Are blended families healthy?

[Anonymous]

And when are they? Blended meaning merged family post divorce-remarriage.

[Anonymous]

Some are, some arent'. Too broad of a question to answer.

[Anonymous]

No or very rarely. Too much trauma, baggage, priority conflicts, and wishful thinking on the part of the two or four adults doing the blending.

[Anonymous]

It depends. Other families where parents are married may not be healthy.

[Anonymous]

Sometimes but often not. Or sometimes different members of the family have different opinions about whether it is healthy.

Personally I think it's choosing to play life on the difficult setting. Even if things go pretty well it's still hard. Logistics are hard.

[Anonymous]

I think it’s a selfish and bad idea (for kids) 90% of the time. It’s easier with a widow/er

[Anonymous]

Not more or less than other families, OP

[Anonymous]

I would think healthier to live with a capable and loving single parent than to play family with some person and their kids.

Blended families are inherently complicated and raising kids this way poses a lot of challenges and introduces a lot of instability. IMO it’s messed up to put kids through this and the people that do are often overly optimistic and shortsighted

[Anonymous]

Not statistically.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:No or very rarely. Too much trauma, baggage, priority conflicts, and wishful thinking on the part of the two or four adults doing the blending.

This!
Don’t do it OP!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:No or very rarely. Too much trauma, baggage, priority conflicts, and wishful thinking on the part of the two or four adults doing the blending.

This. Beware the wishful thinking, as it impairs your ability to deal with the other problems.

It's just really really hard to force kids together and raise them as a collaboration with their other parents, and their other parents' new partners and that person's kids. It's constant stress and constant effort just to make the logistics work, let alone the emotions. Having grown up that way and seen how even with the best intentions it's really hard, I wouldn't choose it for myself or my kids.

[Anonymous]

Mostly, no.

[Anonymous]

It is fascinating how frequently people decide to remarry, blend families and have more kids, given that it’s almost universally horrible (or at best, worse than the alternative) for the kids.

But parents seem to delude themselves because women want money, and men want house cleaners and vaginas.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Not more or less than other families, OP

So untrue.

[Anonymous]

Depends on how much effort they actually put in to the blending.