"It almost never works out well" comment on 2nd marriages with kids

[GinaPagnato]

Over the weekend we were at a dinner party. A friend/acquaintance of ours made the statement regarding divorces and remarriages with kids that it "almost never works out well." He said unequivocally that blended families are fraught with problems (i.e. both parents had kids with other partners, then they married and have either full or PT custody of all the kids). He also said when a couple marries and has kids together, this creates more problems for the already existing kids. He thinks that when a person without kids from a previous relationship marries someone who has kids from a previous relationship, it is FAR better to not have kids together; instead, they should just focus on raising the already existing kids.

 

So Steve and Jane marry and Jane had kids from her first marriage. Steve and Jane should NOT have biological children of their own. They should focus on raising Jane's kids.

 

He is fairly involved with family courts in our county, so he's seen quite a lot.

 

I know a number of blended families and families with prior kids who marry and have bio kids together. There have been many problems in these families. The problems are pretty much always that the step or half-siblings don't get along, or the kids feel one parent favors another kid, or ex-spouses create trouble, etc. They're not terrible situations (okay, some of them actually are pretty terrible), but they have more than their share of strife.

 

Off the top of my head, I can think of only 2 families where the married couple chose to not have kids together. The husband in both cases decided to devote himself to parenting the already existing kids. These families had none of the problems that the other families had.

 

I had never considered our friend's point of view. I just never put those factors together.

 

What have you experienced and seen? Do you think his pov is accurate?

[Katy]

I think it is accurate in that it creates additional issues.

 

I'm not sure that would stop me from having another baby if DH died & I remarried quickly. 

[Scarlett]

Over the weekend we were at a dinner party. A friend/acquaintance of ours made the statement regarding divorces and remarriages with kids that it "almost never works out well." He said unequivocally that blended families are fraught with problems (i.e. both parents had kids with other partners, then they married and have either full or PT custody of all the kids). He also said when a couple marries and has kids together, this creates more problems for the already existing kids. He thinks that when a person without kids from a previous relationship marries someone who has kids from a previous relationship, it is FAR better to not have kids together; instead, they should just focus on raising the already existing kids.

 

So Steve and Jane marry and Jane had kids from her first marriage. Steve and Jane should NOT have biological children of their own. They should focus on raising Jane's kids.

 

He is fairly involved with family courts in our county, so he's seen quite a lot.

 

I know a number of blended families and families with prior kids who marry and have bio kids together. There have been many problems in these families. The problems are pretty much always that the step or half-siblings don't get along, or the kids feel one parent favors another kid, or ex-spouses create trouble, etc. They're not terrible situations (okay, some of them actually are pretty terrible), but they have more than their share of strife.

 

Off the top of my head, I can think of only 2 families where the married couple chose to not have kids together. The husband in both cases decided to devote himself to parenting the already existing kids. These families had none of the problems that the other families had.

 

I had never considered our friend's point of view. I just never put those factors together.

 

What have you experienced and seen? Do you think his pov is accurate?

I guess my answer is it just depends. I have seen all sorts of situations blow up and I have seen all kinds work out. I have a blended family, with no children of the marriage.......and it is hard. We are doing ok, but it is hard.

 

My mom chose to never remarry. And never date. Well, when I was 37 she married, but of course her kids were long grown by then, as were his. Both of them had many grand kids.,,..there were parts my mom never marrying that I loved and parts that sucked.

[Scarlett]

I have seen it bind blended families together to have a child.

[Scarlett]

I think it is accurate in that it creates additional issues.

 

I'm not sure that would stop me from having another baby if DH died & I remarried quickly.

It was too late for me but I would have had a baby with d if possible.

[Scarlett]

There is a line of thought out there that people with kids who divorce should not remarry until their kids are raised. I considered it briefly.....but I just couldn't do it. I do believe there are benefits both ways.

 

And besides even adult children can cause HUGE problems in a second marriage. I have seen that many times too.

[nixpix5]

In the families I have worked with what he says is pretty true. It is a tough go. I married my husband and we each had a child we brought in. We waited until the teen years to have more and our older were ready at that point. It went well we all did fine.

