Here’s the Ugly Truth About Blended Families.

Today, my older step-sister dropped a collection of clay pieces she has been working on for some time, breaking near all of them. It doesn’t seem like much. It isn’t much. And yet, it revealed to me something essential in how blended families function:

Blended families are composed of differences we cannot overcome.

Because when all those clay pieces hit the tiled floor, my mother and brother jumped to the rescue while my father and I stepped aside.

It is, in this moment, that it becomes clear which child belongs to which parent. At once, that lovey-dovey rose-tinted façade is cast aside.

We’re blended, we admit in that instant, we’re blended and we’re different and normally we’re alright and we get together just fine, but right now in this awkward moment we’re different.

I’m tired of seeing articles of how blended families can work just as nuclear families work if given enough time and effort.

No, no they cannot. Stop saying that. Stop posting those cutesy little articles outlining the importance of understanding siblings rivalry and discipline — those things aren’t even specific to blended families! We’re chasing after this perfect little blended family unaware that it’s a goddamn unicorn. Because, at the end of the day, the kids have grown up differently.

They were raised with different abilities and values, growing up as a reflection or rejection of the parent(s) that raised them. They cannot, will not, and will never be cast in the light that the other sibling has grown up within.

I’m not saying that parents shouldn’t try. I’m saying that when shit goes down, the foundational cracks of the blended family will rear its ugly head, bringing everyone down from this mythical cloud nine of being the perfect blended family — whatever that means. Any blended family that appears perfect (many do) is superficial and lurking with deep-seeded differences that compose the core of each sibling’s character.

Right now, I’m growing up in two of them. One’s good; the other isn’t. I have three halves and three steps and four parents. Holy shit, my family tree is crisscrossed and winding every which way. Don’t give me that motherly spew of how with enough effort this blended family will be able to rid itself of its shameful name.

Speaking of shameful — why did we convince ourselves that blended families are this work in progress that non-blended families aren’t? What does a non-blended family even mean? Is that it a euphemism for normal, regular, actual, a real family? Why are we working so hard to pretend that blended families can become something they inherently aren’t and can never be?

Because at the end of the day, when that clay shatters, I stand besides my father. Not because I don’t love my sister, not because I won’t help her later, but because I was not taught to comfort others in the quick manner that my step-siblings were.

Deep down, blended families will never be like non-blended families.

I’ll let you in on a secret:

A blended family will never be what you want it to be.

But I’ll let you in on another one:

A biological family won’t be, either.

Family is family. My family isn’t a blended family. It sure as hell isn’t a nuclear one. It’s merely a family like any other — with scraps, bruises, and bumps with scars meandering every-which-way. We make the best of it. That’s what family is about — making the best of it. So embrace those inherent differences of blended families and get on with it. There’s nothing else you can do.