The mishmash of our respective household possessions into what became an unmistakable secondhand-furniture-store motif – was nothing compared to our medley of personality traits. And our distinctive collection of personal possessions was moved into the house right along with our distinctive cast-of-characters.
Balancing personalities with smooth interaction between parents and children in original families often requires the negotiating skills of a diplomat with the calming presence of a pope. In a blended-family however, there’s a third critical element – the illusionary abilities of a – magician.
Mixing several ages, diverse emotional responses, combined with an assortment of parenting styles creates a number of intriguing dynamics.
Because our kids see themselves as loose marbles rolling around in the pockets of their parent’s lives I advocate – M.E.L.T. – Maintenance, Effort, Love, w/Time. These are critical ingredients in relationship building between all blended-children as well as between blended-children and their various parents.
When I think of the patience and perseverance required to pull off our relationship goals, I’m reminded of the Rubix Cube that was so popular. I spent days with that maddening puzzle only to end up with only four of the six sides, mostly, one color. Stubbornly I kept that daft block for years, giving it yet another attempt every now and then.
In life – we can’t always get all our six-sides all one color when we’d like to. Four is most of the way, but we keep trying.
We know of instant connections between people who just met, however more often than not our new associations require some massaging with shared experiences that build new memories.
With blended-families developing a history comes as much by accident as by design. Everyone sharing day to day events in natural conversation is not something that can be forced or even planned. Prayed for – yes. But it will always be the simple, kind, considerate incidents that slowly cement the blended-family, provided the parents lead by example.
In our family communicating with our offspring – who, outnumbered the parents two to one – required some advanced strategic preparation. Our young-folk were convinced Keith and I suffered from a serious reality-gap. According to our youthful critics the weakness in our generational grasp of their era - was due to our era.
Keith hailed from the heart of the Nebraska corn-belt while I, [transplanted from Washington State] grew up in the parkland wheat-belt of Central Alberta. We learned about the ‘outside-world’ during the peak of Father Knows Best and Leave It To Beaver when not even ‘married’ television characters slept in the same bed.
And, television [if you had one] was black and white. Chocolate bars were a nickel and so was a First Class postage stamp. Teens pleaded to borrow the only family car for a date, or took public transportation and one telephone graced the kitchen wall.
In 1990 when Keith and I married, we had a television in three rooms, where we strived to limit nudity, adultery, mass murder, massacres, riots, explosions, torture with other socially corrupt events, in graphic color – and that was on the news! If all five of our blended-brood had kicked in a nickel, they couldn’t buy one First Class stamp. Our driveway looked like a small used car lot. We had a fax-line besides three phone lines in four locations with call waiting, voice mail, call forwarding, call conferencing and call-hold and too often that was not enough.
We got through our communication-everglades with grit and determination – and – being there.
By hook, by crook and by intention we were in on much of what went on in the lives of each of our blended offspring and their friends. For our first four years they staunchly maintained they were the only members in their circle of friends who had to endure anything so archaic as a curfew!
Moreover, our springboard to that frequent involvement kept circling back to our daily meal together. We gathered around our aging table that time and again included a parade of their friends from school or work.
Paul and Patrick clowned around coming up with one-liners you would swear a script writer penned for them personally. They were also the two most emotionally volatile when it came to expressing their perspective.
Gail initially cautious when faced with new situations became our world explorer, bravely venturing far from Colorado for school and career. But her estrogen energy and that of her friends filled the house with delightful chatter and animation. On any given day she swung from girl to woman, to Annie Oakley, and back to girl.
David was our quiet perfectionist – our studious recluse – who had an emotional depth far beyond his years. He rarely spoke up to complain, but when he did, there wasn’t much tether left in his patience. When he laughed out loud it was almost music to hear – for in that moment we knew his heart was not in pain. Generally levelheaded his refuge was often outdoors, but he surprised everyone one day when he explained why he refused to bring home any fish he caught from our neighborhood lake. ‘He threw them back so he wouldn’t anger the fish-gods.’
When Paul moved out in 1993 he was missed by Gail and Patrick. Despite the wide age gap he had been a kind and supportive ‘big-brother’ to them. To this day they credit his consideration with helping them to adjust to their unfamiliar surroundings.