 

Where I see issues come up is when bio kids for the couple are born 6 years or less in span with older kids. It is tough. Not impossible but a huge strain that one has to prep and expect for.

Edited February 22, 2018 by nixpix5

[Carrie12345]

I wasn't actually married before, but I came to this marriage with a kid. My son has 4 siblings here and 3 siblings at his father's house. He's got great relationships with all of them.  I can't speak to the details of my ex's relationship, but it's never caused issues here.  (Unless you count dh's desire to get a Junior and my unwillingness to go along with it.)  However, my son doesn't have any memory of his father and I together.

 

My mother remarried 2 months after I got married, so that's not an experience I had as a kid.

 

[Ravin]

I think someone who bases their conclusion about such things on what they see in family court is seeing only the problems and not the situations where things are going right.

 

It's rather like a school teacher deciding homeschooling is bad because their only experience with it is students who were put back in school because it didn't work out well for their family.

[Night Elf]

My DH and I are second marriages for both of us. He had no kids and I had one. When we married we had 2 kids. He treated my oldest as if she was his own and never differentiated his kids from her. He helped pay for her first car and cosigned a car loan for her second one when her own dad wouldn't do it. He and his wife had no problem giving lots of money to her oldest who was clearly the golden child and still is to this day according to my dd. My DH has given her money and paid for things just like he did for his other two children. He offered to pay for her college but she didn't want to go.

 

My ex-h did remarry a woman with 2 kids and they did not have any together. Their family isn't strong because her youngest had some severe mental behavior issues that strained the marriage and the relationships with her oldest and my daughter who was their youngest. I think they were wise not to have any other children. I've always wondered, however, if my ex-h wanted another.

[nixpix5]

I think someone who bases their conclusion about such things on what they see in family court is seeing only the problems and not the situations where things are going right.

 

It's rather like a school teacher deciding homeschooling is bad because their only experience with it is students who were put back in school because it didn't work out well for their family.

This is great insight to keep in mind.

[Scarlett]

I only have personal experience. My family never had issues with my mom and stepdad having a bio son of their own. My brother and I just thought of him as our brother. My dad had a great relationship with my mom and stepdad.

 

Now, take that for what it's worth since they divorced when I was an adult and my brother almost an adult. But we never had real issues when we all lives together.

Ha I just realized I was in a blended family when my brother was born since my 'dad' was actually step,dad number one. My brother is just my brother even though we don't have the same dad.

[Tanaqui]

I think he's suffering from selection bias.

[Jean in Newcastle]

Unequivocal statements are generalizations. I can unequivocally say that I am not fond of generalizations.

 

Are there possible issues to consider beforehand? Sure. Can there be problems? Of course. But can families work things out? Yes. (And my suggestion is that just as general marital or family problems can often be helped by a lot of discussion and agreement beforehand, the same is true for blended families). Can families with no divorce have sibling and other problems? Yes to that too.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Crimson Wife]

I've seen some "yours, mine, and ours" situations that worked out well and others that were a big mess. To be frank, most of the big mess situations were because Wife #2 was the homewrecker that destroyed the first marriage. Can't say that I'm really shocked the kids from the 1st marriage hated her guts and resented their younger half-siblings.

[unsinkable]

I think someone who bases their conclusion about such things on what they see in family court is seeing only the problems and not the situations where things are going right.

 

It's rather like a school teacher deciding homeschooling is bad because their only experience with it is students who were put back in school because it didn't work out well for their family.

My friend who works at a cancer hospital sometimes says, "Everyone has cancer" if asked how work is lately.

[Storygirl]

Whereas almost every case I can think of it just breeds a lot of resentment as one kid is fully loved and adored by both parents and the other kid(s) don’t fully belong in the same way. It shouldn’t be so, but humans are imperfect in their affections.

 

Just like adoptive families - some genuinely love and treat their adopted kids like their bio children, and some try so hard but there’s always the ‘otherness’. It’s difficult either way.

 

Ugh. This statement bothers me so much, as an adoptive mom hearing it from a mom who has not adopted.

