50 Warm & Wise Quotes About Blended Families

Over the past few generations, America has changed. The nuclear family isn’t the norm anymore, and blended families are taking center stage. Stepfamilies, multigenerational households with grandparents included, foster care and adoption, or chosen family units — it’s become increasingly common for the people within a household to be connected in a wide variety of ways. In 2021, 18% of households were multigenerational and it’s estimated that about 16% of households are considered stepfamilies. About 1.5 million adopted kids live in the United States, and 60 to 70% are in open adoptions. Clearly, the definition of family has expanded in the United States, and that’s a beautiful thing. These 51 blended family quotes get it just right, celebrating what our families really look and feel like today. From celebrities to everyday parents and grandparents, everyone has a lot of thoughts about what makes their family unique.

Blended family quotes about stepfamilies

• “Being a stepparent means your actions speak louder than DNA.” — Allison Banfield
• “My stepdad is probably the greatest man I’ve ever known. The best advice I’ve ever been given was when he told me to enjoy my life, because one day I’m not going to be as agile as I am now.” — Justin Timberlake
• “Step-parenting and being a step-sibling present a lot of exciting opportunities. When families break up and re-form, there may be less order, less certainty, and a bit more trauma involved, but kids can end up having half-a-dozen parent figures.” — Morris Gleitzman
• “Stepparents are not around to replace a biological parent, but rather to augment a child’s life experience.” — Azriel Johnson

• “When it feels as if you can't do right by the other parent, do right by your stepchild instead. You'll never fail with best interest at heart.” — Jessica James
• “Co-parenting is not a competition. It's a collaboration of two homes working together with the best interest of the child at heart. Work for your kids, not against them.” — Anne Brown
• “Remember why you chose to come together in the first place — the love that you have for your partner. Your partner’s children are an extension of them, and this makes them just as important to your happiness.” — Beth Huber
• “Little souls find their way to you, whether they’re from your womb or someone else’s.” — Sheryl Crow
• “Family isn’t defined only by last names or by blood; it’s defined by commitment and by love.” —Dave Willis
• “Any man can help make a child, but it takes a special man to help raise a child.” — Tony Gaskins
• “A good stepmom is not made, she is built. She is built by the hardships of her role, the tears she cries in secret, and by the lessons, she learns through trial and error.” — Michelle Zunter
• “Who cares if another woman or man loves your child, plays with your child, or builds a healthy relationship with your child — either way your child is benefiting.” — Jessica James
• “When someone takes you on as their own when you're not biologically their own, I think is really special ... [My stepdad] didn't have to raise me. He wanted to.” — Jonathan Van Ness
• “My children don’t call me stepmom, they call me Momala. We’re a very modern family. Their mom is a close friend of mine. … Joe and I have a similar feeling that really is how we approach leadership: family in every version that it comes.” — Kamala Harris
• “Family isn’t always blood. It’s the people in your life who want you in theirs. The ones who accept you for who you are. The ones who would do anything to see you smile and who love you no matter what.” — Unknown
• “My stepdad didn’t give me life, but he sure has made my life better.” — Gerardo Campbell
• “Anyone can be a father, but it takes someone special to be a dad, and that's why I call you dad, because you are so special to me. You taught me the game and you taught me how to play it right.” — Wade Boggs
• “He adopted a role called being a father so that his child would have something mythical and infinitely important: a protector.” — Tom Wolfe
• “The circumstances surrounding your birth are not as important as the opportunity to live.” — Lailah Gifty Akita
• “All that we love deeply becomes a part of us.” — Helen Keller

Quotes about multigenerational families

1. “Everyone needs a house to live in, but a supportive family is what builds a home.” — Anthony Liccione
2. “Families are like branches on a tree. We grow in different directions, yet our roots remain as one.” — Anonymous
3. “There are no words to describe the happiness in holding your baby’s baby.” — Unknown
4. “Love is the greatest gift that one generation can leave to another.” — Richard Garnett
5. “Everyone needs to have access both to grandparents and grandchildren in order to be a full human being.” — Margaret Mead
6. “Young people need something stable to hang on to — a cultural connection, a sense of their own past, a hope for their own future. Most of all, they need what grandparents can give them.” — Jay Kesler
7. “Grandparents are a treasure in the family. Please, take care of your grandparents: love them and let them talk to your children!” — Pope Francis
8. “My father left when I was three, and I have no memory of him. The most significant male figures in my life were my grandfather, in whose house I lived during the first 10 years of my childhood, and later my stepfather.” — Isabel Allende
9. “Every house needs a grandmother in it.” — Louisa May Alcott
10. “It is through our extended family that we first learn to compromise and come to an understanding that even if we don't always agree about things we can still love and look out for each other.” — Sara Sheridan
11. “There's a lot there to enlarge you. That's part of the value of being in an extended family is that it enlarges you. It makes you bigger. It makes you more.” — Jerry Garcia
12. “One thing I found out was that we need extended families. We need gangs. And, of course, if they're tribes and clans and so forth have been dispersed by the industrial revolution by people looking for work wherever they can find it. And a nuclear family, a man, a woman and kids and a dog and cat is no survival scheme at all. Horribly vulnerable.” — Kurt Vonnegut
13. “The elderly are the precious gem in the center of the household.” — Chinese Proverb
14. “Grandparents can be very special resources. Just being close to them reassures a child, without words, about change and continuity, about what went before and what will come after.” — Fred Rogers
15. “I grew up with my grandparents around. I think that's important for a child. If for no other reason than to hear stories about their parents when they were children.” — Al Roker

Quotes about adoptive and foster families

1. “Families don't have to match. You don't have to look like someone else to love them.” — Leigh Anne Tuohy
2. “A child born to another woman calls me mom. The depth of the tragedy and the magnitude of the privilege are not lost on me.” — Jody Landers
3. “Home isn’t where you’re from, it’s where you find light when all grows dark.” — Pierce Brown
4. “Biology is the least of what makes someone a mother.” — Oprah Winfrey
5. “I don’t care about whose DNA has recombined with whose. When everything goes to hell, the people who stand by you without flinching, they are your family .” — Jim Butcher
6. “Call it a clan, call it a network, call it a tribe, call it a family: Whatever you call it, whoever you are, you need one.” — Jane Howard
7. “The bond that links your true family is not one of blood, but of respect and joy in each other’s life.” — Richard Bach
8. “You might be temporary in their lives, and they might be temporary in yours. But there is nothing temporary about the love or the lesson.” — Tonia Christle
9. “The more healthy relationships a child has, the more likely he will be to recover from trauma and thrive. Relationships are the agents of change and the most powerful therapy is human love.” — Dr. Bruce Perry
10. “Despite the heartache, frustration, and physical demands of being a foster parent, I have never regretted doing it and the intangible rewards outweigh the cost every day.” — Wray Rives
11. “There are times when the adoption process is exhausting and painful and makes you want to scream. But, I am told, so does childbirth.” — Scott Simon
12. “Every child deserves a home and love. Period.” — Dave Thomas
13. “If there’s a cause worth fighting for, it’s this: children belong in families.” — Nicole Skellenger
14. “Being a parent wasn’t just about bearing a child. It was about bearing witness to its life.” — Jodi Picoult
15. “The bond that links your true family is not one of blood, but of respect and joy in each other’s life.” — Richard Bach
16. “I say to everybody, ‘Adoption is not for the faint of heart.’” — Mariska Hargitay

No matter how your blended family was joined together, these quotes make a few things very clear. Family doesn’t have to look like what others expect, and more love to go around is never a bad thing.