Create your own recipe for a blended family

Close the family psychology book.

Turn off the TV sitcoms and movies.

Ignore the well-meant advice of friends and family.

If you're getting remarried, and if you've got kids, there is no one right recipe for the blended family you are about to create.

The facts are more than a bit discouraging. Most adults and most children will live in a step family sometime during their lives. Yet most remarriages end in divorce. And the most common problems contributing to these divorces have to do with the children involved.

I don't think children are the real problem for these families. The problem is that we too often try to pour the collection of parents, stepparents, children, and stepchildren (as well as various grandparents, uncles and aunts, assorted cousins, and step-this and -that) who make up a blended family into a relational mold that is unexamined, unrealistic, if not unreal.

Unexamined? Most of us grew up in a family and observed the families, relatives, etc. We assume, then, that our new blended family ought to just naturally fit what we grew up with. It's not something we think about, we just "know" it.

Unrealistic? Just because we want our new family to be a certain way doesn't mean it will - or even can - be. The family composed of two parents and their shared biological children will have certain unique dynamics all its own. These are grounded in both biology and a lifetime together. These dynamics are not going to be replicated in a blended family. A blended family brings together two unique families to create a third, just as unique - a new family that must have a dynamic all its own.

Unreal? The "normal" family so many of us saw portrayed on TV or in the movies never existed for a majority of Americans. Throughout history there have always been a wide variety of family combinations and types. There has never really been one "normal" way of being family.

So what do we do?

Creating a blended family is like cooking without a recipe (my grandmother called this "cooking by taste"). We try to get a sense of who each person is, what each person needs and wants, and what each person can give. Then we create our family accordingly.

Stepparents may not do much parenting. Older step children may relate to step parents more as friends than children. Stepsiblings may act like brothers and sisters, or perhaps just acquaintances or roommates. We don't have to call our stepmother "Mom." And blended families don't have to spend a lot of "family" time together.

You get the idea. Throw out the recipe. Forget how it looks. Just try to take care of everybody.

After all, that's what family is really supposed to be all about.

• Ken Potts' new book, "Mix, Don't Blend, A Guide to Dating, Engagement, and Remarriage with Children," will be available this spring.