About your kids: Blender families

EDITOR'S NOTE: The children's names in this column are fictitious to protect identities

Blended families are quite the norm today - parents divorce and take children with them into the next nuptial arrangement. But from my perspective as a school teacher, they are more often blender families - people whirling around from one crisis to the next.

When 11-year-old Kevin moved into our school district with his dad and new stepmother, he told me his "real" mom was in prison for heroine use. As a budding artist, he won a local anti-drug poster contest with his crayon portrayal of a woman being dragged off to jail. Six months later he turned in a language arts assignment with two cartoon frames on the back. The first frame showed a man walking through a door; the second frame showed the door slamming, complete with little dashes to illustrate the sound. The caption read: "Life sucks."

I learned later that Kevin's father had walked out the night before, leaving Kevin behind with his new stepmother. At the end of that school year, Kevin moved to another district.

Then there was Lisa, who wrote in an autobiographical essay one day that she didn't like her mother's new boyfriend. "New" meant there had been others. This one "talked mean" to her, she said, and red flags waved in my head.

Lisa became quite good at lying.

No wonder some of our students today can't concentrate long enough to read at grade level or remember their multiplication tables. The emotional baggage they bring with them to school is overwhelming. No wonder the nation's No-Child-Left-Behind program is struggling when so many children are exactly that - left behind by parents who are ripping their families apart.

Twenty years ago, very few of my students had last names different from the man of the house. Today, only about one third of the children in any given class live with both biological parents. When addressing notes home about grades, parties or field trips, I have found myself asking students more and more frequently, "Do you live with your parents?" The answer can be, "yes, one of them," or "yes, one at a time," or "yes, sometimes," or "no, not anymore," or "I live with my aunt/grandma/sister/brother." The term "legal guardian" is heartbreakingly common.

Nearly half of recent first marriages in America end in divorce, according to reports by the U.S. Census Bureau. The bureau also reported that fatherless homes account for 63 percent of youth suicides, 90 percent of homeless/runaway children, 85 percent of children with behavior problems, 71 percent of high school dropouts, 85 percent of youths in prison, and well over 50 percent of teen pregnancy.

Former First Lady Hillary Clinton once said it takes a village to raise a child. No it doesn't. It takes a home with a little stability, where children feel safe and loved by people they look up to - people they know will be there in the morning when they wake up.

Davalynn Spencer is a Tulare County public school teacher. Contact her at aboutyourkids@hotmail.com