by Felicia Hodges There probably isn’t an episode of “The Brady Bunch” that Barbara Smithers, 41, hasn’t seen. Long before she was old enough to marry and have children of her own, Carol, Mike, Marcia, Greg, Jan, Peter, Cindy and Bobby gave her what she thought was everything she’d ever need to know about the loving, caring team a blended family could be. Then she married Bill – a widowed father of 7, 9 and 11-year-old boys – and realized what liars the Brady’s really were. “Carol Brady was always so upbeat and positive. The kids all called her ‘Mom’ and they ran in the house and hugged her,” she says. “Sure, the boys called me mom, but they would also barely talk at all at times. None of our family problems were solved in a half-hour and I resented the fact that we weren’t them.” With the U.S. divorce rate hovering around 50%, it has been estimated that half of all Americans will be part of a blended family at some point in their lives,...
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