What’s So Special About Blended Families?

Recently, I was able to read the article, “A Happy Blended Home”, from the April 2012 issue of Smart Parenting magazine. The article gave tips on how to handle situations unique to blended families so that they can merge well together. I was so happy to find that article in the magazine because I hardly find any being written on blended families. Of course, I am very interested in them because we have a blended family and have been going through ups and downs for the past three years. I’m glad to find that we have already been incorporating the tips stated in the article in our daily lives.

I also came across another article online entitled “5 Tips on Stabilizing Your Kids’ Lives After Your Marriage Ends”, from the Female Network website. Although my ex (Zoe and Ziya’s dad) and I separated years ago, I was still interested in reading it because I know that it takes years for everyone involved, especially the kids, to really move on from what happened. Similarly, I was also pleased to note that the tips in the article are already things we do with our kids. It makes me feel good to know that we are not alone and that there are other blended families going through this as well. 

For the past three years that we’ve been a blended family, I find that most people are intrigued when they find out about our situation. Most of them are really curious to the point that they ask a lot of personal questions about  how we make it work. They’re also really surprised to find out that I’m friends with my ex and that we still co-parent the kids. Sometimes it puts a lot of pressure on us to make things work because all eyes are on us, waiting to see if we can actually be successful.  But really, what’s so special about blended families anyway? Why write these articles at all?

Truthfully, I don’t really find anything super special about us. For the most part, we are just your typical family. There’s a dad, a mom and three kids. It just so happened that we didn’t all get together the traditional way. Like regular families, we operate mostly the same way as well. The kids (at least the older two) go to school, the baby and the mommy stay home (at least for now) and the dad goes to work. We spend family time on weekends. We watch TV together, eat meals together, play together. Somehow, some people are in awe of that. To a certain degree, I do understand the fascination. However, I would be the first to admit that we are not perfect. We don’t think of ourselves as a “model” blended family.

The reason why I named this blog Roller Coaster Ride is because, like any other family, we also experience our own set of ups and downs. We have happy and sad moments. We have accomplishments and struggles. So does everybody else. Just because we came together differently doesn’t make us “special” or “weird”. We don’t want anybody looking at us or treating us differently. True, sometimes we find ourselves in certain situations that “regular” families most likely do not experience but to us, those situations are part of our reality. It’s our everyday life. 

The past three years haven’t been a breeze. As a family, we still have a lot to learn and a lot to get past. I guess, if there’s anything special at all about us, it’s the fact that we accepted and loved each other despite our past. It’s the fact that we, as a family, continue to push and move forward despite difficulties. It’s the fact that we made a choice to be together and are choosing to stay together. What’s special about us are the people who form part of our family. Don’t you feel the same about your family too?