There are plenty of things in life that we can refer to, with certainty, as "broken": bones, glass, toys, a car, or a phone. But families should not ever be referred to as "broken." Is love within a family really something you can see from the outside and call broken or cracked or damaged? If a family contains step-parents or stepchildren, should that family really be considered broken? If we don't call families with adopted children broken, why should we call families with a stepchild or stepparent broken? Does this somehow make a family less of a family?
On the contrary, I believe that family might be full. That family might be wonderful, even though from the outside it looks as if something has been broken, maybe because a child is being raised in two different places. Why are we not content to simply call it a family? Why must we put a label on everything that we can see, everything that is different, instead of accepting it for what it really is? And what it really is, is a family.
Because my parents have both remarried since their divorce, my family is often referred to as broken. I however, have never seen it that way. They have always just been my family. I have never felt any less loved, by my biological parents or my step-parents, nor by my brothers and sisters simply because we share no blood, or only a little.
A family is just a family, as simple and beautiful as that. Nothing and no one is broken, unrepairable or damaged because no family is less than another. My challenge to you is to think about whether or not it is important to mention that someone comes from a "broken family." What is implied is that they are somehow lesser, because their family is different and has been through different circumstances. Think about how it feels to a step-parent to hear someone refer to their family as broken because they have a child that is not their own. Regardless of whether or not all members of a family are biologically related or not, they should not be referred to as anything other than a family. A family is made of love. And if there is love, a family is never broken.
