What is a stepfamily? What makes a family anyway?

Certainly our friends who adopted two little girls would consider themselves a family. And it’s certainly not a matter being related by blood, since usually a family starts with two unrelated people deciding to join their lives together. It may even end there, but that would be considered a couple, rather than a family.

So I guess a family perpetuates itself, by going out and forming bonds of love with other generations. Tracing those generations back, you can see there are all sorts of variations in families. And perhaps Daddy wasn’t Daddy after all, but if no one acknowledges it, then they are still a family. So it would seem that the awareness of being a family what actually forms the family unit. Belief makes it so. Feelings are what make it so.

The bonds of love would seem to be much more important than the bonds of blood. By putting that word “step” in there, you trip people up. There becomes an obstacle to them actually being a family. Maybe we should just let the term “stepfamily” become obsolete and realize that families come in all different shapes and it’s love that makes a family.

Patricia Robin Woodruff is an artist, author, spouse and mother. She has a wonderful family she has created around her.