By Zoeyjane | Leave A Comment
There’s a bit of a blessing, separating when your child is young enough to not really remember living in a dual-parent household. But it won’t stay that way for long.
When they ask why Daddy doesn’t live with your family, what do you say? How much is too much, and conversely, how much is too little to explain?
I have an honesty policy in our home. I don’t lie to my daughter and if she lies to me, I tell her that I’m hurt she wasn’t honest with me. I know this might be a double-edged sword later on.
How will I handle her asking me why her dad doesn’t live with us, without painting things in a certain light? I have a mind to start preparing for it, for when she’s three and the why’s begin, when she’s six or seven and she sees that the majority of her peers are in dual parent homes. When she’s 12 and we’re butting heads over whether she’s allowed to wear the skanky t-shirt or not and a line about her father letting her leads to more questions.
But I honestly have no idea how to address it yet.
Saying that we fought too much doesn’t seem enough. Explaining that we fought because he drank too much and I needed to control everything else because of it? Too much.
Depending on her age, I will likely hit upon a host of reasoning: how we’d had problems long before she came to be; that we were unmarried and even though she was the best surprise we could ever be given, her father and I weren’t able to be with each other in a good way. I can explain that together and separate, her father and I were not very happy people and we needed to be apart in order to not make her life unhappy.
Ultimately, I will lead with the thesis that she is the most important thing in my life and that her father not living with us isn’t because of anything to do with her.
How have you explained (or had explained to you) the dissolution of a marriage?
Photo by Eleaf
ABOUT Zoeyjane
When she's not rocking a one-woman, one-toddler mosh pit in her living room, Zoeyjane lets her angst{read more}
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My children were 3 and 8 when the final paperwork happened. Their father wasn’t out of our lives, just our of our home, and no longer making decisions on where the children would live or school…Single parenting is a hard thing, for your child is 100% 1/2 of you and 100% half of someone else in their identity…and they need to know each half is not only okay, but that their existence isn’t what caused our parting. My years as a youth director and teacher had shown me long before it happened in my life why I wouldn’t want my children estranged from their father…or me. The pain of not knowing your parents is huge for teens. My words to my then young children were continually, your dad is just not able to be with us at our house any more…but he loves you the best he can, he’ll always love you, and he’ll be a part of your life as much as he’s able. In our case, the dad was no longer able to handle himself in a way that was healthy in our marriage. Later as his situation changed our boundaries changed on how we could interact with the children. I am told as of November 2008 the number of blended families took over the actual number of traditional families in the 20-38 age bracket. Our children are no longer the exception, and while that is unfortunate, we now have to deal with the “new normal” and do our best with where we are!
I am incredibly honest with my children.
All of my children have father’s who are active in their lives.
My three oldest see their father everyday. (They are all 14 or older)
They know that their father and I split up because “We were better friends than lovers” and I had cheated on him. I am very open about that.
My three youngest are still young, though I tell my 8 year old that her father and I just didn’t get along. No other reason than that. That is the honest truth, we just didn’t get along.
I think honesty is the best bet in these situations, just ease them into it, however it will keep them from feeling lied to later on in life!
As I think back, I don’t recall ever asking this question of my mother. I met my father only twice, once when he visited for a day and once when I visited him and his family for a weekend, but I don’t ever remember asking where he was or why I didn’t grow up with a father.
In fact, to this day I don’t know what the reason was. I’ve never asked my mother too much about my father, and I still don’t know why they didn’t end up together. My mother seemed friendly towards him and seemed to care about him (she cried a lot when he passed away), but I’ve never asked.
I suppose I’m lucky in that I don’t wonder about these things, I just accept them. In the end, it doesn’t matter to me what the reasoning was, whose idea splitting up was or why they did it after my mother was pregnant but before I was born (or WAS it even before I was born?). I’m still the same person regardless, and there’s no part of me that wants to know these things, no sense of identity lacking because I don’t have those answers. There was a reason, and that’s enough for me.
I suppose what it really comes down to is that I don’t feel like I missed out on anything. I had no one to play catch with, but wouldn’t have wanted to. No one to go hunting with, but wouldn’t have wanted to. In the end, I had my mother, grandparents, and uncles to take care of me, and they were fantastic – all the family I’d ever need.
Shanna – The thing is, in my neighbourhood single parents are the exception. As in, I know of 3 others in a 10 block radius. There a whole lot of married, ‘traditional’ couples with kids. So we do, kind of stick out – especially when you add in that the other 3 kids? Have their own rooms at their other parent’s place. And mine has only been to her dad’s twice. There’s so many little issues to sidestep, without actually avoiding, you know?
Suzanne B – I completely agree. But I ask you, what do you say if they ask you why you cheated?
Dan: I think you had the best situation possible. And I think your mom, your whole family, is to be congratulated for it. It’s not that easy to have such a positive environment, when there’s the potential of a negative one.