Describe Your Ulitmate Mental Vacation and win an XM Satellite Radio!

Today’s Modern Family is giving away a brand new Sirius Sportster 5 XM Satellite Radio! All you have to do is read the Take a Mental Vacation to Avoid Stress post and then describe your ultimate mental vacation in the comments section of the post. The winner will be randomly chosen on April 1, 2010 at 8pm EST.

About the Sirius Sportster 5

Enjoy the best of XM Radio with over 130 channels, including commercial free music, plus sports, talk, comedy and more! Additional programming packages are also available to suit your needs.  There’s no better way to listen to radio than with a Sirius Sportster 5!

Vote for Today’s Modern Family on Babble

Today’s Modern Family has been nominated for a Top Mommy Blogger award on Babble, a online magazine that speaks to new parents ! We are so excited and we need your votes to win. Please click here to vote for Today’s Modern Family.

We truly appreciate your support!

The Today’s Modern Family Team

Sneak Peak: Upcoming Exciting Articles

BFSO readers, I wanted to share a bit of good news with you about some upcoming, very exciting new articles that I will be writing.  As a writer, I am very excited to tell you that I will soon be doing my first of two interviews for the BFSO.  I thought I would give you a quick sneak peak .

My first interview will be with a young father who recently came to terms with being bi-sexual.  I happen to know this young man very well and he is a fabulous father to two young children.  He is also a college student.  These two pressures alone are enough to break a person but through it all, he was couraegous enough to be honest with himself and his friends about his sexuality.   Be on the look-out for this article BFSO readers!  It’s sure to be thought provoking.

My second interview will be with a young 20 something litigation attorney who is a wife and step-mom of a 12 year old.  6 years ago, her husband’s ex-wife showed up at their door with the child and said “Here you go, he’s yours” and handed off the child.  She immediately became a full-time mom.  This interview will be very enlightening to all of you step-moms and bio moms who may have experienced a similar situation but it will be extremely informative.  

Lastly, we will have another fabulous attorney who will be writing an article on Step-Parent Adoption.  This will be very helpful to all you readers who may be thinking about allowing your spouse to adopt your child.  I can’t wait for this article!

Well, BFSO readers, this is my sneak peak at some great articles coming your way in the next few months. 

Happy Holidays!
Di

BFSO Won an Awesome Girl Blog Award!

One of my favorite stepchicks, Erin, from the Erin Experiment and from the Stepfamily Letter Project just awarded BFSO with an Awesome Girl Blog Award! We were so honored and flattered by this award and the way the beautiful Erin described us. She said we were like Stepchicks meets the View, except with much better attitude and hair! We love it!

Now it’s our duty and privelege to pass the award on to a few of our favorite beautiful, spunky, sassy, blog lady favorites. Here we go…

1. Wednesday Martin is one of our favorite beautiful, spunky, sassy stepmoms. As the author of Stepmonster: A new look at why stepmothers think, feel, and act the way they do, she gives you permission to breathe and not feel guilty about certain “evil” feelings that most, if not all (they just don’t want to admit it) feel from time to time. As a matter of fact, she advocates for more understanding and sympathy of the stepmother; encouraging, experts, ex-wives, stepchildren, divorced dads and society as a whole, to take the stepmother’s feelings into consideration when trying to navigate through this maze we call a stepfamily. We love Wednesday!
2. The ladies of The Stepfamily Letter Project, which just happens to be Erin, from the Erin Experiment and Jacquelyn Fletcher, from Becoming a Stepmom, are some more of our favorite blog chicks. The Stepfamily Letter Project is a blog that allows you to anonymously post your feelings regarding anything in your stepfamily; be it joyous, angry, sad or “evil.”  We encourage all of our readers and clients to visit their blog and release some tension. If you feel you can’t go directly to that individual, but still need to get it all out, visit The Stepfamily Letter Project to get it off your chest. Trust me, you will feel much better after doing so.
3. Peggy Nolan of the Stepmom’s Toolbox is another one of our fab favs! I love the way that Peggy focuses on holistic stepfamily care. From stepmom self-care to learning how to forgive to fashion, The Stepmom’s Toolbox is great place for helpful information.
4. Last, but certainly not least, are the ladies of Spicy Wifey! We love this blog because it allows us to focus on what’s important - OUR MARRIAGES! Too often, we choose to focus on the drama in our stepfamilies; the ex-wife, the stepchildren, the conflict…instead of focusing on building a strong foundation for our families through marriage. We forget to increase that spice factor in our marriages and ourselves, as wives. Spicy Wifey teaches and reminds us to keep it HOT!

