for me in various ways- especially now I’m a parent including their involvement as a grandparent, time, financially. The parent who is single and didn’t have extra siblings is much more involved with me and shared parents siblings as they can be. As a child it caused nothing but heartache 🤷‍♀️

And the replies here prove my point 100%.

Please tell me how blended families aren't in the best interests of children? When they are successful and happy and everyone gets along. Is that not a better scenario than having two bio parents together who can't stand each other? But actually co parent well?

I don't need to ask my children how they feel in their 20s. I see them everyday and I see what their stepparents do for them to ensure they are happy and loved.

Do you really believe that once a relationship breaks down both parents should stay single forever? If that were the case my kids would have missed out on a hell of a lot.

If everything was tickety boo in the blended family set-up, they wouldn’t probably be posting on mn.

Agree OP

I hate the phrase blended family anyway

People have remarried and had step parents for hundreds of years. These days its about divorce and separation, in the old days it was through death, either way lots of children throughout history have had step parents

Yes divorce puts a different spin on it due to possibility of acrimony and the logistics of having all your parents around still (possibly) but not every single thing in a family has to be done with the child at the forefront.

Adults have relationships and sometimes life moves on, protect the children as best you can from any falling out but in essence a new family/step family can work positively.

Just like a birth family can work negatively.

I feel a little conflicted about this being a single parent. I’d be very cautious about blending families and may never do it. It does seem to create some specific issues at least sometimes.

But the alternative for single parents is living alone with your children potentially for 18+ years which comes with many of its own challenges- one income, one person to do all the work of running a household, often the parent is going to be quite stressed or at least have limited time because they are doing the work of two people alone, not modelling any kind of romantic relationship for your children and martyring yourself to them to an extent. I think it risks creating this dynamic where the parent doesn’t have a life outside their children and ends up alone and therefore more dependent on children later in life.

I’m not sure that’s the ideal either. There may be in-between options like having a relationship but not living together but easy to see why not everyone finds that appealing.

Please tell me how blended families aren't in the best interests of children? When they are successful and happy and everyone gets along.

Because they nearly always AREN'T happy. They just say they are because they know that's what their actual parent wants to hear.

Is that not a better scenario than having two bio parents together who can't stand each other? But actually co parent well?

No, it's just as bad as living with two parents in an unhealthy relationship.

I don't need to ask my children how they feel in their 20s. I see them everyday and I see what their stepparents do for them to ensure they are happy and loved.

So strange that nearly all children who grew up in "blended" families (Frankenstein families would be more accurate - several individuals hastily stitched together by someone only thinking of themselves) say that it was miserable, but their parents would say they were happy.

Do you really believe that once a relationship breaks down both parents should stay single forever? If that were the case my kids would have missed out on a hell of a lot.

No, date as many people as you like. Just don't force your children to live with them.

I can only speak of my own experiences and those of my close family and friends. I have never yet seen a blended family that has really made the children happy.

100% this.

It very very rarely benefits a kid to be made to get involved with their parents dating life. I speak as someone who had my mother's various boyfriends and current husband inflicted on my home when I was young.

My ex husband moved his girlfriend into his new home the week we separated. I've been with my partner 8 years and we still don't live together, primarily as I wanted my (then) primary age children to have some stability.

I grew up in a blended family, mum, stepdad, step sister and half brother, no involvement from bio dad since I was very young (mums choice)

My step dad is my dad, I wouldn't have it any other way. Yes we clashed at times as I was growing up, but just normal parent/teen stuff. He absolutely saw me as his own and treated me as such, and that went both ways. We had a perfectly normal, happy family life and upbringing

According to adults you mean

I think some blended families do work, and it's all about attitude and pace. Imo it will never work if the "blending" happens within about 3.4 seconds of the relationship being introduced to the kids.

But, and I may get flamed for this... I feel that the parents in some blended families are perhaps expecting their kids to be able to behave better, tolerate more, compromise more than they are able/willing to. What I mean by that is if you've got two parents who can't stand each other but coparent well, it means they can get along when they're not forced to live together, but living under the same roof is too much. So it's specifically having to live together that causes friction/touch points.

It could be said that blending a family is shifting that problem onto the kids. The kids of two families are often expected to go from vaguely enjoying some other family's company when they all go to the zoo together to having to live with them, and if they complain, they're often just told to suck it up (in nicer words, I guess, but it's basically just that).

Obviously there are bad ways and good ways to do everything, and blended families are just the same: with time, compromise, effort and care they can work. But the opposite does happen unfortunately.

If your blended family is great for everyone then that's lovely. Fabulous. Not sure why you would get upset that other peoples experience of other blended families are shit. They're not talking about you. If you take something not about you personally, then it suggests that it's struck a nerve.

Many of the stories of blended families on MN start with 'DP' moving in, and you just know that it won't end well and little thought is given to the children.

DPs seem to move in alarmingly quickly, with or without his own children, and the OPs children just have to get on with it. No one is saying that single mothers have to stay alone forever but I do despair when I read about some of the family scenarios on here, particularly the ones where a new baby arrives before the current children have had time to adjust.