Most of the stuff in the various children and parenting files can be adapted for step-relationships by adding the word 'step' where it is appropriate. However, I have had several requests for poems and quotes specifically related to step-families--or blended families as they are sometimes called. Right now the file is small but I plan to add to it.
In many families now people do not make any distinction because step, half, etc. in relationships. For example, when people ask about my siblings I say that I have three sisters and five brothers although technically I have one full-brother, one half-brother, two half-sisters, and three brothers and one sister who started out as step and ended up being half (after I was adopted by my second step-father).
My wonderful Dad married my mother when I was 21. I had two previous bad examples of fathers (a biological one and a step one) but I knew right away that this was my "real" father. Several years later he officially adopted me. Over the years he has been the best father, grandfather, and great-grandfather that anyone could ever have.
(Nicholas Gordon)
I love you just as though you were my own,
Though you are not the children of my blood.
Love is not lodged within one's flesh and bone,
But in one's heart, which goes which way it would.
I married into you, as into wealth,
Or into some bright mansion, just by chance.
You were not why I came, nor what I felt
That made me give my life to this romance.
Yet once we were a family, out of need,
Love came bubbling up from some sweet spring,
Watering the newly planted seed
That it might in the will of sunlight sing.
So may we long remain through love and art:
Stepparent and stepchildren of the heart.
(author unknown)
When times were hard,
You were there,
When I was wrong,
You were fair.
When I was sad,
You'd comfort me,
When I was blind,
You made me see.
I never knew,
Just what I had,
So I'd treat you,
Really bad.
But you were there,
Through the end,
Through thick and thin,
You were my friend.
That's what they say Mothers do,
So when I say Mom,
I think of you.
(Carol Lynn Pearson)
I did not plant you, true.
But when the season is done,
When the alternative prayers for sun
and for rain are counted,
When the pain of weeding
And the pride of watching are through,
Then I will hold you high,
A shining sheaf above
the thousand seeds grown wild.
Not my planting,
But, by heaven,
My harvest--
My child.
(author unknown)
I didn't give you the gift of life,
But in my heart I know.
The love I feel is deep and real,
As if it had been so.
For us to have each other
Is like a dream come true!
No, I didn't give you
The gift of life,
Life gave me the gift of you.