Stephen Crippen v. The Brady Bunch: Throwdown!
I’ve worked with lots of clients who belong to blended families—both parents and kids. These days, it seems blended families are the new normal. If “The Brady Bunch” were televised today, it would hardly be a surprising premise. Two people, both of whom have kids from previous marriages, hook up. *Yawn* But in its day, I suppose, “The Brady Bunch” was radical.
Too bad it was a simplistic fantasy of a blended family, nothing like the real thing.
When blended families form, often enough the people involved don’t know how complicated the relationships can be. If you and I get married, and we both already have kids, you are not automatically going to be recognized as a parent by my kids. (And vice versa.) And in many ways, you shouldn’t. They already know who their parents are, or were. To the best of my recollection, “The Brady Bunch” never let its viewers know what happened to the girls’ dad or the boys’ mom. They just hooked up as an intact family and never looked back. But we all know it can’t be this simple. “You’re not my real dad!” you can imagine Jan saying to the befuddled Mike Brady. And she’s right: he’s not. Let’s have some respect for the perspectives of kids in blended families who know in their bones that parenting relationships in these situations need to be negotiated.
So if you’re a member of a blended family, and feel frustrated that your spouse—or your child, or your spouse’s child—is behaving badly, take a step back and give everyone (including yourself) a break. Blended families need time to negotiate the new relationships and make sense of a very unfamiliar new family structure.
(Having said all that, I confess I enjoyed “The Brady Bunch” when I saw it in reruns in the seventies. If only because they made a trip to Hawaii look awesome!)
May 17th, 2010 at 3:49 pm
I love that you felt the need to post the disclaimer that you enjoyed it…you must have known you would offend me otherwise…:)