Book Review: Blended Family Advice by Shirley Cress Dudley

Shirley, the author of Blended Family Advice: A step-by-step guide to help blended and step families become strong and successful, is not only a qualified psychologists specializing in marriage and family counseling – with two Masters degrees, one in family and marriage counseling and one in education – but also a wife and mother in a blended family. She’s lived through the experience. She knows first hand what it takes to blend members from two different families into a secure family group and she honestly and openly provides gems of wisdom from both her academic training and her blended family experience.

Reading through the book it is clear that her advice is good for traditional family units also which means she is not changing the rules. Instead, Shirley is helping blended families navigate the unfamiliar turbulence created when two groups of people, previously unknown to each other, move toward a desirable place: family.

The book is refreshing because Shirley doesn’t excuse poor family structure on the challenges of being a blended family. She makes it clear from the start that sound family structure can be maintained in spite of the difficulties. The challenges are different but not impossible to deal with and the solutions she provides enable blended families to achieve the same stability as traditional ones. She provides copious amounts of “how to” instructions for many different scenarios.

Shirley doesn’t waste time hand-slapping people who remarried after divorce. Instead she takes a “reality check” approach, encouraging couples to rise above imposed or assumed guilt and do the right thing for their present reality, their blended family.

The message is clear. When remarriage happens, whatever the reason – divorce or death, family dynamics may change but the basic needs don’t.

The family format she encourages isn’t new but the advice for achieving it in a blended situation is very practical – for example, how to manage blended family vacations, don’t take long ones too soon. Her advice is also illuminated well with illustrations and question and answers from families seeking help with their blended family problems. At the end of every chapter Shirley provides activities, questions and discussion points to encourage personal reflection and/or group interaction between couples, blended family members or other blended families. There is also space for notes.

At the end of the book Shirley provides four bonus sections:

• Blended Family Financial Planner
• Successful Blended Family Holiday Guide
• Special Report: House Hunting for the Blended Family
• Golden Rules for Grandparents in a Blended Family

Throughout she emphasizes ideas like balance and fairness, which are issues for both traditional and blended families. The problem is, fairness and balance issues in traditional families are often taken for granted and never discussed. Shirley’s book makes you realize that these sore spots in traditional families become gaping wounds in blended families and shouldn’t be dismissed so easily. Valuable life lessons can be learned from the experience whatever the family situation.

What you learn from the book:

• Patience is needed. It may take a year or more for step-relations to work comfortably.
• Different ages and unusual tastes – often a part of blended families – offer opportunities for the family to learn what it means to be giving and considerate.
• The sense of disloyalty can become an issue with kids trying to love and respect a biological parent and stepparent of the same gender at the same time.
• Whatever caused the breakup of the first marriage doesn’t have to define the family members. Rising above is possible. The blended family on both sides can be better with that approach.
• Kids live with but make no contribution to the decisions their parents make to divorce or remarry. Therefore, parents and stepparents must make a special effort to communicate with their kids, letting them know what has changed and what has not.
• Relationship boundaries and house rules are needed as much in blended families as in traditional families. Everyone’s needs should be considered and met and everyone should have responsibilities.
• How to view and handle issues we may consider small but are important to stepchildren, like personal space during weekend visits.
• Visitation involves more than weekend visits. Summer breaks, holidays and vacation schedules need special attention also since two homes are affected by these special times.
• Problems arising from non-traditional situations are still just problems and problem solving is a part of life. Blended families offer opportunities to learn in ways traditional families never could.
• Blending families doesn’t require new partners to neglect their marriage. In fact, it is imperative they keep their relationship central.

In the process of researching blended family issues Shirley came across many sites or forums on which participants used “code” to vent or communicate. She eventually figured out the meaning of the code and shared her findings in the chapter “Abbreviations.”

I wouldn’t say Shirley’s book covers every possible scenario but it would take more than one book to do that and in this book she has covered the basics well. She is also available to answer additional question not included in the book.