 

[Rachel]

I think all types of families can be messy. It’s easy to see where a blended family isn’t perfect and people can be quick to point out those flaws when they wouldn’t point the same flaws out in a non-blended family.

 

I don’t feel like sharing the details right now, but I can think of a family with grown children, one with teen children, and one with young children where the second marriages and blended families worked or seemed to be working.

[Catwoman]

Ugh. This statement bothers me so much, as an adoptive mom hearing it from a mom who has not adopted.

 

I agree. I have never adopted a child, but I have relatives and friends who have, and I have never gotten the slightest sense that they place a higher value on their biological children than they do on their adopted kids. And when they talk about their kids, they mean ALL of them. There’s no differentiation at all. The love is equal.

[Farrar]

I had the same thought as above about selection bias. Of course someone who works in family courts is going to think blended families are trouble.

 

I've known many blended families who were fine. And many who weren't. Just like I've known lots of traditional families who were fine and many who weren't.

[Storygirl]

Well, it is true of what I have observed of the people close to me who have adopted. They’re pretty candid about the difficulties but even if they weren’t sometimes it bleeds through anyway.

 

That doesn’t mean it isn’t worth doing.

 

I'm sorry, but this just makes it worse. Adoptive families and non-adoptive families both have difficulties, because all families do. No one who is not inside the family can discern what is going on, and to say to yourself that they are having adoption related issues -- it's just judgmental.

 

And it is the same for those who are judging blended families. Every family is different.

 

Three of my four grandparents were raised in unusual family situations a century ago. One was born out of wedlock and raised by grandparents. One was born out of wedlock and raised by a step-father. One grandmother's father died when she was one, and first she had a single mom, then was part of a blended family with step- and half-siblings.

 

In my generation, my children were adopted, and my siblings' children are step-children.

 

The world changes, and yet it stays the same. Families are made by people who love each other, whether they are biologically related or not. And life is messy, and people work it out.

 

ETA: And there isn't anything about my adoptive family that I would describe as "worth doing." As one would say that cleaning out a closet is "worth doing."

Edited February 22, 2018 by Storygirl

[HS Mom in NC]

Yes, I agree that blended families are inherently more complicated and challenging than non-blended families. 

Yes, I agree that adding "theirs" to his and/or hers is inherently more challenging and complicated that sticking with the his and/or hers.

I'm part of blended family with his (step-dad's)  and hers (mom's)  in the same household full time.  I had standard every other weekend visitation with my dad who married two different women at two different times who had kids full time.  No half siblings.  They were all disasters.

I would say those divorcing should be required to go through training on how to be divorced parents.

[Rosie_0801]

I would say those divorcing should be required to go through training on how to be divorced parents.

 

I had to do that! It is standard procedure for the Family Court to mandate a post-separation parenting course here.

[HS Mom in NC]

 

Just like adoptive families - some genuinely love and treat their adopted kids like their bio children, and some try so hard but there’s always the ‘otherness’. It’s difficult either way.

 

I think it's important to distinguish between the two things.  Adoptive parenting is different that bio-parenting, even in households where both are happening at the same time. That's separate from loving your bio and adopted kids the same; it's absolutely possible to love them the same.  Better to avoid putting the two things in the same sentence.

 

And as much as step-parent swear it's true they love their step-kids the same as their bio-kids, I've never once seen any make the long term effort to maintain as much of a relationship as possible when they get divorced.  You may not have the legal means, but I've never seen one even try when the divorce was relatively amicable or when the step-kid turned 18 and could decide for themselves. So I don't really believe it. 

[HS Mom in NC]

I had to do that! It is standard procedure for the Family Court to mandate a post-separation parenting course here.

 

I hope it was well done.  My parents' Baby Boomer generation were generally very bad at being divorced parents.

 

[Arcadia]

My maternal uncle remarried when his only child by the first marriage was already in college. His second child was born after the first child already graduated from college. His divorce was amiable too with no custody fight. He is a bankrupt and his ex-wife earns more than him before and during marriage and is really not interested in fighting for alimony or child support. She is a really nice lady, just my uncle is incompatible to her.

