The wedding had been beautiful. Bode and Tolulope were married on a bright Saturday in December at their church in Magodo, with both their children in the bridal party. Bode’s thirteen-year-old daughter had worn a pale blue dress and carried the bride’s train. Tolulope’s nine-year-old son had walked ahead with the rings on a satin cushion, concentrating so hard that he forgot to smile. Everyone said how lovely it was to see the two families becoming one.
Three weeks later, on a Sunday afternoon in January, the new family had its first real crisis.
Tolulope had been quietly rearranging the house. It was Bode’s house, the one he had lived in with his late wife until she died of cancer four years earlier, and Tolulope was trying to make it feel like her home as well. That afternoon, while the girl was at a friend’s birthday party, she took down the large framed portrait of the first Mrs Bode that hung in the parlour. She wrapped it carefully in a wrapper and put it in the bottom drawer of the cabinet in the guest room. She thought it would be kinder to everyone. A fresh start.
When the girl came home and saw the bare wall, she stood in the doorway of the parlour for a long moment. Then she went straight to the guest room as if she had known all along where to look, pulled the drawer open and lifted out the portrait. She turned to Tolulope with her face wet and furious. “You are not my mother. You will never be my mother. This is her house.”
She slammed her bedroom door so hard that the louvres rattled.
Bode was mortified. He went to the door and told his daughter to come out and apologise immediately. “From today you will call her Mummy,” he said through the door, “and that is final.” Meanwhile Tolulope’s son had been watching all of it from the stairs. That night, as she tucked him in, he asked her in a small voice, “Mummy, do I have to call Uncle Bode Daddy now? And can I still go to my father’s house on Friday?”
PunchlineTolulope sat on the edge of his bed in the dark and wondered what they had done.
A home that begins with history
Every new marriage begins with two histories. A remarriage that brings children into one home begins with many. There are the histories of the adults, including a death or a divorce. There are the histories of the children, who have lived through losses they did not choose. There are the relationships that already exist: between each parent and his or her own children, between children and a parent who has died or who lives elsewhere, between children and grandparents, aunties and cousins from the first family.
None of these relationships disappears when a new marriage begins. A blended family is not a blank page. It is more like a house built on land where other buildings have stood, with foundations, roads and trees that must be taken into account.
Scripture does not pretend that such households are easy. Many of the families in Genesis were complicated. Abraham’s household held Sarah, Hagar and two sons by different mothers, and the tension between them ended in tears in the wilderness. Jacob’s household held four mothers and thirteen children, and one of its sorrows is recorded plainly:
Now Israel loved Joseph more than all his children, because he was the son of his old age: and he made him a coat of many colours. And when his brethren saw that their father loved him more than all his brethren, they hated him, and could not speak peaceably unto him.
Jacob had good reasons, he thought, for loving Joseph most. Joseph was Rachel’s son, the son of the wife he had loved, born when Jacob was old. But the coat of many colours told every other child in that household exactly where they stood. The brothers “could not speak peaceably unto him.” Their resentment grew until they sold their own brother into slavery.
The lesson is sobering. Favouritism in a blended household, even when it is understandable, can do terrible damage. And children notice everything: who gets the bigger portion, whose school play is attended, whose birthday is remembered, whose photograph hangs in the parlour.
But Scripture also shows us that God works in such households. He heard Hagar’s son crying under the shrub and provided for him. He carried Joseph through slavery and prison and used him to save his whole family. “God setteth the solitary in families” (Psalm 68:6). The God who made families is able to strengthen a family that has been built from broken pieces.
Clothed for living together
The most important passage in the New Testament on the Christian household begins long before it mentions husbands, wives or children. Paul writes to the Colossians, who were from different backgrounds and had been brought together in Christ, and he tells them first who they are and what they must wear.
“Put on therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, bowels of mercies, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, longsuffering” (Colossians 3:12). Notice the order. Before any instruction, Paul reminds them of their identity: chosen, holy and loved. A step-parent who feels rejected by a child needs to hear this. Your worth is not measured by whether a hurting thirteen-year-old accepts you this month. You are already chosen and beloved by God. You can afford to be patient because your identity is secure.
Then come the clothes. Bowels of mercies is an old phrase for deep compassion, the kind of feeling that moves you in the gut. Kindness. Humility. Meekness, which is strength held gently. Longsuffering, the ability to endure provocation for a long time without retaliating. Every one of these is needed in a blended home.
“Forbearing one another, and forgiving one another, if any man have a quarrel against any” (Colossians 3:13). Notice that Paul assumes there will be quarrels. That is realistic. A blended family will have many. Forbearance is the patience to put up with irritations. Forgiveness is the grace to release real wrongs. Both will be needed daily.
