Table of Contents
Definition of Blended Family
(noun) A family consisting of two or more adult partners and their children together with their children from previous relationships either living with them or nearby.
Examples of Blended Family
- The Brady Bunch.
- Two divorced people with children marry each other.
- Max and Jacky both have children from previous relationships but created a blended family when they married each other.
Blended Family Pronunciation
Syllabification: blend·ed fam·i·ly
Audio Pronunciation
Phonetic Spelling
- American English – /blEn-duhd fAm-lee/
- British English – /blEn-did fAm-uh-lee/
International Phonetic Alphabet
- American English – /ˈblɛndəd ˈfæməli/
- British English – /ˈblɛndɪd ˈfæmɪli/
Usage Notes
- Plural: blended families
- A blended family can result from the combination of two or more divorced families or single-parent families.
- Also called:
- compound family
- melded family
- reconstituted family
- remarried family
- stepfamily (step-family)
Related Quotation
- “We are living, I believe, through a transitional and contested period of family history, a period after the modern family order, but before what we cannot foretell. Precisely because it is not possible to characterize with a single term the competing sets of family cultures that co-exist at present, I identify this family regime as post-modern. The post-modern family is not a new model of family life, not the next stage in an orderly progression of family history, but the stage when the belief in a logical progression of stages breaks down. Rupturing evolutionary models of family history and incorporating both experimental and nostalgic elements, ‘the’ post-modern family lurches forward and backward into an uncertain future” (Stacey 1990:18).
Additional Information
- Family and Kinship Resources – Books, Journals, and Helpful Links
- Word origin of “blend” and “family” – Online Etymology Dictionary: etymonline.com
Related Terms
- conjugal family
- extended family
- family life cycle
- family of orientation
- family of procreation
- family planning
- marriage
- nuclear family
- subfamily
Reference
Stacey, Judith. 1990. Brave New Families: Stories of Domestic Upheaval in Late Twentieth Century America. New York: Basic Books.
Works Consulted
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Cite the Definition of Blended Family
ASA – American Sociological Association (5th edition)
Bell, Kenton, ed. 2014. “blended family.” In Open Education Sociology Dictionary. Retrieved February 9, 2025 (https://sociologydictionary.org/blended-family/).
APA – American Psychological Association (6th edition)
blended family. (2014). In K. Bell (Ed.), Open education sociology dictionary. Retrieved from https://sociologydictionary.org/blended-family/
Chicago/Turabian: Author-Date – Chicago Manual of Style (16th edition)
Bell, Kenton, ed. 2014. “blended family.” In Open Education Sociology Dictionary. Accessed February 9, 2025. https://sociologydictionary.org/blended-family/.
MLA – Modern Language Association (7th edition)
“blended family.” Open Education Sociology Dictionary. Ed. Kenton Bell. 2014. Web. 9 Feb. 2025. <https://sociologydictionary.org/blended-family/>.