This is a sad tale.
This is a tale of meanness, small mindedness and bitter revenge with collateral damage inflicted upon the most innocent of innocents.
This is a sad tale.
So this past Sunday was Mother’s Day and I was discussing the upcoming celebration with a single mom who has two precious children. When asked about the manner in which they were going to celebrate her special day she looked at me with a frown and replied, “I am not going to be with my kids until late Sunday because it is their dad’s weekend and he told me that I couldn’t have them on Sunday.”
“Wow, what a jerk!” was the second thought that entered my head (actually I didn’t think of the word “jerk” but this is a family column so I won’t write what I really thought of this loser).
But that reaction was the second thought I had; the first reaction was to hug this woman. She is a good person, she is a good mom and nobody deserves this kind of treatment. After a firm hug I mentioned that I was sure that her divorce decree stipulated Mother’s Day and Father’s Day “visitation” in exception to regularly scheduled visitation. I assured her that was pretty common practice. She agreed but said that she was too tired to go look it up.
This was all said by her with sadness in her eyes and voice.
She then went on to say that she told her ex-husband, “Ok, if that is how you want to be then ok but when Father’s Day rolls around if they are with me, then you won’t see them either.”
I looked at her and said, “No, you won’t do that ‘cause it isn’t what is best for your kids.”
She frowned again and said that was probably true.
In my parenting book I have several references to “eating glass for your children”. My point about the glass eating is that, as a parent; divorced or otherwise, there are many times where we make sacrifices for our kiddos. In the book I write about a brief conversation with my dad where he remarked on some conflict I was encountering in the co-parenting of my kiddos. Toward the end of that conversation he said, “I don’t know how you put up with that stuff.” Ok, so he didn’t use the word “stuff” but as mentioned earlier, this is a family column.
I looked him square in the eyes and replied, “Yes you do. You of all people know how a dad puts up with this stuff. I watched you for years work three jobs to feed all ten of us and if all I have to do is put up with some glass eating for my kids then it is worth it. This is a hell of a lot easier than working three jobs I hate. Trust me, pops, you showed me the way on that one!”
Eating glass for our kids is a good plan.
They are the innocents in all of this and leveraging them to deal with, or dish out, our bitterness and small mindedness only hurts them. Not the other parent. I know this stuff goes on all the time and I can only hope that this little bit of writing on the subject can cause at least one person to pause and think about what they do that has negative affects on their kiddos. Be the bigger person, please, for the sake of the smaller persons (the children).
…happy parenting…