“And above all these things put on charity, which is the bond of perfectness” (Colossians 3:14). Love is the belt that holds all the other garments in place. In a blended family, love often has to begin as a decision long before it becomes a feeling. A step-parent may not feel natural affection for a child who is sullen and rude. Love here begins as faithful, patient goodwill: consistent kindness offered without demanding a return.
Then Paul says, “let the peace of God rule in your hearts” (Colossians 3:15). The Greek word brabeuō means to act as an umpire, the referee who decides the matter. When tempers rise in the kitchen and old wounds open, the peace of Christ is meant to be the referee in the heart of each believer, calling us back from the words we would regret.
Building the marriage at the centre
Paul then addresses husbands and wives: “Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as it is fit in the Lord” and “Husbands, love your wives, and be not bitter against them” (Colossians 3:18-19). Sincere Christians understand the shape of headship and submission in different ways. Some hold a complementarian view, others an egalitarian one. Within either understanding, Scripture’s picture is of servant leadership and mutual honour, with both spouses yielding to one another out of reverence for Christ.
In a blended family, the strength of the couple’s partnership matters enormously. Children who have already lived through one family breaking apart are often anxious, consciously or not, that it might happen again. A husband and wife who are visibly united, who treat each other with respect and who do not undermine each other in front of the children, give them a quiet security.
That means making decisions together and in private. When Bode announced through his daughter’s door that she would call Tolulope “Mummy,” he made a decision that the two of them had never discussed. It put Tolulope in an impossible position and made his daughter feel that her grief had been overruled. Major decisions about titles, rules, discipline, holidays and money are best agreed between the two adults first, then explained to the children together.
Notice also Paul’s word to husbands: “be not bitter against them.” In a blended family, bitterness can grow quickly in both directions. A husband may resent the time his wife gives to her son. A wife may resent the shrine to the first marriage that she feels she is living in. Unspoken resentment poisons a home. Couples need regular, honest conversations about how they are really doing, and they need to keep investing in their own relationship. Plan time together, even if it is only a walk round the estate in the evening or a quiet meal at a small buka once a month.
Each adult also brings his or her own unfinished history into the new marriage. Bode was still, in some ways, a grieving widower. Tolulope still carried the hurt and the guilt of a marriage that had ended in divorce. Neither of those histories is a reason for shame, but both need attention. A spouse who has not grieved a death may compare the new partner, silently, with the one who died. A spouse who has not healed from a divorce may react to an ordinary disagreement as though the old marriage were happening all over again. Honest conversation, prayer and sometimes counselling for the adults themselves can prevent old wounds from being carried into new rooms.
Money deserves a particular word. School fees, maintenance from a former spouse, a late wife’s estate, gifts from grandparents on one side only: all of these can quietly become sources of suspicion. Couples do well to be fully open with each other about their finances before and after the wedding, and to agree how each child’s needs will be met fairly. Children notice very quickly whose school shoes are replaced and whose are not.
At the same time, the marriage must not become a rival to the children. A child should never feel that he lost his mother or father when his parent remarried. The new spouse is joining the family, not replacing the bonds that already exist.
Children need time
Bode wanted his family to feel like a family by the end of the first month. That is a very common hope, and a very common mistake. Family counsellors who work with blended households often say that it takes several years, sometimes many, for a new family to settle into real belonging. Bonds that took a decade to form in a first family will not form in a few weeks in a second one.
When Jacob was travelling home with his large household, Esau offered to accompany him. Jacob declined, explaining that “the children are tender” and that if they were overdriven, harm would come. So he said, “I will lead on softly, according as the cattle that goeth before me and the children be able to endure” (Genesis 33:13-14). That is a wise rule for a blended home. Lead on softly. Go at the pace the children can bear.
James gives a related instruction that every step-parent should write somewhere visible:
Wherefore, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath.
“Swift to hear.” Children in blended families often have a great deal to say that no one has heard. A girl may be grieving her mother all over again because someone new now stands in her mother’s kitchen. A boy may be torn between loyalty to his father and liking his new stepfather, and feel that liking one is betraying the other. A teenager may be angry about losing his own bedroom, his position as the eldest, or his parent’s undivided attention. These feelings need to be heard, not argued away.
“Slow to speak.” Resist the urge to correct every complaint or to defend yourself immediately. When the girl shouted “You are not my mother,” the wisest reply would have been something like, “You are right. I am not your mother, and I never want to take her place. I am sorry I moved her picture without asking you.”
“Slow to wrath.” Children in this situation will sometimes test the new adult, deliberately or not, to find out whether he or she will stay. Anger at rudeness is understandable, but it often confirms the child’s fear that this new person is not safe.
