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Steps Are What You Walk On: A Guide to Help Blend Step-Families

by Rick Crosier and Patricia Crosier with Joshua Crosier, Jason Crosier, Nicole Joy and Shannon Lininger

51 pages; quality trade paperback (softcover); Includes black and white photography; catalogue #06-1392; ISBN 1-4120-9636-7; US$13.75, C$15.81, EUR11.29, £7.91

In Steps Are What You Walk On we share our deepest pains, greatest joys, and worst failures along with our successes and victories over blending his, mine and ours into one united family where steps are only what you walk on.

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About the Book

About the Author

Excerpts

About the Book

Steps Are What You Walk On - a guide to help blend step families. Written by Rick and Patricia Crosier with a surprise message from each of their children: Shannon, Nicole, Josh and Jason.

Steps Are What You Walk On is all about relationships. Relationships start from the first meeting and move in a positive or negative direction from that point on. Blending a step family takes hard work and needs a well thought out deliberate plan. You need a plan, a mindset that enables you not only to deal with each new situation, but to deal with it effectively, selflessly and at times even graciously.

Almost everything we do in life is done by choice; ours or someone else's. The choices you make will directly affect the outcome of your blended family. You have the power within you to create either a loving peaceful environment for your family to flourish in or a devastating dysfunctional atmosphere for them to try to survive in. To succeed we believe in honesty, facing problems head on, dealing with them and then moving forward. Ignored issues and heartfelt problems don't go away on their own, they usually just get bigger. In Steps Are What You Walk On we share our deepest pains as well as our greatest victories. We have written on 33 different topics: including everything from dealing with divorce to discipline children, from hard core financial struggles to dealing with teenagers, and what we felt was the most emotionally stressful of all: sharing your children's confirmations, graduations, and weddings with your ex-spouses and their families. We have tried to provide a helpful guide to navigate the journey ahead, for it is our sincere desire to have you succeed like we were able to do. Is it easy? No. Is it worth it? Absolutely!

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About the Author

Rick Crosier has been an educator in the public school system for twenty-six years. He holds his BSA, MSA and Education Specialist degrees. He is the advisor for the FFA (the largest youth organization in the United States). Rick is a junior high track coach and Hunters Safety Instructor. Rick's active involvement with young people provides insight into the minds and hearts of children. Rick is a man of principle as well as a devoted husband, father and grandfather (pappy).

Shannon, Nicole, Joshua and Jason are Rick and Patricia's children. They each have written a short story contribution to Steps Are What You Walk On, describing, in their own words, why they believe we were successful in blending their family when so many are not.

Patricia Crosier has been a Sunday School Teacher, Missionette Group Leader and has helped with the Optimist Big Brother Big Sister Program. Patricia has no college education and no specialist degrees. What she does have is an extraordinary love and incredible understanding of people. Patricia has the ability to see beneath the surface and sense what others are feeling on the inside. People of all ages feel comfortable enough to open up and share their emotional pain with her. The best word to describe Pat is "peacekeeper". Pat is open and honest and believes the only way to solve problems is to face them.

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Excerpts

Dealing With Divorce: (Pat) This book is not about whether divorce is good or bad. Neither Rick nor I believe in divorce. We never did, but this book is for the millions of people who are already here- men, women and children that are in desperate need of help in the area of "remarried with children." These are the relationships we hope to administer to: You can have the cake and eat it too-with double-fudge frosting!

Staying Above Water When the Ground is Sinking Under Your Feet: (Pat) In order to help you better understand the choices and decisions in your own relationships, Rick and I wanted our different views and opinions to come out in our book, so from the beginning Rick and I purposely communicated very little as to its content. However, I could not help ask him one question while we were on one of our many trips. I asked him what he had considered our largest problem - our biggest struggle in life together. He thought for a moment, and his answer took me by complete surprise.

The Other Dad: (Rick) The first time Josh referred to Pat as "Mom" was shortly after we were first married. I remember feeling so pleased that my son thought enough of my new wife to call her his mother. Here we were- a new family- just Dad, Mom and the kids. It was great. Josh's other mom remarried awhile later, and Josh referred to them as Mom and Ken. That went on for awhile, but then came a serious blow. As Josh was talking about his Denver family, he called Ken, "Dad". My stomach turned inside out, and my heart ached with resentment. I wanted to scream, "He's NOT your dad - I am."

Shannon: Once when I was really mad at mom for siding with a boyfriend instead of me, I got so upset that I was yelling at her. Dad heard the yelling and was coming up the stairs just as I was running down them to leave. He grabbed me by the sweater and literally carried me to my room, telling me to stay there until I cooled down. I'm not sure why I got so angry or out of control. I guess it was just a teenager thing, but after I calmed down, surprisingly, I wasn't even mad at my dad. His actions told me that he cared, not only about me, but that he also cared about the relationship I had with mom. We still joke about the sweater that ended up four times larger than it had been because it got so stretched out.

Nicole: When Jeremy, the man of my dreams, asked me to marry him, I was thrilled, but one of my very first thoughts was how I was going to tell one dad that the other dad would be walking me down the isle. I wanted the dad who had sat on my bed and read books to me, the one who had bandaged my scraped knees and kissed away my tears, the one who had sat through my dance recitals and school programs, the one who helped me with my homework and kept my boyfriends in line to be the one to have the honor of walking me down the aisle.

Josh: While I do not believe that there is only one formula for success, for anyone entering a divorced and remarried family situation, I do believe that successful relationships cannot be created without mutual acceptance as their base. Parents must be willing to allow their child to be "our child", instead of "my child". Children must be willing to allow their parents to be "our parent" instead of "my parent". Without mutual acceptance there will be jealousy and competition, rather than unconditional love and support that a strong family unit exhibits.

Jason: I was brought into this world with this family already moving ahead at full speed. Until I was five or six years old, I had no idea that my brothers and sisters were from different families. It wasn't that they tried to hide anything from me, but sometimes my sisters would leave for short periods of time. I didn't give it much thought because they would always come back. I loved it when Josh came, but I hated it when he had to leave. We would all go to the airport, we'd all cry, then he'd leave for long periods of time, but to me it was just what we did.

It's Not Over Till It's Over: (Pat) Once you have had children with a former spouse, there will always be issues to deal with. There will be times when you will be "thrown together" such as confirmations, graduations, weddings, and even the birth of grandchildren. These often become shared events that are nearly impossible to escape, and for the sake of your children, you shouldn't try to. You need a plan, a frame of mind to enable you not to only to deal with each situation, but also to deal graciously with people sharing the moment. We feel the hardest event to get through is "the wedding." Weddings can be a difficult time anyway, even if the responsibility lies between just the bride and groom's families, but when you throw in several families it can get nasty. I will discuss all three of the weddings we have been through since each was very different and each had its share of silent-and not so silent battles to overcome.

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