So there you have it, some of our favorite spicy, spunky, sassy, and beautiful blog chicks! We have more, but I’d be typing forever. Erin, thanks again for the award and for being one of the stepchicks who inspires us!

Kela, Diane, and Julia

Share good news about your stepfamily

It’s no secret that stepfamilies can be extremely challenging, but they can be successful if the family focuses on building their family. This may be hard to believe because all that seems to be discussed in articles, on blogs, books, etc. is the bad stuff that stepfamilies can’t seem to get past; be it an intrusive ex-wife, a husband who doesn’t understand and support his wife or kids that don’t like and/or respect you. BUT, you can get past those things and your stepfamily, including your children, will benefit as a result.

I’ve mentioned the ladies over at the Stepfamily Letter Project in a couple of posts. It’s a site where stepfamily members can relieve stress by getting things off their chests, anonymously. It’s a good way to vent and blow off some steam before approaching the problem a bit more diplomatically. I think it’s very useful and beneficial and I always encourage my readers and clients to relieve their frustration by speaking their mind in this manner. If you keep it bottled in, you will eventually EXPLODE and that isn’t good for anyone.

That being said, I think it’s equally important that we begin to share what’s going right in our stepfamilies to give other stepfamilies hope for the future. Sure, we’ve probably all been where disgruntled stepfamilies are, but for those of us who happened to, with hardwork, dedication, love and understanding, emerge successfully need to share that good news with everyone.

I’ll start: I’ve made it no secret that the start of my marriage was shaky because my husband and I focused on all the wrong things. We worked tirelessly to try and build a great relationship with his ex-wife because we wanted my bonus son to feel like all was not lost and that we could all be one big happy family. In the process, however, we neglected our marriage and we certainly weren’t one big happy family. As a matter of fact, the ONLY person that was happy was his ex-wife because we catered to her needs. Even my stepson wasn’t happy! Instead of my husband discussing matters that were pertinent to our household with each other, he was discussing them with his ex-wife and I was just forced to do what was convenient for them, but not at all convenient for me. He was trying to prove to her that he could still be a good father by being a great partner to her and offering her support, but he was not a good husband to me and offered me none [support]. But, after many arguments, communication, counseling, love and understanding we began to realize the importance of working on our marriage and family. We made US a priority and as a result, built a marriage and stepfamily that cannot be broken.

For starters, my husband and I are now that disgustingly madly in love couple that still hold hands during car rides; call each other cute little pet names like baby, honey and angel; and can’t keep our hands off each other. He is truly the love of my life and is an EXCELLENT, supportive, loving, understanding husband and father.

Another benefit of my husband and I putting our marriage and family first is how well my son has adjusted. He is an amazingly compassionate, intelligent, strong, wise young man. Navigating through our blended family has taught him to be understanding, forgiving, loving and accepting. He is also excellent with communicating  his feelings, thoughts and beliefs with us. His teachers rave about him being a leader and the peacemaker in class, not to mention that he is a straight A student! Because all of his parents, including my ex and his wife, have worked hard to maintain our separate households while still attempting to work together, our son doesn’t feel like he’s missing out on anything. As a matter of fact, he has NEVER had a desire for his parents to be back together again. He has often expressed that he likes his family just the way it is.

Although my bonus son hasn’t adjusted as well, due to the fact that his mother won’t allow him to see us, the foundation that we built still stays with him. During our phone conversations, he has often expressed that he misses us and wants to come home. As a matter of fact, when he was 9 he told his mother that when he turned 10 he was going to live with us. Additionally, he has often told me [his evil stepmother] how much he misses me and my 200,000 questions that I always ask him. Side note: I always asked him about his friends at school, what he did at recess, his favorite foods that his stepfather cooked for him, if he liked girls, yet… I always thought I got on his nerves when I did that, but it turns out that’s one of the things he actually misses about me.

