There’s no one “right” way to do this.

💬 Send us a text! (Yes really!)There's no set standard for blended families — stepfamilies are very different from each other due to hugely varying factors like visitation schedules, the kids’ ages, how many kids, whether both partners have kids, how the in-laws handle the new partner, how the ex factors in, etc.⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀Step 1 in blending a family is for you and your partner to work on relaxing your definitions about how you believe blended family life "should" look... including what a stepparent's role "should" be. We mistakenly base our goal for stepfamily life on traditional family dynamics, when those dynamics don't apply to most blended families.⠀⠀What works for you might not work for the next parent/stepparent, and your blended family life might look nothing like the life of another blended family. And that’s okay! We’re all trailblazers here.⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀Don’t fall into the trap of comparing yourself to other stepparents or parents or blended families... and especially don’t compare yourself to a traditional family.Instead, try to embrace the chaotic awesomeness that's your life now and know that messy is normal in a stepfamily. And honestly, messy can be pretty fun once you learn to go with it.⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀-- 🧡 Need a bigger pep talk? Start here or join us over on Substack! xo This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit blendedfamilyfrappe.substack.com