Divorce and Step-families

This past week we talked about divorce and becoming a part of a step family. This was an interesting subject for me because I don't have any experience with this. My parents have both only been married to each other and so this was never an issue for me. I do know that it is becoming more common now days and so we need to be aware of it and what it does to a family. I really hope that I don't have to deal with this when I get married.

Step families can be hard because that's when children get involved. The step parent needs to decide the role they are going to have in the children's lives and how they are going to handle certain things. We talked today that a step parent should have the role of a really fantastic aunt or uncle for the first few years. You need to allow the birth parent to issue the majority of the discipline. It will also take at least two years to reach any kind of normalcy. You can't expect to just jump right in and have everything go great right from the get go. These things take time and people that are entering these kinds of situations need to be aware of that.

I thought this section was interesting because I haven't personally seen any effects of this and it really opened my eyes to the reality of it. We read a story about a family and the struggles that they went through after a divorce. A husband and wife had been married for a few years and they had two children, a boy and a girl. To just summarize the story, some things happened and they ended up getting divorced. The wife was living with her mother raising the children and the ex-husband got remarried. The children were having a hard time deciding who to live with because both "families" wanted them. It just created all sorts of problems. I really hope that nothing like this happens to me or anyone in my family.

We need to try our best to marry the right person the first time. I know that things happen but unless one of the partners is being abused or neglected, I think they should try and work out their differences whenever possible.