Overall, my husband and I have built a strong marriage and family for our children and as a result, our children have been able to witness a healthy marriage and develop skills that are and will continue to be beneficial to them in the future. More importantly, we’ve given them a sense of family that they will not forget and can continue to rely on.

See, there are many positive stepfamilies out there, even if the ex-wife is intrusive and destructive. You just have to make a firm commitment to each other, as husband and wife, and as a family. Work on building your marriage and strong relationships within your immediately family first. If you do so, you can build a strong stepfamily and that’s certainly good news.

What about you? BFSO wants to start a Good News Stepfamily Project. We want you readers to start spreading the good news about your stepfamily. Maybe you too have gotten through the many obstacles that stepfamilies face and are now a strong stepfamily unit. If so, we need to start spreading this message of hope. It is true that many of us face battles with the exes, challenges with our stepchildren and even our spouses, initially, but it is possible to get past all that. If you have indeed gotten past it, we want to hear your good news. You can either leave a comment following this post and/or send your good news to goodnews@blendedfamilysoapopera.com. We’ll post all of your good news comments and emails in the good news section of our site so that everyone can see and understand that it is possible to jump those hurdles and create and maintain a healthy stepfamily.

BFSO talks with Dr. Wednesday Martin, author of “Stepmonster”

BFSO recently had the opportunity to interview Dr. Wednesday Martin, author of Stepmonster: A New Look at Why Real Stepmothers Think, Act and Feel the Way They Do. Wednesday’s insight to stepmothering is literally like a great massage because it’s as if she’s massaging the tension right out of your shoulders when she suggests that it’s completely okay to put your marriage first. She says that stepmothers don’t have to bear all the responsibility for “fixing” something that we didn’t break in the first place. Additionally, she suggests that we drop the term current, second and new wife and adopt our rightful title of WIFE. I learned so much from Dr. Wednesday Martin and I’m so excited to share her insight with you! Check out the interview below.

BFSO: I LOVE the fact that you suggest that it’s okay to consider the stepmother and her feelings as experts explore the ups and downs of the stepfamily. Often times they only want to explore how the kids feel, how the husband feels or even how the ex-wife feels. In my opinion, it’s no surprise that stepmothers feel resentful and monsterish at times.  Why did you write this book?

Dr. Martin: I had a hard time adjusting to being in a relationship with a man with children–in spite of seeking out therapy, articles and books. Many of the books in particular disappointed me. They seemed unrealistic and they weren’t about MY reality at all. I found myself desperately seeking a book that looked at women with stepkids as people, rather than reducing us to the role of replacement parent or spouse supporter. I also wanted a book that told it like it IS, rather than lecturing to me about how I SHOULD act and feel and be. So often I would be searching for a book for women with stepkids, find one, and read it, only to discover that it was almost entirely about the stepkids and their feelings. That’s an important thing to understand, of course, but stepmothers need to see their own points of view validated, particularly since most experts agree that stepmothers have the toughest adjustment process of anyone in the stepfamily. Too often, focusing on how it is for the kids has become an exclusive focus, and has precluded our asking how it is for the stepmother. Finally, I didn’t want a bunch of reductive “recipes for success” or cookie-cutter “solutions.” I wanted a deep, comprehensive consideration of stepmothering–across cultures, across the ages, in literature, and so on. Stepmothering was such a rich, fascinating topic, and I wanted to do justice to not just the emotional aspects, but also the historical, literary, economic, legal, and social ones.

 BFSO: Why do you think society thinks it is SO wrong for a stepmother to want her feelings, needs and even wants considered in the stepfamily? Isn’t this encouraging women to put themselves last - as we often do? 

