Less Than Ideal

It's Friday night, which is a pretty lonely night for me these days. Our kids all go with their other parent on Friday nights, and my husband works until 11, so it's just me, writing about our mixed up life.

I haven't had a lot of time to read or write - and I have felt like I haven't had very many interesting things to say.

But I am active on a Facebook group of LDS women who elicit tidbits from me every now and then when I have a minute to check in on what they are chatting about. I love those ladies - they keep me grounded in my faith, they remind me of the important things in life, and they help me keep my covenants. They are women from all over the world, from all walks of life, with one thing in common - they are faithful covenant keepers.

We've had a lot of conversations lately, and one of them in particular has been about the attack on family in society today. The attack comes in several different ways, and I don't want to debate about feminism, women in the church, same sex marriage, or any other hot topic. I want to talk about blended families.

I am a staunch advocate of traditional marriage - one man, one woman, raising their children together. We can get all sorts of specific with the types of families that don't fit this mold, but I want to get specific with only one...

Lately I have been mulling over the idea of our blended family. My children have two "fathers" now - their biological father, and their step father. Both fathers are very real fathers to them, and fill very important roles for my children. Similarly, my step children have two "mothers" now - their biological mother, and me - both also very important and very real to them, fulfilling much needed roles in their lives.

So it got me to thinking... how is my children have two "moms" and two "dads" different from a child being raised in a same-sex relationship by two moms, or two dads? This is an earnest question, and deep down I know that a mom and a step dad raising kids together is different than a dad and a step dad raising kids together, but the question is still rattling around in my brain - far from being satisfactorily answered.

And honestly, I have more questions than answers. Which is not unusual for me.

I read this article today about another type of blended family popping up around the world - the family where the step dad is married to the biological dad, rather than the biological mom. It is one of the most heartbreaking things I have ever read.

The thing is, divorce is heartbreaking for me. Remarriage is heartbreaking for me. Sure there are fantastic things about my life now - but in the back of my mind there is always that nagging reminder that we are not in an "ideal" family situation.  Which is why I keep thinking about less-than-ideal family situations, and what differentiates them from one another.

What are your thoughts?

Blended Trials: Missing Kids

When I first got remarried and we blended the family I was pretty excited. I thought I was going to be the best mom to these kids, even my step kids, and we were going to have loads of fun together and our lives were going to be awesome and we were going to be one big happy family.

Then parent-time happened.

For those of you not familiar with parent time, that's what used to be called "visitation". Parent-time is how you divide up time with the kids.

Both Justin and I are the "custodial" parents. That means that the kids live with us for most of the year. Their other parents are the "non-custodial" parent, and the kids spend time with them at pre-arranged days and times. However, we are both pretty flexible with our kids' other parents and they get to see their other parents as much as the other parent is able.

The first time our kids went with other parents at different times it was killer for me. I wanted to have all six kids all the time, and if we weren't going to have some, I wanted them all to be with their other parent. Surprise, surprise, both of the other parents' schedules don't match up exactly, so sometimes we have one set of kids, sometimes we have the other set. That was really hard for me at first. I thought my family was being torn apart and we were always going to be broken.

News flash - we will always be "broken" in this life, because that is the condition of mortality. Brokenness. However, that doesn't mean bad. I just had to learn how to live with this new condition. Like an amputee learning to live without a leg.

Parent-time makes planning family activities tricky. We try not to plan big family things when we know only one set of kids will be there, because we don't want the other set of kids to feel left out. But sometimes life happens, and we take what we can get.

At the end of the school year we wanted to have a big Summer Kickoff party with all our friends and their kids. We planned several weeks in advance and made sure a lot of our friends could come.

Then the long awaited Saturday came... and we had one kid.

One, out of six! Long story, but it involved military schedules and sick kids.

It was a little tragic at first, but we got over it and had a blast with all our friends and their families. And Ryan got to be the "only child" for a day, which was probably pretty awesome for him. He was the youngest before the blended of the family, and now he is one of two middle kids. So one-on-one time with Ryan is scarce, and him having the opportunity to play with friends, sans siblings, is even more rare. I'm pretty sure he really enjoyed it.

What is best for me is not always best for the kids. This was hard for me to learn, because, as I said before, I want all the kids all the time. My ideal life would be one where I never have to share my children with anyone on the whole planet. I am really selfish with my kids. I adore each and every one of them (and "my kids" includes my step kids as well - I don't think of them as step kids, I think of them as "my kids", just like I think of my students at school as "my kids").

However, just because I want to monopolize my children's time does not mean that is what they want. Those kids are half of their other parent, and they want to spend time with their other parent as well. Of course, for the kids I know that their ideal is to have both biological parents with them all the time. And boy do I wish I could make that happen for them. After all, selfishness aside, I really do just want my kids to be happy.

So I have to think about the kids, and I do. I am trying to really be selfless and make sure I put their needs first above my own. It's a different kind of selflessness for me, and a way I am not accustomed to being selfless. When I want to have them so I can do something fun with them, or read with them, or play with them, or take them to a museum or a park or the pool, I have to remember that they might like to just be with their other parent, or do that fun thing with their other parent - and that is okay.

