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iQuestions Faculty, Dr. Kevin Leman 
 
 
Question: 
 
In a blended family, how does birth order come into play? 
 
Answer:  
 
It sounds like the Brady Bunch revisited, doesn’t it?  
 
Well, listen—as a sidebar—Florence Henderson, I did a show with her 
once. She’s the youngest of 10 children, if anybody’s interested. 
 
Here’s the thing about birth order and blending. You’ve got his family 
and your family, and your kids and his kids are going to come 
together, and in theory they blend. In reality, they collide. 
 
You know the commercial, “Don’t leave home without it”—I think it 
was American Express that sold that to us for years—the fact of the 
matter is, your son or your daughter is going to leave home, and 
guess what? They’re taking their birth order with them. And now we 
have this melting pot. 
 
And again, they don’t blend, they collide. 
 
The foundation of the blended family is cemented in the mortar of 
anger, bitterness, jealousy, and anger. 
 
Did you notice something about that sentence? I used “anger” twice, 
and I did it on purpose, because everybody who comes to a blended 
family has anger. 
 
 
 
Now, you can imagine the kind of anger that kids have over the 
breakup, the divorce, the death of a parent, whatever the 
circumstances were.  
 
Here’s the kicker: you’ve got a twelve-year-old son, your husband-to-
be has a thirteen-year-old son, and we’re going to blend these 
families. Do you suppose the twelve-year-old is going to say, “Listen, 
I’ve been doing some thinking, and since you’re a year older than me, 
I’m going to forfeit my birth order. Here, I’ll sell it to you for a bowl of 
soup.” 
 
Not going to happen. You’ve got two first-born children who see life 
exactly as it should be, and you’ve got two mountain sheep butting 
heads for territorial rights. So, if the blend of the family is such that 
your kids are fifteen and sixteen, and your spouses are four and five, 
that’s an easier blend. Why? Because there’s not the direct 
competition between the kids. 
 
I’m telling you, kids in a blended family—here’s the Midas Muffler 
guarantee of blended families, from Dr. Leman—will drive a wedge 
between you. They will do everything to take you down. It’s like the 
Trojan horse, you know, you get defeated from within.  
 
And what happens in blended families is, as a parent, you tend to get 
territorial, and you’ll defend your turf, and you’ll defend your children.  
 
So, now you’ve got two powerful kids—I mean, they’re like drug lords 
in Afghanistan, warring with one another. I’m telling you, if you as a 
wife, if you as a husband, are not totally committed to that woman, 
totally committed to that man, shoulder-to-shoulder, those little 
suckers will bury you. 
 
Leman -2- 
 
 
The average marriage today lasts seven years. In a blended family—
check this out—it takes three to seven years for the blended family to 
even blend! 
 
You’re fighting an uphill battle. So, again, if you’re in the blender right 
now, you better make sure you defer to the other parent. If it’s an 
issue that concerns your husband’s son or daughter, you always run it 
by him first. You never step over that line without your spouse’s 
blessing.  
 
Now, again, you’re the adults, they’re the children. If you can’t get on 
the same page, as adults, how do you expect the kids to do it? Again, 
they’ll bury you. 
 
Practically, what happens is you have a kid who is ten-years-old who 
has been the first-born for ten years of his life. His private logic is, 
“Hey, I’m the boss. I call the shots. Everybody does what I do.” And all 
of a sudden, he finds himself with four other step-brothers. He’s never 
met them before, and all of a sudden, he finds out the great news that 
Mom is remarrying this guy with four kids. The problem is, there’s a 
fourteen-year-old boy and a twelve-year-old boy, and an eight-year-
old girl. Well, what happens to the ten-year-old boy? Now, he’s treated 
as a middle child. He’s just one of the pack. Oh, no, he’s the king in 
his mind. And there’s your collision.  
 
That’s why I say that they don’t blend, they collide. And those are the 
kinds of issues that you have to deal with as a parent, is realize that 
you still need to defer to that ten-year-old, because in his mind, he’s 
still the first-born. Is he going to like being bossed around by two older 
siblings who are of the same gender?  
 
And what’s worse, guess what’s right beneath him? Little Princess, 
Little Schnooky, who never did anything wrong in her life, and who 
Leman -3- 
 
 
gets away with murder. I mean, he’s going to want to hurl at the very 
sight of that young girl. 
 
Those are the kinds of issues you’re going to face in a blended family.  
 
So, am I asking you to be a psychologist? Yes. But more importantly, 
I’m asking you to be a good parent, and be sensitive to the fact that in 
that blender, everybody brings their birth-order with them, and you’ve 
got to be prepared to deal with it as best you can.  
 
Is it easy to do? No. But neither is marriage. Being married to a 
woman is very difficult. They’re very weird. Being married to a man is 
a little difficult, too, because we tend to be a tad bit strange.  
 
It’s possible to make it in a blended family, but I tell you, you’ve got to 
get behind closed doors and have great sex without them. You need 
time to have fun without them. You need to have a marriage without 
them.  
 
Sooner or later, those little birdies are going to leave the nest, and if 
you want to make it in a blended family, you have to be rock-solid, 
cement-like in your beliefs, and be shoulder-to-shoulder. Do not let 
any light between you, because they’ll bury you. Good luck. 
 
And I hope you believe in prayer—because, quiet frankly, you’re going 
to need it. 
 
Leman -4- 
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