Dr. Martin: I think you’re right that part of the problem here is that we don’t want women to buck the tradition of always putting others first, of being self-abnegating, even. That would be profoundly threatening to the order of things, for lack of a better way of putting it. More specifically, our society is incredibly hypocritical about women with stepkids, for so many reasons that it took me three years of research and over 300 pages to lay it all out! But basically there is this double standard by which we suspect stepmothers of being wicked and selfish, yet expect them to be utterly selfless and loving to kids who are not their own, kids who are often hostile and rejecting for many years in spite of a stepmother’s best efforts and intentions. Owing to what we might call our cultural script, there are currently two ways we think of women with stepkids: they’re either selfish stepmothers or selfless stepmartyrs. Quite a limited menu! Recently it has occurred to me that one of the reasons people are so offended by the mere idea of anyone taking a serious look at stepmother reality, or by stepmothers asserting their basic right to be heard and considered, is that stepfamilies and especially stepmothers are presumed guilty. A lot of people presume that a stepmother is a homewrecker, in spite of the fact that, statistically, most of us are not. Starting from that presumption (”She ruined a marriage and a family”) people feel it’s unseemly for that woman to “complain” after “what she did.” Hence the angry backlash–and the insistence that she put someone else’s kids first.

  BFSO: Do you think history plays a vital role in the stepmonster being the uniquely female hybrid? How so?

Dr. Martin: Yes I do. There’s just no getting around the fact that our suspicion and dislike of women with stepchildren has a long tradition. It goes back to ancient Greece and Rome, at least. In ancient Rome, for example, lawmakers introduced legislation to prevent men who remarried from assuming political office. The thinking was that anyone who would do something so terrible to his children could not be trusted to make good decisions for his country. And don’t forget about the Euripedes character, Phaedra, who wanted to seduce her stepson. Part of the reason we have a hard time shaking our dislike and distrust of stepmothers is it’s so deeply ingrained–in the case of ancient Greece and Rome, for example, it’s woven into the origins of our western cultural tradition! Evolutionary psychologists Margo Wilson and Martin Daly theorize that we have to take motivation into account when we consider animosity toward stepmothers. Who benefits from it? For example, why are so many villains in the Brothers Grimm stories stepmothers when in the original oral tradition, they were murderous mothers? Daly and Wilson think it has to do with the social purposes of the storytellers, who were overwhelmingly likely to be women telling tales to their own children. They would have been aware of the likelihood of dying in childbirth or just plain dying at a relatively early age–it was common in that period, and the widowed husbands virtually always remarried– leaving their little listeners behind. So, the thinking goes, they crafted stories the moral of which was, “If I were to die and your father were to remarry, that would be a terrible thing for you.” This may explain why there are more stories of evil stepmothers than evil stepfathers. But the long and short of it is, we need to go beyond psychology alone to understand the root or roots of our distrust of stepmothers. Only by marshaling a number of other perspectives as well–sociobiology, literary theory, sociology, legal theory, and economics, for example–will we be able to crack that nut.

 BFSO: In your book you discuss the risk factors one might find in having a relationship with a partner that has a child.  In fact, you mention there that experts recommend delaying marriage to a partner whose child is between the ages of ten and sixteen.  Why do you think this plays a role in the the success or failure of a marriage? 

Dr. Martin: There’s a compelling body of research demonstrating that pre-adolescent and adolescent stepchildren not only initiate the majority of conflicts in stepfamilies, but that they also tend to polarize the couple over parenting. Basically they try and often succeed at “splitting the team” because, in a remarriage with children, the kids tend to have tremendous power. There is likely to be a history of permissive parenting post-divorce, making stepmom seem draconian and unreasonable in contrast to mom and dad. Plus the household is likely to be characterized by what experts call a percolator effect–with the mood of the household and the power emanating up from the kids, rather than “dripolating” down from the parents as it does in a healthy first family. These are common dynamics in stepfamilies. So is the fact that, as stepfamily researchers Marilyn Ihinger-Tallman and Kay Pasley have noted, “children in a remarriage with children have tremendous power to break up the marriage.” They can bring unkind sentiments from the other household into dad and stepmom’s home, “spy,” and otherwise create friction between households and between dad and stepmom (Let me be clear that I’m not demonizing the kids here–just pointing out the aspects of stepmother reality that are out there in the research and that we don’t often consider. Kids are actors, not just acted upon, in a remarriage with children). Now factor in a pre or adolescent stepchilld, whose developmental imperative is to individuate and reject the grownups, right at the moment that the woman with stepkids is feeling enormous pressure from her husband and society at large to ‘blend everyone together.” What you have is a recipe for tremendous stress on the couple! But it’s not impossible to overcome–I’m living proof of that. And I don’t think couples should necessary delay marriage until the kids are 16. That just wouldn’t work for a lot of us. We partner and then find–and fight–our way through it!

