Thank you, Donald Trump, for creating the chaotic environment that caused my husband and I to talk — really talk — about important issues. Thank you, Donald Trump, for making my marriage great again. After seven years of juggling the day-to-day responsibilities that come with raising a blended family, my husband and I had been running […]
I may not be her biological father, but I hope that one day she’ll see me as her dad. Her mother shares her address with me, her food with me, and her bed with me, but she still firmly refers to Angie as “my daughter.” She still refers to herself as a “single parent” and […]
If parenting is hard, step-parenting is water torture. In 1986, my husband—well, he wasn’t my husband yet—won the county spelling bee. I lost. His blue eyes and stellar spelling skills captivated me. We were 11. Later that year, I would write in my “Garfield” diary, Joni Edelman, Mrs. Joni Edelman, J. Edelman, 373 times—but who’s […]
No one prepares you for the onslaught of emotion that is tied to joining a family already in progress. My husband looked over at me, as I sat casually in the passenger seat. Our family of five cruised along to our new Friday night ritual—family date night—and said wistfully, “You know he realllllly loves you. […]
My husband and I both brought children from previous relationships to our marriage. So we’re often stuck with labels like “blended,” “non-traditional,” and “step family.” But none of those is accurate. A Saturday morning in our house is filled with a standard dose of workweek exhaustion paired with weekend elation and the rowdy rumblings of three […]
