The Beauty of Blended Families

Going back to my very first blog post titled Defining the Family, it is so extremely hard to put together a concrete definition that includes every family unit we see. American families especially are beautifully diverse in culture, structure, and systems.

Although the divorce rate seems to be fairly low at about 20%, it's interesting how statistics from the US Bureau of Census gives us statistics that over 50% of US families are remarried or re-coupled, 66% of those living together or remarried break up when children are involved, and that 1300 new stepfamilies are forming every day.

I find it extremely interesting how no two families are the same. How are these statistics helping our future generations to create and maintain nuclear families? It's fascinating that divorce rates first spiked in the 1970's when no-fault divorces became prominent, this gave couples the opportunity to divorce just because they no longer desired to stay married together. The four A's that reasoned a divorce before this time period were known as Abuse, Addiction, Adultery, and Agenda's. The children of those divorces in the 1970's also seemed to have high divorce rates in their marriages as well, which was the start to witnessing generational patterns of divorce. I wonder what patterns or family systems we will see within 10 years from now.

While on the topic of blended families, I would like to share my observations from my own experiences. After many many years of putting up with abuse, addiction, and adultery from my father, who would exclaim he's working overtime but would go out clubbing with his buddies, and continually manipulating and abusing those members within our immediate family, my mother's final decision of filing for divorce didn't come until events seriously peaked in our home.

The divorce process for our family which was started in 2010, took about a year and a half. During this time my first youngest brother being age 11, and myself at 14 were given our own legal lawyers who would speak on our behalf concerning our living desires moving forward. The outcome of the divorce was that our mother had full custody of both my younger brother's and I. Visitation rights would be granted to my father in a family counseling facility which I thought to be fair.

My mother remarried in 2013, expanding our family with 4 older step-siblings and a newly older step-father. I personally was not a fan of this marriage, particularly because my brothers and I barely knew this guy.

6 years ago, I unenthusiastically slumped into the beauty chair, seated next to my mother for her wedding day hair and makeup. “She barely knows this guy”, I quietly thought to myself as my makeup artist started to fill my pores with foundation and such. Small talk over wedding plans for the day filled me with uneasiness over what the future could hold with this new marriage, scared for another repeat of what once was.

Any sort of adult male figure at that time of my life filled me with slight anxiety. My mother is a simple, quite, logical thinker whose taken much hardships silently over the course of her life, never allowing her outside appearance to show such emotions. The last thing I wanted was her heart to become broken again.

Although my feelings towards Bill started off very cautious and closed off, it didn’t take long to see that sometimes he understood me better than I had previously thought. By small and simple means, I grew to have a great amount of respect and love for a new father who learned to fill that empty role in my heart. The title of Father surely didn’t come easy, as it took years of building our relationship with trust and respect, as I believe that special title is to be earned. Today I’m extremely happy that my mother found such a loving, and hardworking man who can give her the much needed love and respect that she so well deserves.

I would be lying if I said this transition was easy, in fact it's still a transition that my youngest brother, being the only one in the nest at home still continues to struggle with. I hope that we can all continue to grown in love and strength throughout many years to come.

Perfect Parenting

Ever since I was a little girl, I have always been curious and mindful of how one parents their child(ren). I was born into a home where my father took an authoritarian parenting style which is defined as favoring or enforcing strict obedience to authority. I think being surrounded in law enforcement naturally made him more prone to assuring demands and discipline than what was needed in our home. Although I can understand and view partial perspective of the background of my father's parenting, there is still no excuse for the excessive manipulation and cruel abuse that took place under our roof.

On the other hand, before the divorce my mother was a relaxed ruler. I can only assume because my father was so aggressive and manipulative that my mother parented more on the sidelines. It could have also been that she felt threatened often by my father as well, feeling the pressure of living up to his expectations.

Authoritarian parenting is completely different from authoritative parenting which is defined as parents who are responsive to the child's emotional needs while having high standards. They set limits and are very consistent in enforcing boundaries. This particular style of parenting is highly effective in providing the best successful outcome for their children. It is found to be produce the best outcomes for emotional health, social skills, more resiliency, and secure attachments with their parents.

This parenting style reminds me of a childhood development activity we did in high school. I remember walking into class with a marshmallow, popsicle stick, and a fuzzy pipe-cleaner on my table. We discussed how there are mainly three parenting style; the marshmallow represents parents who allow their kids to rule their own lives, the popsicle stick representing parents who control the lives of their children, and the pipe-cleaner as you could guess being the middle man of both extreme parenting styles. The pipe-cleaner has the ability to bend, yet is sturdy and stable enough. We were taught that our parenting styles should be more like the pipe-cleaner, setting rules and boundaries for our kids but also allowing them to be part of that decision making process, especially when it comes to punishments. I think it's great if a child can best understand why punishments and consequences are put into practice when we disobey so they grasp the concept that my parents aren't punishing me, it's a natural consequence to when I disobey or make a bad decision.

Michael Hopkins said "The purposes of parenting are to protect and prepare your children to survive and thrive in the world we live in." My question for you is how is your parenting style protecting and preparing your children to leave the nest one day? Every parent I've met has exclaimed that their children grew up way too fast, and so it's important to recognize that the time we have with our children is valuable. The lessons we teach them, by our examples, love and security are valuable in the development of our children, to prepare them for success. Parents please understand that your actions and examples are engraved in your child's mind 10 times more than any lesson you try to verbally communicate. Memories are burned into our minds by the use of all 5 senses, not just one (listening).

Lastly, I would like to share with you the joys I had being a universal pre-kindergarten teacher. I absolutely adored the children no matter which moods they walked into our classroom with. Our kids are precious and their brains are sponges, soaking in as much information as they can. Parents, I understand the need for daycare. I get that there are many single parents who can't attend to their children as often as they would like and are forced to put their children into daycare facilities. The teachers at daycares do their absolute best to teach mainstream successful habit that your children can grow and take home with them. We do our jobs with an outreach of love for your child when you drop them off at daycare, however please know that it is extremely important that you still parent and strive to spend as much time with your children as possible. Parenting can't and should never be replaced by others.

We can never hold the title of perfect parent, but let us always be mindful of the best interest in fulfilling our children's needs while teaching and preparing them to thrive in today's world.