 

My paternal cousin’s divorce was a dog fight because of him. His ex-wife is very giving but he abandoned his wife and kids and has a few kids with his 2nd wife before filing for divorce. He did give up custody as he did not bother visiting his kids for the many years prior to divorce. He does have visitation rights but his kids were so used to an absent father that they “disowned†him when the divorce proceedings started. If his kids from the first marriage could legally disown him they would. His siblings has already cut off ties.

 

My former colleague with two children married a lady with two children. They didn’t have any issues because their ex-spouses has no interest in the kids. My former colleague’s job is a very high paying one and he likes kids so he does not mind that his second wife’s ex-husband is not good on child support payments. His second wife’s job is also a high paying one so childcare cost for four kids was a non-issue (or rather not a financial hardship).

 

So far the most contentious blended families I know of are also those with ex-spouses that are dog in the mangers. The ones who are happy fighting a long divorce and then making trouble with child custody issues. A friend’s husband relocated to another country before filing for divorce and there is no reciprocity arrangements so child support might be hard to chase for. However he is unlikely to give her grief if she remarries except to fight over reduction of alimony.

[HS Mom in NC]

I suspect experience comes into play.  If you were a kid who had been through a divorce situation with parents who weren't very savvy about how to handle things well, you're probably more motivated to handle it better if you get divorced. 

[DawnM]

Ugh. This statement bothers me so much, as an adoptive mom hearing it from a mom who has not adopted.

 

 

Not only am I an adoptive mom, but I was adopted as an infant.  It hurts me to read it.

[Arcadia]

But I do think the girls both could have taken the clothes and she was just giving her bio daughter first dibs and not going to mention them to the other. Could be that it wasn't meant to be taken that way, but it bothered me how it seemed.

My mom was a nurse and her fellow nurse treated her adopted child badly after she finally have her own child. The lady’s husband was as fair as he could to both the adopted and biological daughters but the lady only buy things for her bio daughter. The lady was a nurse in a children and maternity hospital which makes it feels worse.

 

My mom also knows other nurses and doctors who adopted who are much more impartial to their kids even after managing to have bio kids. They feel that their adopted kids blessed them with being able to have bio kids and treat all as equal as they could.

 

So really all kinds of people that makes this world :(

[Annie G]

Yes, I agree that blended families are inherently more complicated and challenging than non-blended families.

 

Yes, I agree that adding "theirs" to his and/or hers is inherently more challenging and complicated that sticking with the his and/or hers.

 

I'm part of blended family with his (step-dad's) and hers (mom's) in the same household full time. I had standard every other weekend visitation with my dad who married two different women at two different times who had kids full time. No half siblings. They were all disasters.

 

I would say those divorcing should be required to go through training on how to be divorced parents.

I had to go through a course when I divorced in the 1980’s. At the time it was new for our area but it was pretty good. Dh and I have been married for 30 years and my kids from previous relationship call him Dad and consider him a father. To them it was no big deal- they had two grandfathers so they just really didn’t have a problem having two moms and two dads.

A lot of it is due to the choices we made to not talk badly about each other in front of the kids and to work through our differences so we could both attend events without our kids feeling stressed about us being there. It wasn’t easy at first because ex married the girl he was seeing when we were married. Maybe we’re weird...probably so. But it worked out for us.

As far as the kids dh and I had together- they aren’t as close to their sisters mostly because they live 850+ miles away and are a good bit younger. But they do keep in touch and when they get together they have fun.

[Rosie_0801]

I hope it was well done.  My parents' Baby Boomer generation were generally very bad at being divorced parents.

 

 

They were the most toxic hours of my life.

 

 

 

It might have been helpful for some people. If it was, I'd hate to think what kind of upbringings they had. For people in my situation, the advice was dangerous.

[cave canem]

Ugh. This statement bothers me so much, as an adoptive mom hearing it from a mom who has not adopted.

 

 

I am an adoptive mom.  The statement bothers me because it is so sad for a child in that situation, which I have seen. 

The status, with respect to adoption, of the person making the statement isn't relevant.

[GinaPagnato]

With regard to selection bias on the part of my acquaintance, I can see where you're coming from. However, DH just reminded me that further in the conversation, the acquaintance mentioned the families who were part of his kids' extensive athletic and music activities, as well as his very large neighborhood/community.

