Family Changes

I tend to write these columns about stories in the media or Big Parenting Issues of the day, and relate them to our everyday lives, while attempting so say something brilliant, useful and witty as I go along.
 
Occasionally I succeed at one of these. But this week I feel like writing something more personal, and what that experience has taught me, and made me understand, about family life.
 
 
My 23-year marriage ended a year ago
 
In the same year, my eldest daughter left home to go to University. One of these alone would be enough to shake most families up quite a lot; but the two together came a huge earthquake ripping through everything we knew our family to be, and it’s meant a huge adjustment for us all; practically, and emotionally.
 
What was a very solid, secure family of 5 has very suddenly become a family of 4 at times, and mostly just a family of 3, with one or other parent being present at any time. It is not the family structure I had ever imagined I would have. Nor is it the family structure I dreamed of as a child, or was raised through books and films and general social ‘acceptance’ to be Normal, or… Good.
 
For this reason, when the spilt happened and our daughter left home, and we were left splintered, sad, confused and trying to find our feet in this new, unfamiliar set-up, I found it extremely hard to deal with. Daughter aside (children leave home – that’s expected!) I felt guilty about what had happened to my marriage, from the point of view of my children. I felt sad that it had happened, for myself and for them. I felt like a failure. I felt embarrassed, ashamed, mournful and devastated.
 
I was one of those people, whose marriages hadn’t worked
 
The language we use for families where parents have split up doesn’t help; we talk of broken families, split families, dysfunctional families and so on. Even broken homes, as if the entire structure within which a family lives has been decimated and destroyed. But it’s the structure my family now has. And it’s one that has taught me a lot about acceptance of change, and of difference.
 
I’m often struck by how much we still talk about and focus on the ‘perfect’ nuclear family, and how our image of a ‘family’ is still exactly that. Two parents, 2.4 children, and a golden retriever.
But almost all evidence and statistics now show that few families actually ARE like that any more.
 
More and more families have a non-traditional set-up now, with cohabiting multigenerational families (often due to the financial constraints of modern life), second marriages, half brothers and sisters and single parenting being extremely common – and working very well. The sugar-coated, Fairy Tale ideal of Mummy and Daddy living in blissful harmony for 60 years, is possible for some. And I wish it were possible for everyone! But sometimes it doesn’t work out that way.
 
Sometimes a new way has to be worked out, and a new happiness found.
 
Parenting is about adapting
 
I am slowly finding that happiness, as the dust from the break-up settles, our eldest comes home from her first term at University, and our new life becomes just… our life. So now, far from seeing this shattering of my family form as a monumental disaster, I can now see it as a change, and that a change can be good. We have all adapted, and are now falling more happily into our news roles and the new set-up.
 
And that’s the GREAT thing I’ve learned about families – we can adapt. We are flexible and malleable. And sometimes we have to be.
 
Parenting is about adapting constantly to daily changes… even hourly changes! What was all arranged at 8am can go right out of the window by 8:10am, as one child suddenly throws up, school is closed, a work meeting crops up that was never expected, you can’t find your house keys and so on and on.
 
We are constantly re-arranging, juggling and adapting to whatever family life throws at us next!
And key to surviving it, is SUPPORT. For as long as we have friends, support and a social structure in place to help each other out when we need it most, we can survive anything.
Nobody can manage everything that life throws at them. It’s physically impossible.
 
With a little help from my friends
 
In the Old Days we would live in a tiny village within 100m of our aunts, grandparents and close family friends, and people would babysit and help out generally with things, all the time. Nowadays, many of us live far away from our immediate family network, so we have to call on other channels for help. Just a cup of tea and a TALK can make the difference between a good day and a terrible one.
 
Today I’m babysitting for my friend whose first child is 10 months old, and whose partner left her to look after him. This was not her dream either. She is managing brilliantly, but desperately wants to go for a run to let off some steam, breathe, and get fit. Who wouldn’t?! So I’m going to help her out, play with her son for an hour, and enable her to have a little break. A break that will keep her sanity, and make her feel much better!
 
It’s these little things that can make the transitions we all face in our lives easier to bear. Family life is never easy. We can’t predict what will come our way, or which hurdles we will have to cross. But we can get through it, and we are all the stronger for it – in whatever shape or form our family takes.