Relationships among Gail, David and Patrick, who lived together with Keith and I the longest, was an interesting evolution that quite frankly they shaped almost entirely on their own.
Patrick’s sense of fun was good for David and David’s ability to focus was good for Patrick. Their opposite traits brought strengths to each other as time past. Gail brought balance to Patrick and David that always provided them with another perspective.
Until Patrick moved out he remained the one offspring paramedics couldn’t wake up with pure oxygen, but who could disappear at the speed of sound if the right girl called. After he got married the ‘right’ girl never needed to call because Dianne was already there, though she did complain that on weekends Patrick still tended to hibernate. However with the screech of their first newborn that trait disappeared.
Webster’s New World Dictionary defines communication as: “The act of transmitting, giving or exchanging information, signals or messages by talk, gestures or writing…” to which I add, massage daily. Humans have the ability to ‘talk’ however our ‘communication’ skills - stink.
Emotional ties between and among blended-family members take time, because in addition to everything else they may be dealing with layers of fear – conscious or subconscious.
· Fear of another failed marriage;
· Fear of not being fair;
· Fear of being too lenient;
· Fear the kids won’t ever get along;
· Fear the kids won’t ever accept the new spouse;
· Fear of ex-spouse interference limiting choices;
· Fear of an inability to deal with a seemingly endless list of blended-family needs.
One Venus, Four Mars And A Pluto
Each blended-family is a unique snowflake. Its’ developing pattern stamps its imprint on every passing day as the distinctive characters who make up the new family unit allow their personalities to emerge.
This emerging pattern stage is fragile, but it is also an unfolding that can be delightful to witness. The differences give color to the similarities.
I’m an orderly, neat and tidy person – preferring to plan ahead. I once lived with five casual, chaotic and confused individuals whose mantra was procrastination. Daily they provided a rare glimpse into a daft world of functional-lunacy. These individuals I referred to a few times as my pseudo-environmentalists.
Gail reined as our chief environmentalist, only because she never threw anything away. It was all in her room, or stored beneath our basement stairs, or in her car.
David was our paper-specialist. He had an aversion to throwing out paper. Everything he read, newspapers, magazines, books, brochures, coupons any pulp material rested in nice, neat piles on the floor by the last chair he occupied.
Paul was our water specialist. He would go to incredible extremes to conserve water. He saved all of his dirty clothes until everything he owned was heaped in the middle of his room like a vast cotton, wool and acrylic compost pile.
Patrick’s specialty was wildlife. I once parked our sturdy Kirby at the entrance to his room with orders for him to vacuum beneath and behind all furniture. He complied for every corner except the one closest to his bed. When I inspected his room, I discovered the widest, thickest spider’s web outside the jungles of Brazil. It measured a full two feet thick, then two feet from the headboard to the wall, three feet from the corner down the wall again and back to the side of his bed rail. I was astonished he hadn’t been eaten in his sleep.
Keith who moved his office to our house [dealing with several time zones in Europe and North America] saved energy. Mostly his. So that he didn’t need to leave his desk chair he maintained a rather hazardous filing system. He had separate stacks of folders, spreadsheets, blueprints, photos, faxes and mail like a type of memo-minefield. It was very unstable as I once discovered the hard way.
Regardless of what your blended-family character mix consists of, all members of each family come together via lives drawn from former patterns of behavior and habits. Often, we’re not even aware of those entrenched patterns and habits, until someone else approaches the very same task, with another method.
It may be difficult to resist the urge to believe your process is not more efficient or correct. However, resist, at least at first. Think house-whisperer…
If there was ever a time to govern by consensus merging old-former family traditions with a new blended-family, is certainly it. [A grand opportunity to develop a revised collection of ruts/habits in which to function.]
Anyway – this is another example of where time before you remarry is so valuable. It’s valuable because each half of the merging group can begin to learn more about how the other family celebrates birthdays, holiday days and customs.
When we form a blended-family we can add as much of what each group brings to the unit. [e.g. We hung stockings, Keith never had.]
· Developing some new traditions can be a cohesive step;
· Combine former rituals, or methods of celebrating;
· Take turns with family involvement, interests or events;
· Perhaps there ‘is’ no right-way or wrong-way just another point of view;
· Share what has been important to you, finding common ground for decisions in open discussion;
· Ask first, make no assumptions.