 

IOW, he wasn't just talking about his on-the-job experience.

 

 

So I was discussing this with my recently divorced friend who has a couple of kids in their late teens. She's begun dating, and she absolutely won't date anyone with kids who still live at home. She doesn't want to parent anyone else's kids, but she does want a father-figure for her kids (her ex is a loser). It got me thinking that *if* she relented on her position because she met a fabulous man and they fell deeply in love, and *if* she decided to marry him notwithstanding the kids in his home, I wondered how likely it would be that she would resent those kids. Don't get me wrong, she's an amazing person who is very giving and loving, but I'm not so sure she would be able to give her very best in that situation, day in and day out. I'm not so sure how many people really could. And don't you think those kids deserve the best? IOW, maybe it would be better to not marry someone who wasn't genuinely thrilled with the idea of helping you raise your kids. Or only marry someone who was okay with not having their own bio kids.

Edited February 22, 2018 by GinaPagnato

[BarbecueMom]

DH grew up in a "yours, mine, and ours" blended family.  Well, not so much blended as thrown together in a sloppy mess.  It was chaos when it was working and worse when it ended (we've been together since DH was a young teen, so I got to see the whole implosion first hand).

 

I think most of the difficulty was that the two families coming together were so different.  One parent was divorced, one was a widower.  One group of kids had another parent with financial means, the other group had no other parent.  One group of kids was extroverted and athletic, the other was introverted and musical.  One family was religious, the other was not.  DH and his stepsister are the same age and had nothing in common.  His sister and stepbrother were the same age, and also had nothing in common.

 

Logistically, both parents needed another parent in the home. On that end, it did work while the kids were young.  And DH's got a brother out of it (the "ours" 'baby) that he's still quite close to.  But long term, the family unit/marriage was probably doomed to failure because it was a group of people living together under one roof who would never choose each other in any other situation.  They certainly tried though.

[Wheres Toto]

My oldest was from a previous marriage.  I dated a few men with kids after my divorce and there were some really big problems.  I decided then that my dd needed to be my priority and that I didn't want to get seriously involved with someone who had kids.  Hypocritical of me?  Yeah, probably.  I'm okay with that.

 

Dh didn't have any kids when we got married.  We knew going in that we wanted more kids.   Dd and I have always been very close and having more kids didn't change that in any negative way.  I did go out of my way to make sure she didn't feel replaced or reason to feel jealous of her siblings.  They are so far apart in age that their needs at each stage were very different so it wasn't as hard as it may have been if they were closer in age.   Basically, we made sure to talk to her about things as we went along and included her, I never made her siblings her responsibility, if she babysat we paid her.  It was never required.  She continued with her activities as she did prior to my remarriage.  All this was only possible because dh was on board, treated her like his own, and shared the responsibility for the kids.

 

I was a child of divorce.  My mom remarried someone with kids but I was very young and don't really remember that time period.  My dad remarried someone with kids and my main impression there was she'd rather act like my brother and I didn't exist.   It really killed my relationship with my dad, but I think she would probably have been like that even without kids being involved.

I know a few people who married while they had one child, then had additional children and constantly made their oldest take care of the kids while they went out partying.   It built a lot of resentment in those children (usually a girl) and of the 4 situations I know about, none of those kids want children of their own.  

[Scarlett]

I don't know about other people, but I've resolved, FOR MYSELF, that if anything were to happen to my dh that I would not date or remarry until my kids were grown and gone. And I wouldn't want to be a step-mother to minor children, either. I just can't see myself in either of those situations.

This is much easier to resolve when your children are almost grown. But I lean heavily toward thinking it is best for many situations.

[Tsuga]

Unless one side is a widow/widower or the other parent has abandoned their kids, yeah. It’s a damn mess. I can say I’ve seen it work out a few times IRL, and otherwise it’s gross and difficult and miserable for the kids.

 

Do you realize that many people here are part of such "gross" families? Good lord.

[Bluegoat]

I have seen this work out fine, but I think there is a much higher chance of big problems.  It's probably inevitable that it would be more likely since there are that many more people involved, all with their own thoughts and feelings and issues.

