Home | Feature | COMPLEXITIES OF BLENDED FAMILIES

COMPLEXITIES OF BLENDED FAMILIES

17/08/2019 23:36:00 BY Mpumi Dlamini

Font size:

In my opinion, we are not visiting this subject and giving this area the attention that it needs. We have never even had conferences in churches or anywhere that are geared to addressing and talking to single parenthood and the blended families.

I’m referring to the platforms that will purposely and solely address the dire emotional issues and how to navigate in this area that requires unending sacrificial love. And I believe for people who were never raised in a blended family and those who have never experienced the challenges and the joy that comes with shouldn’t be given a mic.

We are tired of people who do not speak from a well of experience, but who speak from a religious point of view lacking the necessary experience to back up their standpoints.

The intricacies of being a man or a woman is in the full expression of taking care of those that you have been entrusted with whether they are your biological offspring or not. In our quest for love again, we are confronted by the issues of perhaps loving someone who has children and committing to loving this person and their children unconditionally.

Since we can never expect that the person will respond to us without the knowledge of the responsibility that they or we have.
There are many single parented households in today’s society.
However, it seems in the ideal criterion of choosing a partner for life this becomes a platform of expectations.

EXPECTATIONS OF LOVE

Consequently most people who have children shift their expectations of love to mostly those who also have children.
However, there are men who even when they have their own children still expect to be married or to partner with someone who has no children. I don’t know whether this is cultural expectation in our society or not.

Today’s article talks to the issue of blended families, how we are expected to navigate these natural adoptive ways.
However, there is no way we can understand the adoptive nature of God if we don’t acknowledge that we are also adopted. God will always demonstrate his love, so he cannot expect us to do something he hasn’t already done himself. The full expression of love is when we can love like he does. Men of dominion, influence and power are not merely male in physical appearance but are those whose character resembles Christ.

Men, who can truly adopt, love, accept and raise children who are not their biological offspring. Men who are keepers whose desire is to nurture and eat the fruit of the tree they have been tendering. I personally believe that a man who can love, raise children that are not his biological offspring emulates the love of God.

ACCEPT YOUR POSITION
It is an honourable thing to know and accept your position as a man in society, but if you recognise that as a man your acts of love towards fruits that fell from another tree are genuine and your desire is to instill, build, raise and protect even those fruits then you will be demonstrating God’s love.

I believe men who understand their mandate in society also understand that their responsibility extends beyond blood. It is men like that who can adopt and raise offspring that isn’t theirs. I believe it is also a walk with God who adopts that can literally shape a man’s understanding of how to navigate this character of extending love beyond fruits that fell from another tree.

The biggest challenge in today’s society is perhaps our stereotypical view of what we refer to as an ideal household, and that perception of what we call ideal promotes a limited character in men.
Because we basically do not advocate for blended families, it’s as if we are saying it should be a situation that compels someone to have a blended family.
And that perception is perhaps a cultural aspect of our society. But it limits men’s capability of extending his arms around to even those that not his.

We are a society that limits that character in men by idolising an ideal image of a household that is headed by a man and a woman who only have their biological children together, and we are silently saying it is not wise for a man to marry a woman who has her own children and head that household becoming a blended family.

Elders back at home will probably call her names if not to ask the man if there were no ‘virgin’ women he could marry even if the man himself had children of his own.

It is also unfortunate that sometimes the same perception creeps into the body of Christ. That expectation of this ideal family even in the body of Christ excludes and limits God’s unconditional grace over his daughters and sons who have children. What we call ideal limits the development of a character in Christ that men are naturally supposed to have.

It’s not supposed to be a fearful thing to have a blended family especially if you are in Christ, being a man, is being a man.
There is a very thin line between religion and judgment, and when we don’t understand the grace and love of God, we will always fall straight to judgment, judging people who are divorced, judging people who have children out of wedlock and think that their sins are bigger and they don’t deserve grace.
Yet judgment itself is outside the love of God, and in God’s will there is no law but love.
Otherwise what we call ideal and what we idolise and accept, God could be frowning at it because it is not his ideal. What is his ideal is what is in his will. It is also because we ourselves are a blended family in Christ, adopted yet loved unconditionally.

.