Black Love: Blended Families

Given the fact that 73% of African American homes comprise of single mothers due to an abundance of reasons related to racism and other impacts of trauma that have constantly been a threat to the sanctity of the black family.  Blended families is not only a new normal but it is an accepted truth in our culture that is connected to the determination to love and demonstrate love to our children. The Orrs show their determination to love through sharing their experience as a successful Blended family on their platform "Blend More With The Orrs".

I’m Jazmine, Co-Founder and Creator of Blend More with The Orr’s and Blend ME. I created Blend ME as a nonjudgmental safe space for blended mothers. My friends and I would have irregular pow-wows in my living room to discuss the not so popular opinions of life as blended mothers. I’m what you would call a Crossover Mom (explore Blend ME to learn more).

My husband Charles(Tre) and I have been married 10 years, we share 2 daughters and he has 4 boys from previous relationships. Our children range from ages 18 to 6. We have faced many challenges as a blended family. We have navigated everything from, parental alienation, high conflict-co-parenting, child support, moving out of state, the shift of noncustodial parenting to custodial parenting, and much more.

We became fairly popular among our Facebook friends for our transparency as a blended family. We found ourselves answering a few dozen inboxes weekly related to “all things blended” from handling conflict, how we make our marriage work, to traveling with our rather large tribe. We wanted to share as much as we could because we knew how isolating this journey could be.

While looking for blended family resources and support we realized there weren’t any that quite fit the support we needed. This was a huge revelation, WE quickly realized that as much as I needed support as a blended mother my husband needed support helping acclimate me as well as the children into our new family dynamic. We decided Blend More With The Orr’s was necessary. Having friends who were also in blended families helped us to manage and overcome our unique challenges, this is why community is so important to us.

In March of 2016 we began our YouTube Blend More With The Orr’s. We began discussing our experiences and what we’ve learned along the journey. We were flooded with questions and various topics to address from other blended families, creating this dialogue was so rewarding and refreshing…there were others like us!

We are young, we are fun, and we love to live life! As a family of 8 we have busy schedules that can pull us in many directions. With all of life’s happenings one thing that remains constant, our desire to help blended families thrive. We look forward to exploring life in the blend and welcome you and your family to blend WITH us!