 

I grew up in a family where my mom had two kids coming into the marriage and then she and my step-dad had another.  I was 12 and level-headed, but I still had some complicated feelings around that.  My sister who was 9 had a really really hard time and actually ended up moving out by the time she was 13, and it absolutely had to do with the baby.

 

If there had been another kid who was less appealing than a new baby, I can imagine that there might have been a lot more problems.  And that's a family with people with no other big problems going on and trying hard to keep a stable environment.

[MinivanMom]

I've known just one genuinely happy and successful blended family. They had multiple good things going for them:

-Widow married a divorced man with a wonderful ex who was super-supportive (in other words - they did not have to deal with ex drama)

-They did not have any kids together so they could focus completely on supporting their kids and blending their family

-The kids from the first marriages all had similar interests & personalities (extroverted, popular, outdoorsy)

-None of the children had serious problems or disabilities or other challenges 

-Dad made good money to support both his new wife & his ex in an upper-middle class lifestyle (both women stayed at home full-time and his children split time equally between his home & the ex's)

-They never had any serious challenges to throw a wrench in life (no job loss, no sickness, no cancer, etc)

 

Blended families are really hard. All families can have problems, but blended families are really, really hard. Having lived through it as a child, I don't think I could ever choose it for myself or my children. 

[Wheres Toto]

I think it's important to distinguish between the two things.  Adoptive parenting is different that bio-parenting, even in households where both are happening at the same time. That's separate from loving your bio and adopted kids the same; it's absolutely possible to love them the same.  Better to avoid putting the two things in the same sentence.

 

And as much as step-parent swear it's true they love their step-kids the same as their bio-kids, I've never once seen any make the long term effort to maintain as much of a relationship as possible when they get divorced.  You may not have the legal means, but I've never seen one even try when the divorce was relatively amicable or when the step-kid turned 18 and could decide for themselves. So I don't really believe it. 

 

I dated a guy who had custody of his two children with his ex-wife and his ex-wife's daughter, who was his step-daughter.  The mom moved 1/2 way across the country and the step daughter stayed with him.  She was 16/17 years old while we were dating.  I know she was still living with him after she turned 18 but I don't know past that.

[Tsuga]

I don't think she meant the families are gross, I think she meant the situation can get gross for the kids.  And......my sister's experience says that's the case, to me at least. 

 

Like, sexual abuse?

 

Oh good lord. About 1/5 kids live in blended families. Thankfully the incidence of sexual abuse in families is magnitude of orders smaller.

[umsami]

I had to do that! It is standard procedure for the Family Court to mandate a post-separation parenting course here.

 

We have to do it (in person) where I live now in Florida.  Some counties let them do it online I believe, but where I am, you must go to this place in person and take the course.

[Ellie]

Over the weekend we were at a dinner party. A friend/acquaintance of ours made the statement regarding divorces and remarriages with kids that it "almost never works out well." He said unequivocally that blended families are fraught with problems (i.e. both parents had kids with other partners, then they married and have either full or PT custody of all the kids). He also said when a couple marries and has kids together, this creates more problems for the already existing kids. He thinks that when a person without kids from a previous relationship marries someone who has kids from a previous relationship, it is FAR better to not have kids together; instead, they should just focus on raising the already existing kids.

 

So Steve and Jane marry and Jane had kids from her first marriage. Steve and Jane should NOT have biological children of their own. They should focus on raising Jane's kids.

 

He is fairly involved with family courts in our county, so he's seen quite a lot.

 

I know a number of blended families and families with prior kids who marry and have bio kids together. There have been many problems in these families. The problems are pretty much always that the step or half-siblings don't get along, or the kids feel one parent favors another kid, or ex-spouses create trouble, etc. They're not terrible situations (okay, some of them actually are pretty terrible), but they have more than their share of strife.

 

Off the top of my head, I can think of only 2 families where the married couple chose to not have kids together. The husband in both cases decided to devote himself to parenting the already existing kids. These families had none of the problems that the other families had.

 

I had never considered our friend's point of view. I just never put those factors together.

 

What have you experienced and seen? Do you think his pov is accurate?

