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.

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.

From what I've seen, the rare cases that work are usually ones where the other biological parent isn't involved, the step parent was established when the child was young so they grew up with them, and, most crucially, the step-parent doesn't have any other children. It's a rare set of circumstances.

But that is just as true for the biological of first families. There are absolutely horrific stories here every day about lazy/:indifferent/abusive fathers (or mothers). Some people end up with terrible partners who are also lousy parents.

@SereneFish , that’s exactly the situation in my family , my ex dropped all contact with dd when she was 5 . My dp had no children when I met him . We had two more together, the younger two don’t even know that he isn’t dd,1 ,s bio dad .

Please tell me how blended families aren't in the best interests of children?

Because essentially it's the parent who wants a relationship.

That's not to say blended families never work.

But it's always the adult's need for a relationship be it sexual or otherwise, that means they become a blended family in the fist place.

Blended families aren't second class and can work really successfully. But with the addition of more and more people into a family (like a couple splitting and each remarrying and everyone bringing kids into the new relationships) it's creates a great spread and potential complications into everyone's relationship dynamics. I think they are just more difficult to manage but it can be done.

As a child of a 'blended family' back in the 90's.... I agree completely.

Let's be honest, my DM didn't meet her partner and move him and (EOW) his kids in with us because she thought it'd be a great and exciting thing for me. She did it because she wanted a relationship. I can appreciate that, as adults often want to have a partner to share their life with.... but it added nothing to my life whatsoever. I (and my sister from the same parents) would always openly say I preferred my life with my bio-parents split, but before my step parents came along dragging their annoying kids with them and their chaos into our lives.

That probably sounds harsh. But is true for me. I'd have preferred parents to wait until I was at uni or something before they moved their partners in. I had no objection to seeing partner now and again, but living with them plus their kids was another matter. To the outside, we probably looked like a lovely blended family all playing happily together...

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

I don't think anyone is talking about the latter, or about your family. They're responding to threads where things aren't successful and happy or else the posters wouldn't be on here. Even you talk about bitter ex-wives and how they shouldn't pass that onto the kids, so you're as judgemental as the next. You see yourself as having succeeded and as if that's 'as good' as being a traditional family. Did you never read your Tolstoy?

"All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way"

Some happy families will be trad, some blended, some other forms, but they're not posting on here because they're happy and getting along with each other. There's plenty of trad family problems posted about on here too, but when it's blended, the risks and issues are more known and clearer and sometimes the answer is that it's not gonna work out and that the kids are the ones to suffer. If you don't believe that, then you're way too far gone in your happy bubble.

In my limited observations of blended families only one worked and in that case both parents had lost a spouse to cancer so the children were all together all the time with no comings and goings from the other parental home. My very old fashioned view is once you have kids you need to prioritise them until they’re adults.

Frankenstein families?! What a horrible way to talk about families!

I grew up in a blended family and wouldn’t change it for the world. I adore my step father, he is a far better dad than my own, and I am thankful my mum found a wonderful man to share her life with after picking a bit of a dud the first time round.

I am now in a blended family and genuinely believe our children are very happy. Our children cheered when we told them we were getting married and proceeded to proudly tell everyone. They adore their step parents and each other. One of my son’s nursery journal entries when he was 3 (he’s 7 now) was his key worker talking about how proudly he spoke of his bonus daddy and sister.

Of course there are blended families where this isn’t the case. Equally there are non-blended families where kids are miserable and not put first.

The only blended family I have ever seen be positive for the children was a widowed woman with 3 kids marrying a childless man. No step siblings, no exes, no split homes and he was a good dad to those kids.

If you think it's tickety-boo to do this, go ahead, fill your boots. Lots of us are wary with good reason.

NB who is 'screaming' LTB, hyperbole much.

I grew up in a blended family and I'm not scarred from it. In my experience it was much better our parents being apart because we didn't have to live in a war zone. I don't understand why everyone thinks kids from blended families will need a lifetime of therapy, my therapy came as a result of my parents toxic marriage.

What absolute drivel. People in 1993 weren't divorcing for the sake of it, because it was such a laugh. If a marriage needs to end it needs to end, staying in it so as to not 'do that with their own families' is absurd and harmful.

I grew up with half brothers (but not step, which might matter) back in the 90s. We all love each other dearly, get on well, and are a close, happy family. Our mum died many years ago and we did briefly worry what would happen, would we fall apart, but in retrospect this was ridiculous. My brothers love their 'step' dad and their relationship with him is the primary parental relationship in their lives. In a way, I think this might be what bio parents fear more.

My blended family is great. We are all very happy. I know it's not the same for everyone, just like not everyone has a happy home life in a birth family.

I posted not because anything has struck a nerve but because I find it sad to see so many threads where blended families are treated and spoken about with distain and there's an implication that the children involved are all secretly unhappy and troubled. You see it in the advice given to posters - as soon as it comes out that it's a blended family it's as if it's a throwaway thing. Not a real family so just split it up.

Incidentally I had a stepfather who was much more of a dad to me than my biological father ever was. I loved him dearly until he passed away a few years ago and I miss him everyday.

And fwiw, my parents split when I was in primary school and I lived with my mum and her new partner for a while and absolutely hated sharing a house with a strange man. No doubt he was nice enough but I found it creepy and unsettling, and was much happier when my mum and dad worked it out and got back together (for the rest of their lives as it turned out).

I don't think it's a mumsnet thing, more that many people feel the same.
While it may be more enjoyable for the parents, it's not usually better for their children. Parents splitting up is one thing - they don't have to remarry.

I know 2 successful blended families where the man was widowed, and in one family dad isn’t involved anymore as well. I think that makes it easier.

Ive definitely seen a few where the mums need to have a relationship has overiden the needs of the children. They then try to gaslight their children that this is a good choice for them.

Mine too. I love both my blended families that came from my parents' divorce - genuinely see my Sdad and Smum as additional parents. Looking back, it was a horrible situation to live in when my actual parents were together.

People will just as likely be shit people whether they're the original parents or not. You want to blame blended families but you're looking at the wrong reason.

I do wonder how many posters are children of blended families vs parents who hate the idea of someone else being close to their child/ex.

I can only speak to my own experience but my stepmum is my primary mother figure and my life is much better for having her and my younger siblings in it. We had our difficulties when I was in my teens but no different to what children go through with their bio parents - that's part of growing up and being a family.

That’s not really blended though. There might be some you’re-not-my-real-dad moments, but there are none of the competing priorities that tend to cause problems in trying to stick two bits of different families together.

I wouldn't actually consider that a blended family. Blended family to me always means kids on both sides.

Both me and my DH will tell you that our experience of families are not happy ones.

My step mother was cruel and my Father did nothing about it. My lovely Mum had died too so it wasn’t as if I could even escape to another home.

My DH’s didn’t experience cruelty at the hands of his step parents, but he said living with his step father was uncomfortable most of the time.

@Othersidetoyou that's exactly how I feel. I got a bonus sister from it too and don't think of her as a step sister, to us she's just a sister and treated exactly the same as my other sister.

Ultimately, people posting on here about the trouble they're having with blended families are doing that precisely because they're having trouble. So the stories you see on here are wildly skewed to the negative.

People don't come on MN to write a post about how lovely their lives are as a blended family and how happy they are/were in it. Maybe more people should, might help to desensationalise people's perspective.