BFSO: You alluded to the fact of having problems with your husband’s ex-wife as well. Why do you think the ex and current wife seem to automatically start off on the wrong foot?

Dr. Martin: I prefer the term “wife” to “current wife” or “new wife.” It’s more accurate, and less loaded, I think. There’s a wife and an ex-wife (or a partner and an ex-partner). Period.  And in spite of all the recent hoopla in the popular culture–Ashton and Demi and Bruce and Bruce’s wife being chummy and together all the time, for example, and exes in highly cooperative and friendly relationships in the news, doing birthday parties and Christmas together and even doing rotating custody in the same house for the kids’ sake –what we know from the research (Hetherington again) is that less than a quarter of all divorced couples are able to do highly cooperative or even cooperative co-parenting. Most of them do parallel parenting, where they basically ignore each other as much as possible, or are in conflictual or even high-conflict situations with their exes. That’s because they don’t get along. And not getting along is the reason they got divorced in the first place. Regardless of who initiated the divorce (it’s usually the woman), the relationship between exes is not going to imp rove when someone remarries or repartners, that’s for sure! Add to this the fact that ex-wives are more involved and intrusive in their exes’ households than ex-husbands are; the fact that ex-wives experience more anger and resentment after a divorce than their ex-husband’s do and experience it for a longer period of time (Hetherington again); plus the fact that ex-husbands in many cases nurture fantasies of smooth sailing with their ex-wives and often do things to appease them such as helping out with household chores and home repairs, and having holidays there, long after the divorce and in some cases long after the remarriage, and you see not only why the ex and the wife start out on bad footing, but then tend to remain there. I think the recent cultural expectation that wives “should” reach out to ex-wives is unrealistic and unfair. Women married to men with kids don’t need one more responsibility dumped on them, and I invite them to decline the pressure to be chummy with the ex without any guilt if they want to. Civility is often an ambitious enough goal. Put your own adjustment and self-care first, rather than siphoning energy away from that to “fix” something that you didn’t break yourself.

 BFSO: What is the most valuable piece of advice you could give to all stepmothers or about-to-be stepmothers out there? 

Dr. Martin: Put your own happiness, your own mental health and your marriage or partnership first. Without guilt. If you’re miserable, and in the first years, according to James Bray and Patricia Papernow, you very likely will be, your marriage and the whole stepfamily system fall apart. Also, do yourself a favor and let go of the myth of the “blended” family. Stepfamilies very rarely “blend”–even the successful ones have lower levels of cohesion and closeness, but that comes along with higher levels of flexibility, tolerance, and respectful behaviors. Buying into the belief that you have to look, feel, and act just like a first family in order to be a successful family is hooey. It’s also a sure-fire way to stress out the couple. Finally, let go of the myth of the maternal stepmom. You don’t have to love them just like they’re your own and the overwhelming likelihood is that you will not. Just like our stepkids have a deep preference for their own kin (per studies by dozens of human behavioral ecologists that I discuss in my book), we love our own kids best. You don’t have to have maternal feelings for your stepkids for it to be a nice relationship. You’re not a bad woman, a bad person, or even a bad stepmother if you don’t love or even like your stepkids. You can even be very detached and still have a happy marriage/partnership and a relationship with his kids that works. “Good enough” is good enough!

BFSO: The stepmother is literally the most devalued member of the stepfamily. We encourage bio moms to take some “me” time, get away from the kids, consider your needs first sometimes…Yet when a stepmom is asking for the exact same thing, she’s a monster. What can we do to change the perception of stepmotherhood?