Like I said, King Arthur met with his knights at a table that was ‘round’ for a reason. The same reasoning works well in a blended-family.
Our table happened to be oval, but we too applied King Arthur’s principle. And because we were together for at least one meal each and every day [from the first day] that table became our conference-table. While passing, bowls and platters of food around, we had a forum to discuss our day, the next day, the coming week, or further down the calendar-road along with everything else.
· If you feel there is little time or fractured-time then create set routines for tasks that seem to drain your week. We discovered that immediately after dinner, while we were cleaning up the kitchen anyway, was the best time for everyone to make their bagged lunches for the next day. [It saved money and we ate healthier.] Also, one person, one load of laundry each day, one load in the washer before dinner, then that load in the dryer after dinner.
· Don’t ignore the views of your offspring, regardless of age. When adults feel they are allowed a forum at work, or voting in elections, we feel we count. Our children thrive too when they feel valued.
· Too many meals are fast-food or frozen something heated in a microwave – and/or kids eat alone. There isn’t a restaurant built able to offer food any faster when we factor our drive and wait time. Steaming, broiling, chopping takes minutes. Change into your sweats, get everyone involved in the kitchen with a job and visit while you and your team, assembles the family meal - together. [Even little ones can help by setting cutlery and other condiments on the table.]
· Assuming that just because you and your new spouse have teenagers, or older offspring, they don’t need you, is a mistake. Because our kids may have grown to be a full head taller doesn’t mean they don’t need attention. Are you too big for regular hugs? Don’t you need to share your day with someone?
Steadily since the invention of the Gutenberg Printing Press – one change led to another with the next amazing what-not waiting just around invention-corner.
However, somewhere along the path of the last century, to save the drudgery of routine tasks [no more scrubbing our laundry by a river comes to mind] we began to rob ourselves of the satisfaction that came from growing a few vegetables, making cookies from scratch, sewing a jacket from a length of fabric…
Don’t misunderstand me, I’m not about to dust off a spinning wheel and gather wool to knit my next sweater. Nevertheless, somewhere between raising sheep to shear and popping frozen blocks of cardboard into a microwave for a meal - is a life that still encourages us to participate in more of the process connected to the emotional and physical needs of our daily life.
Think for a second. What do you savor? There seems to be an invisible umbilical cord between too many of us and our phones. We can take the office home because of lap-top computers, iPads, smart phones, etc… all connected to the World-Wide-Web.
*We can microwave most food or eat takeout, ‘running’ constantly while checking our watches, programmed to beep at us.
*Kids don’t play outside with other kids unless it’s an organized sport, otherwise they play some type of electronic game. Thousands of children [and adults] have developed a short attention span because nearly everything – from movie scenes, to TV ads, to handheld tablets with games – flash screen changes before our eyes every two to three seconds. Whoa!
*Millions of people [for decades now] rush daily. At the end of their day [beyond midnight] they fall into bed too exhausted to sleep – only to begin their entire inane schedule the very next morning.
*Zoos once displayed exotic, rare or endangered species. However, since the majority of our kids have no idea where milk and eggs come from – zoos now exhibit common farm animals!
At this point you may be rechecking the title of this book to make sure you didn’t accidently start reading something else – wondering what any of the * above has to do with you or blended-families…
Just this…My points with asterisks may very well have been greater or lesser factors that contributed to your first marriage decline. So, take stock.
MY NOTES
· Because second marriages suffer from a 64% failure rate – those strangers who come together to form a blended-family require steady focus and attention to thrive;
· Strive for a new blended-family tradition that includes preparing a minimum of three meals together every week. Simple tools for chopping and stirring, with pots boiling on the stove won’t take any longer – and – the satisfaction of this time-honored family-ritual is too valuable to even measure;
· Working with our hands in even a minor capacity seems to be a need we all feel to one degree or another. The opportunity to get to know stepchildren is so much easier when there is a distraction. Cleaning out the fridge or closets, the garage, making cookies, etc… [And bribery works. I’ve offered a trip to the nearest DQ once the lawn was mowed, the vacuuming was done, dusting, or other chores.]
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