No, I wouldn’t wish divorce on you, but if it’s happening just know that the shimmer of a silver lining is tucked just below the surface of the chaos. It’s so close you could scratch it off with the side of a quarter. I know this to be true, because it’s been so true for me. Once I was released from the searing hot pain that infused the immediate years before, during and after the end of the romantic relationships with my kids’ fathers, the happy underbelly of this unexpected turn of events (me, no longer living under the same roof as my child’s other parent) revealed itself in a near blinding display. Here’s some of what co-parenting has given me:
1. Breath and space. Co-parenting has given me an embarrassment of child-free days to work and play and contemplate. My kids are now 17 and 12 and I’ve been co-parenting them for the majority of their lives. When my boys were little and parenting was a full-body contact sport, I had consistent access to the greatest commodity in a young mother’s life — unstructured time. My married friends still had their marriages, but I could sip my coffee uninterrupted while gazing at the buds on the apple tree in the backyard. I could meet a friend for a dinner-hour movie and then stroll aimlessly around town until was good and ready to call it a night. I could dive deep into work deadlines with no concern for picking anyone up or dropping anyone off. I could date! Late dates, early dates, sleepover dates. On my off weeks there were no lunches to pack or homework to check and when my kiddos returned to me my batteries were super charged, all that me-time now overflowing out of my cup and into my parenting.
When my kids were little I felt bad for my married friends. I still feel bad for my married friends. Sure they knew who they were coming home to each night, but they were frazzled and exhausted, trapped in a domestic groundhog day, working to etch a yoga class or a girls night onto the monthly family calendar. And now, with our kids hurtling deeper into adolescence, time to themselves continues to be branded as “me time” instead of simply “time.” Doing anything for or with themselves is infused with a sense of indulgence and luxury rather than simply being a normal part of a healthy human existence.
2. A ready-made village. Since my divorce from my older son’s dad 15 years ago, there has been a collection of adults surrounding and supporting my kids at all times. Modern mothers hear talk of “the village” from the moment they’re considering procreation — the village the village the village. But for many of us, often living an overpriced plane ride from family, it’s a fantasy, a scene from a black and white movie set in a tiny Italian town, nonna and nonno ensconced next door to their kids and grandkids, making red sauce suppers for the clan on Sundays. My village isn’t as cinematic or as circular, but it’s real. More like a sacred squiggle; it’s a gaggle of grownups each caring for my children in their own way, some more hands on, others exerting care and influence from a distance. Each kiddo has a father and a stepmother, and a shared stepdad, my partner. Plus grandparents, so many grandparents, and aunties and uncles (blood and chosen). These people are key players in the kids’ lives and are either sharing the heavy lifting of everyday parenting, making lunches, shuttling them to orthodontist appointments, attending parent teacher conferences, or they’re at our Christmas or birthday tables, sending cards and silly memes, or FaceTiming on the regular.
3. Free child care. I say this with gratitude and reverence for the countless mothers buckling under the “motherhood penalty” the unwritten cost — to our career trajectory, our retirement accounts, and our mental health — of choosing to become mothers in a country with one of the weakest social support systems in the developed world. Don’t get me wrong, my career and finances absolutely took a hit by choosing a freelance career that gave me the ability to be present with my kids, but my co-parenting system has made it so there was always an adult on call to be with my kids so I could work, travel, nurture new romantic relationships, and be blissfully alone.
4. Flexible, adaptable, open-minded kids. My kids are growing up in two homes with two different sets of parents. Two homes means a variety of rhythms, rules, and philosophies. Two houses means different pets, different siblings, and different neighborhoods. You hear all the time about dual homes leading to confusion or chaos in young people; that kids end up feeling displaced or uprooted. In my two boys, I see open-minded, curious kids who are being exposed to multiple points of view, by having a front row seat to many ways of living a life. To be clear, my household is aligned with the other households on the big picture aspects of raising kids: chores, screen time, eating dinner together as a family, etc., but everything else is totally up to each household, with minimal questions asked. How we spend our weekends, what we do for fun, how we relax — household specific. And to be fair, sometimes it’s a little annoying for the kids and for us, especially when someone forgets their favorite pair of jeans at the other house or abandons their airpods in the passenger seat of the other parent’s car. But it’s a small price to pay for entry into this dynamic universe and complaints are rarely uttered. And I’m pretty sure this set up is helping to shape our kids into incredibly cool people. My older son spent most of his childhood in the East Bay outside of San Fransisco moving between our house in a suburban neighborhood and his dad and stepmom’s loft apartment in an urban part of town. We have families, some seniors, parks and playgrounds. Their building houses artists and makers and hosts a backlot New Year’s blowout with fire breathing sculptures. At 17 he’s street savvy, creative, and capable of connecting with pretty much anybody.
Kids who live in one household with one set of parents can be buffered from differing perspectives by the four walls of their home, the family’s way of doing things reverberating off the walls and ceilings until it winds its way deep into the kids. Not so much with co-parenting.
5. More people to parent with. Parenting is hard. It’s basically an endless, humbling stream of trying something out, recognizing that it doesn’t work and then trying something else. Having more adults by your side who love your kids as insanely much as you do is extremely helpful as you fumble through this awkward dance. More wisdom and more perspectives = less isolation and less self-punishing. I can’t recommend it enough.
If you’re knees-deep in the thick mud of early divorce where your ex has transformed into an unrecognizable stranger, consumed by his own pain and determined to take you down with his sinking ship, breathe deep, hold steady. Do your own work. Release your grip on blame and bitterness. Stay on your side of the street. It will shift. Or it won’t. Either way you’ll create enough space within yourself to catch a tiny glimpse of the glittery lining hiding under all this madness.