Coming from a multi-generational blended family is weird. I love my family, but sometimes I have to stop and ponder on the absurdity of my family situation. I have two dads and four and a half-sets of grandparents--that is, five grandmother figures and four grandpas. This results in five distinct family units, five sets of unrelated cousins, aunts and uncles to keep track of, none of which really associate with the others. Combining these multi-generational dynamics with those of my nuclear family--which is already messy enough--can get interesting.
Children of blended families learn early on that their situation is different than others. There are some considerations, such as determining which dad to take on a father-and-son camp, that caused me early confusion. But while there are some disadvantages to my blended family--such as my time being spread out between so much family that it's hard to connect with anybody, or being stuck in the middle when two sides in my family get in an argument--I've also learned that there are some valuable strengths and lessons I've acquired from my complicated family experience. I'll outline some of these below.
One advantage of growing up with a complicated family situation is that it helps a person adjust to changes in the family unit. Prior to my parent's divorce and my mother's remarriage, I viewed family as something one was born into. Family relationships grew naturally over a lifetime of knowing someone with a similar background to myself. My family was like an exclusive club, and I never thought of adding people to it, except by new babies being born. I wasn't even sure how this would go down.
When my mom remarried, I suddenly inherited a bunch of relatives who were essentially strangers to me; we shared no genetics, grew up in starkly different family cultures, and had little in common except for a couple shared relations. This made me have to change the way I acted and thought about family. Unlike the family I grew up in, I quickly learned I had to actively work to connect with these new cousins, aunts and uncles. My definition of family grew more flexible as I came to see family as something one needed work to become rather than an innate relationship. I learned the skills required to develop and maintain these relationships.
Granted, this stunk. I made many mistakes, and it took time to develop the necessary skills. But these skills will be invaluable in my future marriage and family--when I suddenly acquire a bunch of in-laws with different biases, personalities, and preferences than those I grew up with. I've learned to accept family members who I don't naturally get along with, and to develop hard-to-bear relationships with time. This might help me avoid the future dread of my in-laws.
Another blessing of being a child of a blended family--I watched my parents relationship unfold from the beginning. Whereas many people were either unborn or too little to remember their parents working out the knots in their relationship, I was both present and aware as my mom and step-dad did so. This spared me the idyllic expectation of early marriage that hurts many relationships. I'm aware that there will be problems, that I'll make mistakes, and that my wife will as well. Moreover, I've learned from my parents successes and their mistakes what to nurture or avoid in a relationship. Few people get this front row seat to a developing marriage.
Children of divorce and blended families have many disadvantages--that can't be disputed. Our childhood is disrupted and our likelihood of drug abuse or divorce skyrockets as a result. What I'm saying isn't to deny that. However, I've learned by experience that the very events that can torture a child can also teach us as well. Many children of the divorce and remarriage learn valuable lessons from their childhood experiences and form stronger marriages and families as a result. We're disadvantaged, yes, but that's not an inescapable doom. If we work to learn from our parents mistakes and not just repeat them, to weather storms and not buckle under them, we can be refined by the very experiences that burned us.
This events are traumatic and life-changing, to be sure, but how they change our life is still up to us.
Photo by Olivia Bauso on Unsplash
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