During the holidays I sometimes feel added stress with having a blended family. I think in major part because we tend to be around people we don’t see as often as we usually do, and people sometimes don’t know how to handle our family dynamic. I never feel like people are intentionally trying to be rude, but often times I walk away from events bewildered at some of the comments made.
So here is a quick list of well-meaning comments or actions that I feel should be avoided especially during the holiday season.
“They have 2 ½ kids.”
I don’t really understand how it’s possible to have half a child or to be half a parent. Regardless of what people choose to call me in our situation, my husband is always going to be 100% the Father. I do try to understand that everyone treats their blended family differently, but we have been very open to the fact that we treat everyone in our family the same regardless of what blood dictates. This is why it can be hurtful to hear people close to us try to distinguish that family is something different. So my suggestion, listen to how the parents describe their situation to others. Some people will outright say we have 3 kids not to distinguish between any of the children (this is what we do), others will say 2 kids and 1 step-kid, but never have I heard someone describe a child as being half. I think it’s also important to remember not to describe a child this way because I don’t ever want my bonus son to feel like he is not part of our family or he is only ½ as important as his siblings. Please remember that these well-meaning comments are describing a child and can have a huge impact on how they feel they belong within the family or not.
Our children with their cousin and Grandma. Celebrating Christmas a few days early in 2017
“Why can’t he come to this family event?”
Co-parenting can be extremely stressful, you always want things to go your way, but there is another person who has their own obligations and family to contend with as well. Which is why there are such things as custody agreements, changing agreed upon holiday schedules is a lot more complicated than some people realize and it’s not something we want to fight about every single year. We took the time (and paid lots of money) to try and keep the holidays as even and respectful to both parties as we could. Bringing attention or trying to make us feel guilty as to why we or our bonus son cannot attend an event is throwing unneeded stress to an already extremely stressful situation. In our family, that means we sometimes have to celebrate holidays early, later, or we choose to keep things just at our house instead of traveling because time is limited. But please remember we are doing the best we can to make the holidays as special for our family as anyone else does. It’s a fine balance of making sure that my bonus son feels included in everything and that our other children do not feel like their lives are on hold because of his situation. No one is going to be perfect, but being understanding in these situations can go a long way.
Excluding or doing more for one child than others.
Luckily this is not something that we commonly see in our situation but I wanted to comment on this because it’s something that I grew up feeling at times. My “step-mom” raised me as one of her own but I did have multiple grandparents, and one set of grandparents always seemed to do a lot more for their other grandchildren than they ever did for my siblings and I. We saw them only once every couple years and only the occasional contact, but my cousins had a much stronger connection with them. As a little kid I didn’t understand why, and I felt like my grandparents didn’t love us as much as they loved them. Later when I was older my grandma explained to me that she felt because we had parents (my Dad and step-mom) that my siblings and I didn’t need the extra attention but my cousins (who had a different situation) did. As an adult I can understand the logic, but again as a child that is a very hard concept to understand. So something we have asked, and has been respected, in our home is to keep everything even between all of our children, smothering one child because you feel concerned because they have 2 homes or alienating them because they aren’t technically your blood is not something we want for our children (and again not a problem that we have had to personally deal with).
Understanding family dynamics can be challenging, which is why I try to be understanding when people say or do something hurtful about our situation. But, I believe the most important thing to remember in these situations is there is a child trying to enjoy their holidays and parents doing the best they can. No one wants a child to feel like they are less of a person, that they are being left out, that they are excluded from the family, or for their siblings to feel excluded because they have a “normal” situation. In our family everyone is just that, family, we don’t distinguish between titles of half, step, or anything else and the holidays are a time for family. While our family might look a little different from others we are just trying to make the best of a stressful situation.