Dr. Martin: Lots of people call for more positive media images of stepmothers. But I don’t think that’s going to happen soon, because stepmothers are deliciously compelling and terrifying villains! What we really need, in my view, is lots more research, first of all. Studies of stepfather families outnumber studies of stepmother families by two to one! The less we find out about stepmothers, the less we know about them and the more we fill in the gaps with judgments and absurd expectations about how women with stepchildren “should” feel and act and be and what they “ought to” be able to accomplish. In my view, no one in this country should be able to practice family therapy without undertaking training and certification by a body such as the National Stepfamily Resource Center (that’s just one example). Getting bad advice from therapists who are unfamiliar with very real differences between first and subsequent families, and between first marriages and remarriages with children, is a very common problem, if my research and that of stepfamily experts including Coleman and Ganong, Elizabeth Church, and Linda Nielsen are any indication. With better research and more educated therapists, we can craft messages to educate the public and we can also offer true support–versus a lot of bias and “shoulds”–to women who marry men with children.

About Wednesday Martin

Wednesday Martin has worked as a writer and social researcher in New York City for almost two decades. She was a regular contributor to New York Post’s parenting and lifestyle pages for several years, and her work has appeared in a number of national magazines including Cosmopolitan, Glamour, and Fitness. Wednesday was also features editor at Woman’s World. She earned her doctrate in comparative literature from yale and taught cultural studies and literature at Yale, The New School and Baruch College. Martin, a stepmother for nine years, lives in New York City with her husband and their two sons. To learn more about Dr. Wednesday Martin and her new book, Stepmonster, please visit www.wednesdaymartin.com.

Release your inner Spicy Wifey - www.spicywifey.com!

Hi BFSO Wifeys! I wanted to introduce you all to a fabulous new company that is specifically designed to help you either spruce up your spice or get your spice back altogether - Spicy Wifey!

Spicy Wifey is an Atlanta-based company designed to inspire and encourage married women and single women aspiring to be married to add “spice & flavor” to their marriage. Their purpose is to revitalize the role of the wife, create more positive perceptions of married life, and improve the quality of marriage for women and men. Through their products, services, and forums for exchanging and obtaining information, Spicy Wifey strives to bridge the gap between the roles of traditional and modern wives, empowering women to invigorate themselves and their relationships.

In a society where our divorce rate is soaring and every 2 out of 3 remarriages fail, how refreshing is it for a company to cater to and emphasize the importance of married life? I encourage you all to find your inner spice by visiting Spicy Wifey to shop for their FABULOUS products. From break away thongs and spicy cookbooks, to their fashionable signature t-shirts and cotton nighties; Spicy Wifey offers products and services designed to make and keep your marriages hot and spicy!

So, take time to focus on your marriage by spicing it up with some hot and Spicy Wifey products. Visit their online boutique at  www.spicywifey.com to shop NOW!  You can also visit their blog for more tips and information on how to reinvent your love life at www.spicywifey.blogspot.com.

Subscribe to the BFSO feed!

Good news readers…you can now subscribe to our feed!! New articles and updates will be sent directly to your inbox once you subscribe to our feed. Subscribing is simple; just enter your email address in the box underneath the heading “eNews and Updates” and then click on subscribe.

BFSO is in Embrace Magazine

Check out the BFSO interview on pages 15 and 16 of Embrace Magazine at www.embracenews.com.

Reality TV Casting for families with teenagers!!

NOW CASTING dynamic families with teenagers for their own reality series!!!

 Have you been told your family is just like The Osbournes and you should have your own show?

 The producers of “Supernanny” and “The Real Housewives of New York” are looking to give one amazing family their own show! This documentary-style series will take a look at an American family and the issues that they face in their day-to-day lives including their relationships, challenges, laughter and tears that comes with being a family.

 We are currently looking for outgoing, opinionated and outspoken families with teenagers who are ready to step into the spotlight. Families of ALL types are welcome, but there must be at least a few teens living in the home.

 CONTACT the casting producer at tbarcinas@shedmediaus.com with your contact info, family photo, and a paragraph about why your family is entertaining enough to star in your own TV series.

 

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