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The Optimally Blended Family

L is twenty two, brunette lately trending blond, size two, marathon runner, fashionista, has a wannabe-Hollywood-starlet older sister and is remarkably well adjusted. It is a pleasure to talk to her, better still when she voices an opinion.

She has a blended family and is very proud of the fact. Where most people have one set of parents and often unsatisfactory ones at that, L has two sets and absolutely nothing to complain about. It is perhaps a rare form of good luck when adversity works out to such advantage. I have known other families like L's but not quite the same picture of perfection.

There is perhaps something about the recipe of the blend that makes hers more perfect than many others. Her mother and her step father have no children together. His own children have never been with him. Her step mother has no children and never had any with her father.

L and her siblings are only children these parents have. The notion of a blended family comes through his children, her children and their children having to cohabit and turn into one homogenous glob. L's is not a true blended family. Her mother has shared her children with two outsiders. In doing that she may have earned their friendship, a friendship that has obviously enriched L's life a lot.

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