 

Dr. Laura thinks that people who have children and get divorced should stay single until their children are grown up. She recommends moving in with the grandparents, if possible. She says that the majority of her phone calls are from people who remarried, and the step parent doesn't treat the spouses children well, and if there are children with the new spouse, those children take precedence over the other children. IOW, she does not say that if people divorce and remarry that they should not have children together; she thinks people should stay single and raise their children. Yes, she recognizes the fact that this is difficult, but she says it's better for the children.

[ChocolateReignRemix]

Dr. Laura thinks that people who have children and get divorced should stay single until their children are grown up. She recommends moving in with the grandparents, if possible. She says that the majority of her phone calls are from people who remarried, and the step parent doesn't treat the spouses children well, and if there are children with the new spouse, those children take precedence over the other children. IOW, she does not say that if people divorce and remarry that they should not have children together; she thinks people should stay single and raise their children. Yes, she recognizes the fact that this is difficult, but she says it's better for the children.

 

She also called homosexuals "a biological mistake" and has spread a fair amount of other nonsense over her career.  Not sure I would take anything she says as fact.

[Tsuga]

Sorry, by gross I meant messy and painful and challenging. I can’t look at this topic dispassionately, it just sucks. I wasn’t talking about the remarriage and kids as gross, but the pain of living through it and not being the adult making the choice.

 

Thank you for the clarification. I appreciate it. I think that "gross" is a very visceral adjective and is bound to offend, but I understand what you mean now.

 

As a child of a single parent, the other parent of whom left leaving her no choice, I assure you that when one biological parent leaves, the outcome is always extremely difficult. Poverty, pain, isolation, shame: knowing that at least one person of your parentage abandoned you. The outcome is always going to be worse than if you knew that both your parents were honorable, competent, intelligent, mentally well people.

 

We lived in dire poverty. College was 100% us. Etc. Single mom, you know the drill. Would that have been worse had she remarried? Maybe. It wouldn't have killed us to have observed a single functioning adult male-female relationship though.

 

 

 

Dr. Laura thinks that people who have children and get divorced should stay single until their children are grown up. 

^ Ellie

 

When I got divorced, her guidance was minimum one year before meeting the kids, and one year before lifetime commitment.

 

As the child of a single parent, I knew that I wasn't going that route unless I could not find a partner. Nothing is more determinant of a child's future than economics. Nothing. Particularly in our society, in which poverty is so destructive that it's connected with exponential rises in propensity to go to jail, years off your life, in which your zip code can be associated to a tenfold increase in infant mortality and drug use, no way was I going to go single-income.

[Rosie_0801]

She also called homosexuals "a biological mistake" and has spread a fair amount of other nonsense over her career.  Not sure I would take anything she says as fact.

 

Unless the courts are taking advice from her, her opinions haven't much practical value.

[ChocolateReignRemix]

Unless the courts are taking advice from her, her opinions haven't much practical value.

 

At one time in the late 90s it would not have surprised me.

[Zinnia]

I'm sorry, but this just makes it worse. Adoptive families and non-adoptive families both have difficulties, because all families do. No one who is not inside the family can discern what is going on, and to say to yourself that they are having adoption related issues -- it's just judgmental.

 

 

But I *do* have friends (more than one) that say, "wow, adoption is so hard. I have trouble bonding to my adopted kids in the same way I did to my bio kids. It's a lot more work to get there."

 

When a friend is very upfront about their struggles (and these two friends are out there to everyone, this is not confidences), then it doesn't feel so judgy, but more....yeah, this sometimes happens

[scoutingmom]

Haven't read all the comments. I married my husband, who had custody of his 3 kids (2 were teens). We have had 4 kids since. Yes, we have had issues. There were issues before we had "ours". We have worked through them. I can not imagine not having our 4 kids to try to avoid extra issues.

 

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[Ausmumof3]

I had to do that! It is standard procedure for the Family Court to mandate a post-separation parenting course here.

I feel like I am kind of lucky, but I didn't know that. Was it helpful? Or is that just a dumb question? I guess in some scenarios the best parenting skills in the world can't fix stuff.