Welcome to the Fam!

Well, you decided to become a parent. You'll find it’s a whole new kind of love. You don’t marry someone to make them the successor of your empire. Well I guess some folk do. But most likely you decided to have kids because you want to share and watch your love grow, to create new lives out of that love you believe is more special than anything else in the world.

There are other reasons for people becoming parents, but we won’t address that here in this article. That may come later. But with that said, there’s never a real clean and easy process to becoming a parent. I mean, you have in your head what you see, what you hear about, what you want, but not what it really will be. Allow me to share a bit about how I became a parent.

I remember growing up and listening to girls talk about becoming a mommy. Okay, so I do recall planning my fairy princess wedding with horse and carriage and doves to fly from the bell tower. But I don’t think I ever gave much thought to having children. I dated very few guys in my late teens/early twenties but only one I felt in my heart I was going to marry… and no children were in those plans.

Funny thing is, with the other guys, I figured if I had to get married to them, then I would have children with them. Hmmm… talk about other reasons for becoming a parent.

When my husband and I first fell in love we were in our early twenties and not quite ready for marriage. Fact was, I was scared to death of that kind of commitment whereas he was willing to work toward that goal. So after a hot-n-passionate summer and fall romance, I decided to return toGeorgiato complete my degree leaving behind one heck of a great guy. So much of a great guy he would never leave my head or heart again.

Now, I would speak to this man once in a blue moon after that day I left, but we had moved on and started new lives. I still felt strongly about marrying this man, but I imagined if we were to do so, we were going to be about 55 years old, divorced with grown children. I never imagined having a family with him, as I wanted to be able to make up our time apart without the complexities children bring.

13 years later, he and I confessed how much we loved and missed one another. We had already started families, though we were very unhappy with how our lives had turned out and sadly, already making moves to exit our current relationships. But we decided to accelerate our separation program and begin anew with each other! True love conquers all!!

What’s that you say? Pie in the sky? Cotton-candy colored glasses? Fat chance, Bub?! Did I hear laughter?

Have a little faith, will ya? There is such a thing as happy endings. I mean, most fairy tales start off rather messy and painful, right?

Well, let me fast forward. We now have four children between the two of us: my teenage son, his elementary school daughter, our pre-k son and our infant daughter. That equals out to two step children, two sets of half siblings, one set of full siblings, one set of step-siblings, one step-mother, one step-father, two ex-s (actually three but let’s not get that deep), and a host of grandparents, cousins, aunts and uncles. Oh, and let me just add, for good measure, one more half-sibling for my son on his father’s side. All and all, we are what you would call, a traditional Blended Family.

It’s as much of a challenge as it reads and we are by far, perfect parents to these attractive, talented and intelligent children. There is no happy ending here. Its more a day-to-day kind of will-for-happiness. It’s a life that requires a lot of love, patience, wisdom, compassion and humor. Becoming a parent/step-parent/adoptive parent is a feat in itself. Learning to be one only comes AFTER the kid(s) get here. Then in which there are many separate accomplishments to follow.

Each child is different therefore, each lesson is different. But once you’ve created this group of individual personalities with compatible or combative traits, you’ve got to take responsibility for the lives you are shaping. So remember to be proud of what you contribute to the well-being and uniqueness of your family. Know that your love has indeed, created something beautiful to share with the world, but much like fire forging iron, its work.

My husband and I are the perfect/imperfect parents to our perfect/imperfect children. We do what we can to put the pieces together and allow ourselves to grow with each turn to be better parents… and people. Its what we call, Family.