Step-siblings need time as well. Two children who did not choose each other are suddenly expected to share a house, perhaps a bedroom, certainly the attention of the adults. Some will become close friends. Others will simply learn to live together politely, and that is enough. Do not force a friendship. Give each child some private space that is truly theirs, even if it is only a drawer or a shelf, and some time alone with his or her own parent. A boy who still has his mother to himself for an hour on Saturday morning is far more likely to welcome a new sister for the rest of the week.
Titles are a good example of where patience matters. A child should not be forced to call a step-parent “Mummy” or “Daddy.” Many families find a respectful middle way, such as “Aunty Tolu” or “Uncle Bode,” and allow a child to choose a more intimate name if and when it feels natural. When affection is demanded, it rarely grows. When it is allowed to grow, it often surprises everyone.
Honouring what came before
The deepest wound in that first crisis came from the portrait. Tolulope meant well. But to the girl, taking down her mother’s photograph felt like erasing her mother from the house, and from her own story.
Children in blended families carry attachments that must be respected. A child whose parent has died needs to be allowed to grieve and remember. Photographs, anniversaries, visits to the grave and conversations about the parent who has gone are not threats to the new family. They are part of the child’s life. A wise step-parent makes room for them and even helps to keep them.
A child whose parent lives elsewhere has an ongoing relationship that the new family must honour. Tolulope’s son still had a father in Ibadan who loved him. He needed to know that his weekends with his father would continue, and that he would not be punished, subtly or openly, for enjoying them.
The New Testament gives us the finest example of a man who received a child who was not his own by birth, and raised Him with honour:
Then Joseph being raised from sleep did as the angel of the Lord had bidden him, and took unto him his wife: And knew her not till she had brought forth her firstborn son: and he called his name JESUS.
Joseph “took unto him his wife,” and he named the child. In that culture, naming a child was a father’s act of acceptance and responsibility. Joseph protected Mary and the baby from Herod, took them into Egypt, brought them home to Nazareth and taught Jesus his trade. People in Nazareth called Jesus “the carpenter’s son” (Matthew 13:55).
Yet Joseph never pretended to be what he was not. When the twelve-year-old Jesus stayed behind in the temple, Mary found Him and said:
And when they saw him, they were amazed: and his mother said unto him, Son, why hast thou thus dealt with us? behold, thy father and I have sought thee sorrowing. And he said unto them, How is it that ye sought me? wist ye not that I must be about my Father’s business?
Mary spoke of Joseph as “thy father,” and Jesus did not correct her. He went home and was subject to them. But He also spoke of “my Father’s business,” gently pointing to a relationship that existed before and beyond Joseph. Of course this is unique. Jesus’ relationship with His heavenly Father is unlike any human situation. But the shape is instructive. Joseph’s role was real, honoured and lasting. It did not require the denial of another relationship.
A step-parent can be a true parent in care, provision and love without requiring a child to erase the mother or father who came first.
NuggetA blended family grows strong not by erasing what came before, but by honouring existing bonds while patiently building new ones.
Clear roles and fair discipline
Paul continues: “Children, obey your parents in all things: for this is well pleasing unto the Lord” and “Fathers, provoke not your children to anger, lest they be discouraged” (Colossians 3:20-21).
Discipline is one of the most difficult areas in a blended home. A step-parent who steps in too quickly as the enforcer of rules will often be resented. A child may think, or say aloud, “You can’t tell me what to do. You’re not my father.” Many counsellors advise that in the early years, the birth parent should take the lead in correcting his or her own children, with the step-parent supporting and gradually building the kind of relationship from which authority can grow. Think of how a respected teacher or a trusted aunt can correct a child effectively. Authority rests on relationship.
This does not mean the step-parent has no place. House rules should be agreed by the couple together and applied to all the children equally. The step-parent can and should enforce those agreed rules, especially when the birth parent is absent. What matters is that the children see the two adults as united, and that the rules are the household’s rules rather than one adult’s personal preferences.
Paul’s warning about provoking children is especially relevant. The word means to stir up, to irritate. Children can be provoked by harshness, but also by unfairness, by comparison, by being treated as outsiders in their own home. Remember Jacob’s coat. If one child’s room is newly painted and another’s is not, if one child’s achievements are celebrated and another’s ignored, if one child is always blamed for the quarrels, resentment will grow. Discouragement, the result Paul names, is a heavy thing for a child to carry.
Clear adult responsibility also means that adults deal with adult matters. Children should not be made to manage the feelings of their parents, to carry messages between households, or to choose sides between a step-parent and a birth parent. Those burdens belong to the grown-ups.
