My work brings me into constant contact with families going through changes.
Change is always something we need time to adjust to and that adjustment can be especially difficult when the changes are big or aren't one's we've chosen ourselves.
This is often the case for the families I encounter. Someone may be ill or have left the family unit and sometimes new people are joining the family.
Children are often stronly affected by changes like these because they feel especially powerless.
It may seem difficult not to get all doom and gloom about it, but in
the valley where I live there are many marvellous examples of how
modern families are adjusting to the changes that life throws at them.
It's a rural area but one which has had various tides of incomers since at least the sixties, so in many ways it's quite urban in it's feel. And it's full of all kinds of weird and wonderful families making things work out for their children.
One friend, soon to be a grandma for the first time hasn't actually met the parents of her grandchild's father yet, (the couple had split up before they knew of the pregnancy) but a mutual friend carries information back and forth until the time when everyone feels ready to make that leap and get to know one another in the flesh. Meanwhile, the baby's mom keeps in touch with the baby's father through the father's sister who is very involved in the whole scenario.
This is not to say that the two young parents don't communicate, they do, but the boy, being young, is still afflicted with that difficulty young men have, known as communication.
Then there's the lesbian couple who have virtual open house for their teenage children's friends (this was not entirely by choice), the children's friends think they're way cooler than their own parents and hang out there all the time; using these two as agony aunts. Because of this my friends know all about whoever their children are hanging out with and exactly what they're up to. More than one dad pops in frequently for a cup of tea and a chat.
Another, reassessing life after recovering from a serious illness, has gone to live on a nearby barge while she sorts out what she wants. It means she's near enough to see her son daily.
They may not all have relatives nearby, families break and re-form more frequently than ever before, but I'm reassured by the imagination shown by these familes and by their committment to work things out.
It appears that after a few bleak years when acrimony seemed to rule, it's getting more and more common for parents to act like adults and simply find a way.
The fluidity of family life is beginning to have a positive side. Children may not be related to everyone around them, but they are being surrounded by people who love them and who are committed to them.
My partner and I have been asked to be guardians of some friends' baby, just in case the worst should happen. This means that we now have to ensure our relationship stays strong in case we're ever required to take over. We have become this baby's relatives and that makes our relationship with her parents more permanent too, even though we're planning to leave the area in a couiple of years.
The wonderful bit about all this is that the children are gaining people who love them not losing them. Each change increases the number of committed adults the children have to turn to, and that simply has to be a good thing
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