Blended Families

Good evening readers,

I wanted to talk about blended families for today's topic. Many of us have seen the TV show The Brady Bunch and know that their family was indeed a blended one. Carol had three daughters who married Mike who had three sons. In the show, they showed a family that was able to come together as two different families to become one. They didn't see themselves as a blended family but as one happy family. Of course in the real world, that kind of story doesn't always turn out that way.

Take my family for example, I married my husband three years ago and brought two children from a previous relationship into this marriage. He had three children from a previous relationship that he would be bringing into this marriage as well. When we met, we lived in two different states; i was in Louisiana and he was in Florida. When we decided to get married, he made the choice to come and move to Louisiana to be with me and my two children. This would mean that his children would be staying in Florida with their mother. Now fast forward to three years later, we ended up having two children together bringing our immediate household to four children.

It hasn't been the best for bringing all the kids together as of yet. Due to issues with his ex, we are not able to bring the kids out to spend time with us and their new siblings. It saddens me because they were never able to get to know their step siblings or their two new siblings that has come into our family. Out of the three years, the kids have only been together once! That doesn't seem like a lot of time for us to bond as a family. The truth is, we will never be like Mike and Carol Brady. Our children will not be growing up in the same household, we will be lucky to seem them once or twice a year if that ever happens.

Being in a blended family can be tricky especially if there are exes involved that are keeping the kids away out of spite (that discussion will be next). I feel that once you are married to a man or woman who has children, you should try your best to get everyone together and make it one so that no one feels left out. I'm sure that when we go on family trips or we post our family portraits, I'm sure that the children feel either left out or just not apart of this family because they are not here. Adults, should try their best to make sure that they do what is best for the children regardless if you do not like your exes spouse or not.

So my question for the day is would you date someone who had children? why or why not. All comments are welcome. Well until next time....

Erica