Peace with the wider circle
A blended family does not live in isolation. There is often a former spouse in the picture, along with grandparents, in-laws from the first marriage and relatives of a spouse who has died. Paul’s counsel to the Romans is a wise guide here:
Recompense to no man evil for evil. Provide things honest in the sight of all men. If it be possible, as much as lieth in you, live peaceably with all men.
“Recompense to no man evil for evil.” It can be very tempting, when a former spouse is difficult or unkind, to answer in the same way. But children suffer when adults fight. They are hurt when they hear their absent parent criticised. They are confused when their father’s family and their stepmother’s family are at war.
“Provide things honest in the sight of all men.” Keep agreements about visiting arrangements, school fees and holidays. Be on time for handovers. Speak truthfully and respectfully about the other household, even when you disagree with it.
“As much as lieth in you.” You cannot control your former spouse’s choices or your in-laws’ attitudes. You can control your own. Bode’s late wife’s sister had strong feelings about his remarriage and at first barely greeted Tolulope. Tolulope chose to visit her with Bode’s daughter, bring a gift at Christmas and invite her to the girl’s birthday. It took two years, but the coldness thawed. The girl watched all of it, and learnt that her new stepmother was not trying to cut her off from her mother’s family.
Safety and wisdom in a new household
There is one more matter that loving families must face honestly. When adults and children who are not related by birth begin to live together, sensible safeguarding becomes part of good care. This is not an accusation against anyone. It is wisdom that protects everyone.
Agree clear household boundaries about privacy: knocking before entering bedrooms, appropriate dress around the house, sleeping arrangements, and supervision when older and younger children are together. Be especially thoughtful when teenagers who are not related by birth suddenly share a home. Make it easy for children to speak to either parent about anything that makes them uncomfortable, and when a child raises a concern, listen carefully and take it seriously.
If a child ever discloses abuse or inappropriate behaviour by any adult or older child, believe the child enough to act. Protect the child first. Seek help from the appropriate authorities and qualified professionals. Never hide such things to preserve the appearance of a happy family. No marriage, however precious, is worth more than a child’s safety.
Finally, do not try to do all of this alone. A Christian counsellor with experience of blended families, a support group in your church or a couple who have walked this road before you can offer great help. Building a healthy blended family is slow, demanding work. It is also deeply rewarding, and God is very near to those who undertake it.
The night of the portrait, Tolulope did something that changed the direction of their home. She knocked softly on the girl’s door, and when there was no answer, she spoke through it. “I am sorry. I should not have moved your mother’s picture without asking you. It was wrong. I am not trying to take her place.”
PunchlineThe door stayed shut. But the next morning, before school, the girl came into the kitchen and said, without looking at her, “Can we put it back?”
They put it back together, though not in the parlour. The girl chose the wall at the top of the stairs, where she would pass it every day. Bode, after a long conversation with his wife, went to his daughter and told her she did not have to call Tolulope “Mummy.” She settled on “Aunty Tolu.” Tolulope’s son kept going to Ibadan on alternate weekends, and Bode made a point of asking him about his father when he came back.
It was nearly two years later, during a bad bout of malaria, that the girl woke in the night with a high fever and called out from her room. Tolulope went in with a basin of cool water and sat with her until dawn. Somewhere around four in the morning, half asleep, the girl murmured, “Thank you, Mummy Tolu.”
Neither of them mentioned it in the morning. But beside her mother’s portrait at the top of the stairs, there is now a second frame. It holds a photograph from that December wedding, with a girl in a pale blue dress carrying the train.
Teaching Companion
For Reflection
- What histories, losses and attachments does each member of your household carry into your family life?
- Which of the qualities Paul lists in Colossians 3:12-14 do you most need to put on in your blended home?
- Are there decisions you have made alone that should have been agreed with your spouse first?
- How can you be “swift to hear” one particular child this week?
- In what ways can your household honour a parent who has died or who lives elsewhere?
This Week
This week, sit down with your spouse and agree on three household rules that will apply equally to all the children, and on who will lead in correcting each child for now. Then spend one-to-one time with each child, asking a simple question such as, “What has been hardest for you since we became a new family?” Listen without correcting or defending yourself, and thank them for telling you. If any matter of safety or wellbeing arises, act on it promptly and seek appropriate help.
A Prayer
Father, You set the solitary in families, and You know every history that has come into our home. Clothe us with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness and patience. Help us to be swift to hear and slow to speak and slow to anger. Give my spouse and me unity, wisdom and tenderness toward every child in our care. Guard us from favouritism and from bitterness. Help us to honour what came before while we build what is new, and to lead on softly at the pace our children can bear. Keep every child in this home safe, known and loved. Let Your peace be the umpire in all our hearts. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
Truth received brings freedom. Truth believed establishes the heart.
Scripture quotations are from the King James Version. · Illustrations using first names only are composites unless stated otherwise.