Are you a single parent like yours truly? Do you live on a barge like this one behind me? Or have you, like me, had two pairs of sunglasses snapped in half by your child since this photo was taken and want to tell someone about it? If so, this guest post series is for you!
I guess you could say that we are an “Alternative Family,” Piglet and I.
I’m not sure that I like the term.
It seems to suggest that we are different, somehow, to the norm; that we are anomalies. I’m not sure that this is the case. We are a single parent family, but so are many others. Piglet is donor-conceived, but so are many other children-a surprisingly high number, it seems to me, but then maybe I just notice it more because I have so many connections with other parents in similar situations. We also live with my mother at the moment, but even that, in these days of rising rents, unaffordable homes and the boomerang generation, is not unusual.
And it’s far from undesirable, however much my mother and I may disagree about our different parenting styles. Sometimes I imagine that we are like one big happy extended clan, living in a tent in the desert with three or four generations all helping each other out. Or some sort of idealistic utopian Golden Age where we all wore our babies on our backs in colourful wraparound shawls and lived in hippy communes growing our own vegetables and living off the grid.
However, I do sometimes feel adrift. As though I am not quite in the parenting club. As though my role as mother is being usurped by my own mother; as though I have a child who, with his unknown paternity and overly medicalised conception and birth, isn’t really my own. As though I can’t join in with the stories of weddings and partners and finding time for date night, because it’s so far from my own experience. And then I remember, all families are different. They all have their own idiosyncrasies, their own features which don’t conform to the accepted norm-whatever that is-whether they be ex-pats, same-sex, blended families, single parent families……who isn’t part of an “alternative” family?
And so I decided to create this guest post series, for all the “alternative” families out there. Families with children or without, families in all their myriad forms. Anyone who considers themselves in to be in any way part of an “alternative” family is welcome.
That would be most us, right?
If you would like to be part of a guest post series on Alternative Families, please contact me on Twitter @babyorbankrupt or Facebook and let’s hear all about what makes your family unique.
Great idea for a guest post series Min, can’t wait to read about it and to hopefully get involved too xx #triballove
Yay, please do!
Love this idea! I don’t think you are different from the norm, as you rightly said, there are so many different family units out there. Excited to read more from your series. I think I may even be able to join? Not married, living in the UK…
So true – so maybe different kinds of families these days..for so many reasons. My son has ASD so tho we are married with two kids and may look ‘normal’ from the outside there’s a lot of things we have to Do differently ! Look forward to reading #fortheloveofblog
Thanks-feel free to write something!
Great idea! I love the idea of highlighting the ways our different families make us unique yet strong. Can’t wait to read more! #fortheloveofBLOG
Thank you. Feel free to join in and write something!
Great guest post idea! I’m afraid I have a ‘normal’ family, well as normal as can be. Although we don’t have a dog or any other kind of pet like a proper family!
I will be looking forward to reading all the posts!
#triballove xx
Thank you! x
Brilliant guest post series idea! I was lamenting the fact that all I have read about is the perfect “normal” families with 2.2 cherub faced children, a while back on my blog. I am a (sometimes) happily cohabiting step-family so probably somewhere on the alternative scale and it does get to you sometimes. Thing is, like you say, there is actually no “normal” these days and even when things appear to be perfect, quite often behind closed doors they are not as they seem. I will look forward to reading this series. Thanks for linking up with us on #fortheloveofBLOG x
Thanks. Feel free to write something for it! x
I’m not sure any family is normal? Even the Pickett fence peeps are battling and thriving in their own ways. I love however, discussing families and the diversity between them. Would love to contribute at some point ??
That’s very true. I did think about renaming it “unique families” instead. Feel free to write something!