Back to the beginning –

This is the story of a blended family. There are four children, two dogs, two octogenarians and us. By ‘us’, I mean myself and my partner, and we are both women.

I look at young, childless couples and I think how their lives will change when they have children. I look at young couples with one child and I think how their lives will change when they have their second, or third, or fourth. I look at families with one dog and think how they might manage with two. I look at families with four children and two dogs and wonder how they’d cope if Gran and Grandad came to stay. I think about that family and I wonder how that family would look if both parents were women. And I find myself here, at the start …. it’s my family …. What on earth was I thinking?

In the beginning it was a whirl of romance, adjustment, prejudice, shock and joy. I won’t go into the details but rest assured that both dads are okay and see their kids all the time. That’s about the the only ‘given’. Other than that, there is absolutely nothing else that we can predict in this household and nothing we can take for granted. Ten years on, nothing has changed. Sometimes I feel as if we are living in a social experiment that is being televised without our permission: a cross between Big Brother and The Truman Show. And yet, despite all this, I think we are normal.

I think we are the most normal family on earth.

Advertisement