Well having combined families today is more common then having both mom and dad together, with that being said our society over the last 50 years has begun a trend in where combined families are common place. In the early 1900 90% of the families were together and rarely were their divorces, thus making combined family a rare thing. In the early days families stuck together regardless of the situation even if it meant being miserable and abused. Thankfully times have changed for the better in that regard as millions of women were abused their whole life without any chance of happiness.
Well with our generation (30-70 years old) with combined families faced situations that our grandparents never had to deal with. We are faced with some unusual and at times uncomfortable situations because of the word associated with a combined family, Step-Dad or Step-Mom are two words in our society that quite possibly the most trying in our new culture of combined families.
The stigma attached to these words do not have quite the bite they once did 40 years ago because of the sheer amount of combined families, but make no mistake in the end they will undoubtedly come into play in your relationship with your significant other.
As families combine there is of course a Major Adjustment period that can take years in developing, with hard work and some luck the families will adjust and even perhaps come together as a family unit, but often this does not always happen, their is usual clash of personalities with the combined families and of course depending on the age, this can be corrected. As we all know the younger the kids are the better chance of having a combined family survive the sometimes troublesome meeting of the minds. And teens are often very reluctant to adjust or accepted mom or dad moving on with a new partner coming into their lives.
There will undoubtedly the clash of how to raise the kids, with each and every one of us being raised differently it is always a tough task and hard work to make sure as parents we are on the same page and agree to disagree when necessary to insure the proper raising of these kids stuck in the middle of this newly formed family unit.
But when parents disagree on how to raised the kids that is when trouble starts, even younger kids can pick up quickly on parents disagreeing and will quickly start using this as a tool for getting what they want. When the parent states that a rule is a rule with a good explanation (Example 9:30 curfew for young teens) then parents must stay together on the rules of the house or the family will not make it and will head towards divorce. Kids will smell divide and will conquer, teens have a built in sensor of when to get parents working against each other, and when one of the parents goes behind the other parent and tells the (their naturally born) kids its ok to break the rules or lie repeatedly despite what the step mom or dad says then one can rest assure of two things certain to happen.
The first thing would be a impending divorce as we all know once the family gets broken down and the step-kids are allow to disrespect the step-mom or dad and have the parent allow these kids to do so there is very little left in the marriage, when the step kids are allow to do what they want and totally ignore the step parents rules then the family unit is now broken down and perhaps some counselling for the entire family may be a answer but if the one parent does not see why parents must stick together on house issues/rules counseling will not fix that issue and the disrespecting and arguing will continue.
The second choice again is the counselling, but sometime feelings are betrayed beyond the point of fixing, when kids are taught to lie and disrespect the step-parent with the mom or dad allowing it this is the kiss of death in any relationship. United we stand Divided we fall is the common themes to a successful combined family. And again with some hard work alot of love and understanding and of course the two parents acting as one is the best remedy of any failing combined family that is going through this difficulty.
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