Blended families are families that are made up of bio kids, step parents, and half siblings and more blended families can be found now in the U.S. than ever before.
However, with fairytales that depict “evil stepmothers,” sometimes blended families can get a bad rep. How often do you see TV shows or movies that only depict the sometimes difficult transitional moments of a blended family? Quite often.
The Next Family receives stories and photos of happy blended families every day whether they be blended LGBT or straight families. So we want to share six awesome things about blended families so as to take away the negative stigma around divorce, step kids, and step parents.
- More parents means more help!
Blended families are the result of marriage or remarriage, thereby adding another parent (a stepparent) into the family. For single mothers or fathers who remarry, they are thereby bringing a partner into their life, a partner that will effectively, over time, help raise their child. Some kids even get two step parents if both of their parents remarry.
Why is it awesome that there are more parents in the mix? For many reasons! First, it means that the bio parent is now gaining more help when it comes to family duties such as housekeeping and chores, but they are also gaining help with raising their child or children.
And what’s that saying, “It takes a village to raise a child?” Well, with blended families, there’s a lot more people involved and more help on every front of family life.
- Different perspectives
When blended families combine, it’s effectively a situation in which people from different backgrounds come together. With that, you’re bringing new, different, and sometimes better perspectives into a family.
For example, if a bio dad is having a difficult time connecting with his daughter, he can now turn to his partner for a new perspective on how to handle the situation. For a child, who is unable to speak to their own parent or sibling about an issue, in a blended family, they may be able to turn to a step grandparent, or a step sibling for help or advice.
- There’s more people who have your back.
Support is a wonderful aspect that everybody needs. With blended families, there is often more people who can and will support you whether it be with attending your school play, soccer game, dance recital, work event, coming out to your parents, choosing a college, or standing up to bullies in school. Chances are, in blended families, there’s an extra person to “have your back” that you might not normally have had otherwise.
4. New traditions
Families create traditions. However, when two families come together as one, these traditions are either combined or are both done! This is an opportunity for family members to learn about each other, understand another’s history or past, and offers a chance to create new traditions together that will be forever memorable and close to the heart.
- Bigger families are actually happier.
Did you know that a study recently found that bigger families are actually happier? It’s true! What makes this awesome is that blended families tend to fall under the category of “bigger families” because they often involve remarriage between two people that have children from previous marriages, thus creating one large family.
So though blended families may be the result of a previous divorce or they may have a negative stepparent or stepsibling stigma association, there are some wonderful aspects about blended families that are totally worth being proud of.
