For about three years now our family has been what the Americans call a
“blended family”. This does not mean we have gone all Stephen King with the
food processor and the children, but that we have been bringing my partner's
two boys (aged 9 and 6) and my own two children (my daughter, 12, and son,
9) into a new “blend” of four. Or six, if you count the grown-ups.
There's nothing new in this, of course. Stepfamilies are as old as the hills.
The National Office for Statistics puts the proportion of stepfamilies in
the UK at 10 per cent, but as that figure is based on the last available
census it is likely to have grown significantly since 2001.
Yet despite the prevalence of this family set-up in today's Britain, it still
feels as if society doesn't know what to make of blending. There is much to
make those of us whose life choices have led us down this path to feel
constantly, stomach-churningly guilty - guilty for bringing such change to
your children's and your partner's children's lives.
Indeed, even in the context of writing this for a sympathetic audience, I am
nervous about using the children's names. I don't want to be responsible for
the first instance of “blender” being used as a term of playground abuse (as
in “you're a blender, you're a blender!”).
So it was heartening to see those pictures of Lewis Hamilton hugging his mum
and stepmum after his victory at the Chinese Grand Prix and to hear him
pointedly thank “my two mums, for being so supportive”. Such positive
statements about differently modelled families, as the Ed Psychs might put
it, help to redress the balance a bit.
Our own journey down the blending road began with us treading very softly
indeed. It wasn't until my partner and I had been seeing each other for six
months and it was clear this really was big love, and we were in it for the
long haul, that we decided the time had come to bring our children together.
We needed some neutral ground, so we chose a holiday cottage on a farm in
Anglesey, North Wales. Apart from the manure (“poo, what's that smell?”) and
the occasional dead farmyard animal (“poo, what's that really bad smell?”)
it worked out fine. We saw lots of castles, took trains up mountains, walked
on beaches and generally rubbed along nicely.
However, holidays together are one thing; as every step-parent knows, proper
blending is something else entirely. Especially since my children live 200
miles away, meaning a 400-mile round trip every other Friday and Sunday for
me to collect and return them. A mad amount of travelling, it is true. On
the upside, though, my kids have developed a deep familiarity with the music
of David Bowie and Talking Heads.
I have to admit, then, that it's a tiny bit depressing when, having gone to
such lengths to bring the children together so that the six of us can bond
like a proper, whole family, everyone promptly falls out over a piece of
Lego smaller than a clipped toenail:
“He stole my Viking helmet!”
“Now, now, kids, don't fall out over a Viking helmet. Give it back please.”
“But it was mine first! You're so unfair!”
Is that blending, or is that just kids? Let me tell you that, once you're in
this game, you never let yourself off with “it's just kids” again.
Well-meaning friends might say “Oh, mine are like that”, but at the back of
your mind will always be the suspicion that the latest tiff or huff or sulk
is a direct result of the children's blending experience. To put it another
way: the guilt never leaves you.
In a vain attempt to limit the psychological damage that blending is obvi-
ously going to inflict upon the children, it is now traditional on weekend
mornings for us to try to cajole them into doing something other than play
on their Nintendos all day. Even last weekend, when the snow lay like icing
sugar beyond the heavily curtained living room window on Sunday morning, it
was like pulling teeth:
“Let's go hunt for some proper snow in the hills,” I suggested, standing in
the doorway in my embarrassingly grubby dressing gown surveying the scene:
all four pyjama-clad children splayed over furniture, their eyes dug deep
into the pixels of DS machines.
“Don't want to,” one of the boys grunted, pupils not shifting from the screen.
“That's boring,” another chipped in, thumbs a-twitching.
“Why can't we go swimming?” the third asked.
“Because we can swim whenever we like but it hardly ever snows,” I offered,
repressing the red mist within. Eventually we winkled them out into the
bright sunshine, where they grumbled that the snow was all melting, which
indeed it was - but we chased it eastwards until we found enough to furnish
a decent snowball fight. At which point they actually started enjoying
themselves.
As one might expect, time has made some of this a bit easier. The patterns and
rhythms that we established and worked on have helped to connect us. To be
fair, some patterns may not be helpful - the pattern, for example, of
fighting like cats over whose turn it is on the computer, or who gets to go
in the back of our ancient Mercedes (“I bagsy boot!”, “He went in last time
- it's my turn!”). This last routine, I am pleased to report, was played out
in full before the Times photographer, much to his polite bemusement.
There are other traditions, however, which have started to bind us just a
little. Bacon sandwiches on Saturday mornings, late-night films together,
eating out at Pizza Express. Then there are the treat stays at the Hilton in
Rotherhithe, South London, where we shamelessly stuff our pockets with
croissants and fruit from the breakfast bar - at least we did until our
credit crunched.
Beyond that, the tradition of holiday “adventures” have, in common with most
families, proved real bonding experiences for us.
Undoubtedly our finest holidaying adventure was our trip to Swedish Lapland
last new year, an expedition prompted by our guilt at the prospect of not
being with the children on Christmas Day. As we all bunked down in our
six-couchette compartment on the night train from Stockholm (“I want to go
on the top!”, “You're too little to go on the top!” “Maybe he can go on the
top on the way back down?”), it was as if we were being bound by this joint
adventure of travel. And when Joanna Lumley was on TV extolling the joys of
looking for the northern lights, we remembered our own midnight walk through
the snow in search of them. Not to mention our night-time dog sledge ride.
Such experiences are milestones - touchstones, even - but they are not the
bread and butter of blending life. That is more prosaic. Anxieties and
tensions, worries over whether you are being fair and equal - all these can
sometimes make you wonder if it's worth all the effort.
But then there are compensations, such as when you overhear one child say to
the other: “I think you're half stepbrother, half friend”; or when we are
all snuggled down in the dark watching a film, pigging out on popcorn and
sweeties; or searching the beach together for sea glass. Then it feels good.
You hope in these moments that the kids feel it too, and that they won't
have to spend thousands of pounds on therapy in the future, but will be able
to look back on all these blending years with a certain amount of fondness -
or even with warm, nostalgic feelings.
As for your own guilt as a parent, it abates with time. When it rises, with
practice you learn to bear down upon it with such words as “I know this is
worth it; this blending malarkey is the right thing to do.” And, over time,
eventually, you come to believe that yourself.
Survival guide: blending at Christmas
How do you survive a blending Christmas? Here are a few tips:
Try to create some new traditions around Christmas that are different from the
children's old ones - whether special treats such as ice skating or
pantomimes, or Christingle services, or carol singing.
Spend time together in preparation, eg, making decorations or Christmas cards
or stockings: as the years pass and these items build up, they add to your
new joint history of Christmas together.
Wait until a “blending weekend” before making key decisions on Christmas, eg,
choosing the tree or decorating the house, so all the children feel
included.
Have the children write Christmas lists together, even if they protest that
they wrote them for their other parents.
Try to persuade grandparents and other family members to be equal too in their
generosity: better they spend the same they used to but divided equally than
merely buying tokens for their “new” grandchildren.
