Blending Families

As I portrayed in my last posting I am from a blended family through divorce. However that is not the only part of my blended family. I have a step dad who legally became my father, his parents are divorced and both re-married and had other children, the woman his father married had also been in a previous marriage and had children with him as well. My mothers parents are divorced but neither got re-married. My biological father got re-married and had two more children with my step-mother. His mother was married three times. I have a couple aunts and uncles who have gotten a divorce and are now re-married as well.

So as you can see I am no to blended families, my family is full of step and half members. To make discussing easier though I will shorten it down to my family, in my whole family I have a mother, a father, a biological father, a step-mother, a full blooded brother who I live with, a half brother I live with, 2 half sisters that I dont live with, and another half brother that I dont live with. With so many half's and steps it is hard to keep track of it all!

But that doesnt matter because the way I was raised and the way my family is run, we dont see it that way. My dads step mother doesnt see me and my brother as her "step grandchildren" nor does she even see my dad as a step child. We are all family. I dont look at my younger brothers and sisters and think of them as my "half siblings" we are all family.

I know that I am very fortunate because I know a lot of families dont see it this way, I know that a lot of them see a clear division between blood and not  blood. There are a lot of issues that spring up because of this. Many children feel that they are not totally apart of the family there are in because they arent fully or at all blood related to their siblings. This can lead to exiling or bullying, when really your family are supposed to be the ones who protect you from that. I have seen kids like this and have seen terrible things emotionally. Many may end up leaving the home or after adulthood not speaking to the family.

To me anyway I see it, it is whether you are used to having this mother, or sibling or father why make it harder than it has to be?! Learn to love your family because in the end they are all that you have. Let a sister be a sister and a son be a son and not stick labels on everyone to determine how much we should love them.