Lest you think our blended family is always awesome, here you can see. It is most definitely not. But we make it work because we don't really want to sulk all the time about how awful our situation is. We just make the best out of it and do the best we can.

Blended Trials: Feelings and Validation

Our 10 year old, Cory, is one of the most sensitive kids you will ever meet. He has the biggest heart, and thinks more about other people than he does about himself. He loves like you will never experience in your life if you don't know him. His wife is going to be one lucky lady.

When I share these stories about trials of blending a family it's so that you know that we are normal. We are not some fantastic, perfect family. Our blended family journey is just what it should be.

A few months ago, Cory was having a hard time. We had him seeing a therapist for a while (at his request), and then he decided he didn't want to see the therapist anymore. Cory told Justin, "I want you to be my therapist." We were actually thrilled about this, because we would rather have our kids talk to us than some stranger.

During one of his "sessions" with his dad (Justin and Cory lying on the couch together - no client on the couch, shrink in a chair with this therapist!) Cory admitted to Justin that he never wanted us to get married. I wasn't around during this conversation, but Justin told me about it later. 

The next day we went out to eat as a family and Cory asked me if Justin had told me about what he said. I confirmed that Justin and I had talked about it and I said, "Cory, I understand why you would feel that way, and I am totally okay with you feeling that way. In fact, you could have told me that to my face and I would still be okay with it." I wanted Cory to know that I understand how he's feeling, and I am not offended that he doesn't want me to marry his dad. I didn't take it personally. Cory always wanted his mom and dad to get back together, and I know that me marrying his dad completely trashed that dream. That can be devastating for a kid.

When dealing with kids in blended a family, don't take anything personally, and be your kids' best therapist. We don't allow name calling or yelling or hitting or saying mean things to people, but calmly saying something like, "I never wanted you and my dad to get married" isn't dangerous to anyone. It's a true admission of feelings, and a very mature thing to do. We definitely praise those kinds of things coming from our kids. As your child's therapist your number one responsibility is to listen. Kids who are dealing with things like divorce and remarriage are going to have a lot of confusing things going on in their heads. Listen. Resist the urge to correct, lecture, or respond in any way other than validation. Afterwards your child might be open to some advice or counsel, but give it carefully, and stop if things start going awry.

When a child misbehaves due to strong emotions, validate the emotion, then deal with the behavior. When our kids have outbursts of anger or emotion, we try to validate the emotion, then deal with the behavior. "You must really miss your mom. But it's not appropriate to throw a fit and scream and kick." We are starting to get a lot more calm, although emotional, responses from our kids. Tear-filled statements such as "I wish I could go to my mom's house" and "Sometimes it's hard to have so many brothers and sisters" are becoming at least as common as the tantrums, fights, and melt downs.

Pride is the step-parent's enemy. Well, pride is everyone's enemy. But it is especially detrimental in blended families. If you want to have a good relationship with a step child the best way to do it is to throw your pride right out the window. When Justin gets home from work, Joseline and Vincente barely glance up from what they are doing to say hi, while Cory and Ryan (and sometimes Bailey) run to meet him from wherever they are in the house. Justin does a really good job of not taking that personally, even though I know it hurts him. And the kids are learning to be at least cordial and greeting people when they come home. It's easy to take everything personally and think that your step kids hate you, or at the very least, don't care for you. But it takes time to build relationships, and the more you let your pride get in the way of that, the worse it will be for your relationships.

A Family in a Blender

With Peter Pan at Hale Center Theater Orem's production
From Right: Ryan, Vince, Cory, Joseline
(Bailey was standing with me and grandma RaNae, and
Seth was with his dad)

I'm sure the next question on your mind is the blending of the family. How do the kids get along? How do the kids get along with the step parents?

I would be lying if I said there was no conflict and we got along swimmingly. What non-blended family gets along without any conflict? There is always conflict. How you deal with that conflict demonstrates what kind of family you are. We try to deal with conflict between children as if the children are all full-blood siblings. There's no other way to do it, in my opinion. The kids are kids, no matter who their parents are, and they are siblings - whether biological or step.

We spend a lot of time talking about how families help us grow - so even if there is something we don't like about one of our family members, we can use that relationship to help us learn and grow rather than resent our family member because of it. We can also try to help the sibling who has a less-than-desirable behavior or personality trait learn how to overcome their weakness, without name calling, belittling, or being hard on the person. These are qualities I would teach my children even if they weren't step-siblings, so I don't see the relationship thing as much different than in a family with no blending.

We try to do a lot of things "together" so there isn't the "us against them" mentality. We also try to stress that our family is the Andrews/Rowley family, not just the "Andrews" family so that the Rowley kids don't feel pushed out of their own family. I try to remind all of the kids that even though my last name is Andrews now, I am still a Rowley because I will always be Vince and Joseline and Seth's mom. That is the only thing I worry about with the blended family - a division along "family" lines. But I think we're doing a pretty good job of creating an Andrews/Rowley family mentality, and so far there hasn't been much of that division.

Plus, look at these selfies the kids took with my phone when I wasn't looking! Those kids definitely get along!