Dadding
The Blended Family: A Year in Review
Life in a blended family is a beautiful, hard, hilarious, challenging, fun, complicated, rewarding, thing. It’s a series of ups and downs, laughter and tears, but altogether worth it when you see how much closer the family becomes. Statistically speaking, blended families outnumber all other family dynamic in this country. Even so, asking a child to adjust to circumstances created by decisions that were beyond their control is an unfair situation for them to be put in (extreme cases aside).
There will forever be a low-level that exists in me for asking my sons to do this, and yet at the same time, this was the catalyst that caused me to realize that I could never take them for granted and that, they needed me now more than ever. That same realization soon extended to my stepdaughters after being forced into the role of a stay-at-home dad.
Thankfully, I’m married to a woman who is as contentious of her parenting in a blended family as I’ve learned to become. We could never do this alone, and there are moments when it seems like nothing is working right. But then there are times when you look back and realize how far everyone’s come together …as a family. That was 2011.
Happy New Year!
* * *
Ron Mattocks is a father of five (3 sons, 2 stepdaughters) and author of the book, Sugar Milk: What One Dad Drinks When He Can’t Afford Vodka. He blogs at Clark Kent’s Lunchbox, and lives in Houston with his wife, Ashley, who eternally mocks his fervor for Coldplay.
Cody 
Whit Honea 
Serge Bielanko 
Mike Adamick 
The Walt Disney Company supports Babble as a platform dedicated to honest, engaged, informed, intelligent and open conversation about parenting. However, the opinions expressed on this site are those of individual parents/writers and do not reflect the views of Disney. In addition, content provided on this site is for entertainment or informational purposes only and should not be construed as medical advice, diagnosis, treatment, or safety advice.
0