Don't we wish all our problems could be solved in 30 minutes (minus commercials) and make us laugh, too? Sure, we do, but it rarely works that way. Television comedies make things look far too simple and everybody ends up happy. It can be downright annoying sometimes, but then on those rare occasions, a little surprise wisdom comes out, and if you don't pay attention, you'll miss it.

I saw a bit of that a while back on a re-run of the sitcom Reba. It stars Reba McEntire as a divorced mom whose ex-husband and wife live four houses away. Like on all TV shows, people walk in without knocking, insult each other without hurt feelings, and seem to live without the hang-ups any normal people would have about the wild things that happen to them. The show's funny sometimes, and though I don't know any relationships exactly like those among the parents, we can all aspire to the bit of wisdom I saw there.

I don't remember the exact quote or storyline, but one of Reba's grown children said something like, "yeah, we may be from a broken home, but at least our family's still in tact."

Now, of course, it's supposed to be funny and a little silly, but there's lots of truth there, too.

We do have to realize that our children and stepchildren are growing up in what our world sees as "broken" homes. We have the obvious challenges and issues that "non broken" people don't. We have to work harder at relationships, watch our words and actions more carefully, grow skin so thick we make crocodiles look fragile. BUT, if we try hard enough, we can still guide and grow, enjoy and inspire the family underneath it all.

Even broken, we can stay in tact with a few tips from the sitcom people:

Don't waste time. If we had to solve our problems in a few minutes, we'd at least try. We can keep that same urgency when things go wrong and do our best to stop the bleeding early. If we let things fester and get worse while lies or misunderstandings continue, we have a harder time repairing the damage.

Stay on the set. The TV people could write off the difficult characters on a show if they wanted to, but they usually don't. And we certainly can't do that with the troublemakers in our own lives. We have to deal with the cast we've chosen, so we may as well accept it and do what we can to make things better. Most likely, we're not perfect either.

Look for the solution. Never on a show does one person get her way all the time and everybody else live happily around her. Life doesn't work that way, either. We can try to understand as much as we can about what the other people in our lives are experiencing and look for the best answers we can find. We can offer solutions and suggestions that benefit everybody, and we can be willing to negotiate.

Be yourself. Nothing will work if you try to be something you're not or expect others to be something they're not. The sitcom characters always have clear flaws, but they still manage to work things out. They accept each other and work with what they have. We can do the same.

Remember the cast. Withdrawing into yourself, trying to fix everything yourself, and trying to control everything and everybody in your wake will only make things worse. Steplife may seem like crowd control sometimes, but it's always about working things out as a family, broken or not.

Let go of the past. Every week there's a new episode. And every day we can feel like we get a new set of the "step-willies" to deal with. That's enough. We can't keep up with the struggles from the past as well as the challenges of today. We sort of do have to wake up in a new world every morning, but that's not so bad, because we can wake up with new hope, new courage and new compassion.

Go ahead, laugh. Anything and everything in a sitcom can be funny. And if we're lucky and willing, we can find the humor in our lives, too. When you think about it, we often have to laugh or cry about all the crazy stuff that happens in the complicated world of steplife. May we choose laughter.

Yeah, we may be broken, but we're still very much together. Roll the credits.

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'Til next month . . . .

Warmly,
Karon
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