Mediate Michigan

My childhood home broke in half during the autumn of 1973, when my twin sister and I were 10 years old. Our parents called us together one evening to announce that they were splitting up, and just like that we became “products of a broken home.” The scene still flickers in my mind: my sister and I sat between our two parents on a monstrous neo-Victorian couch upholstered in a weird, synthetic shade of pink. Everybody cried.

Our father ended up keeping the row house where we lived, but a few years later our mother bought the place next door. This kid-friendly arrangement softened the bite of the breakup, allowing my sister and me to jump over the porch rail whenever we felt like switching parents.

Back then, people routinely called families of divorce “broken homes,” yet a new phrase was already coming into play that cast a warmer light on the process of divorce and remarriage: “blended family.” As my own parents regrouped and remarried, they never used this kinder, gentler nomenclature, yet sociologists and psychologists were applying it in the ’60s and ’70s. Today it is common currency. Whereas “broken home” describes the destruction of an original family unit, “blended family” refers to the new marriages that sometimes follow. “Blended family” is about making, not breaking, and it implies a seamless melding of diverse ingredients. Press “liquefy” on your Osterizer.

via In Praise of the Broken Home – Opinionator Blog – NYTimes.com.