These days, it seems that negotiations on parenting after divorce start with 50/50 shared parenting time. While both parents do need to be actively involved, 50/50 shared parenting time is more about meeting the parents’ needs than the child’s.
My present guest, Bill has been divorced for a little more than a year and was separated for a year before that. At the time of his separation his three children were aged 18, 16 and 13 … all teenagers … all girls. Becoming a single parent was a big change for Bill and one that required much flexibility on his part. Here’s Bill:
It’s been a tremendous adjustment. I think it’s been very, very difficult because I have teenage daughters. They’re starting to leave their teens now and they really want to do their own thing.
They don’t really want to be forced into a half-time relationship between their father and their mother. And so, rather than trying to create tension in that situation, I’ve been pretty hands-off in allowing them to see me when they want to, come and go as they please.
I cook dinner for them once or twice a week and we hang out. When their mom goes away, the youngest, she stays with me. I try to give them their space and keep them happy, but at the same time that hasn’t worked very well for me, because I miss them tremendously.
The way I feel is I don’t want them to have to stay with me. They’ll say to me, “Dad, I don’t mind staying with you, but all my clothes are at mom’s place,” and that’s the routine. It’s difficult to have to pack up and move between houses every week. I just decided that I was never going to force that on them.
I should say at least the youngest and the oldest are very, very appreciative of the fact that I have never really tried to compete. They tell me that all the time. They say, “You’re pretty relaxed about it.”
Just recently, my youngest and the oldest have had a falling out with my ex and they sort of moved back with me. The oldest is in college, but she was spending time with me on break. And the youngest moved back in with me full-time and I think that it was extremely difficult for my ex in a sense that she was making them feel guilty, she was creating tension, she was telling them that they didn’t love her anymore.
I was having conversations with them. I’m like, “Geez guys, I never did that,” and they’re like, “We know dad. This was never about a competition from your perspective.”
I think that in the long run it’s worked and it will work to maintain a relationship. They understand. I’m hoping that they don’t see this as, “Well, you never really wanted us, so therefore we never came around,” because that’s not true. I’m just trying not to be the competitive parent. But at the same time, I don’t get to see them every day and night and talk to them about everything that’s going on. That’s difficult.
As teenage girls they’re not going to share much with their father anyway. It’s uncomfortable. It’s the natural tendency to talk to their own gender about all of the gender issues that are going on as teenagers. But I try. I work at it. I engage them. I talk to them. I meet their boyfriends. We have the conversations.
The Divorce Coach Says:
I admire Bill’s approach of listening to his girls’ needs and being flexible with his parenting time. You can see from this short segment that parenting plans need to change over time, can’t be set in stone and one schedule won’t necessarily work for all your children.
My ex and I had a very traditional parenting arrangement – the kids were to go to him every other weekend and every Wednesday. It wasn’t something we’d debated at length or even really negotiated. My attorney had presented it as a proposal and we’d gone from there. That’s not the approach I recommend.
My eldest who was 14 at the time we separated, never did the midweek overnight. With her after-school activities and day 1- day-2 high school schedule, she said it was too disruptive. My son followed the same pattern once he went to high school.
My ex never fought it. Never held the parenting agreement up and said it had to be that way. We worked on other ways for him to see them such as transportation for after-school activities.
While the kids were the primary beneficiaries of his flexibility, I did also benefit and that makes it easy for me to advocate for flexibility. At the same time, I genuinely believe his flexibility was in the best interests of the children. It meant there was no conflict for us to deal with and it meant that the children never felt they were being asked to make a choice.
I like to think that if the roles had been reversed, I would have had the maturity and foresight to have been as flexible.
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