The Two Home Family

Fill out a quick survey and get a $20 gift free! Click here to enter now! Start earning money, work from the comfort of your home

by Sally Adams Hedgecock from www.morethanasinglemom.com

    I am part of a loving family. To begin with, my family includes my three children, their dad, his wife, their baby daughter and my boyfriend. In a time when my situation might be referred to as a broken home, my family is anything but broken. When one of my two daughters had her first period she not only shared this exciting news with me, she also called her stepmom. After all, her stepmom is one of the two most important women in her life. When three of the four concerned adults in my other daughter’s life attended a parent-teacher conference to learn what we could do to support that child, the teacher seemed both pleased and startled. She said she rarely gets even one parent to a conference as she scurried around trying to find another adult chair. At my son’s baseball game we would pass around his adorable baby sister from her mom to me to my mom to a big sister and back to her mom.

    It was really difficult at first to share my kids with this woman I didn’t know. For one thing, I had no say in choosing her. Luckily, the woman my ex-husband selected as an additional parent to our children loves kids. In some ways, this made it even harder as part of me wanted her to be a horrible ogre so my kids would always love me best. I had to accept that she actually wanted to be a part of their lives. I’ve learned over the last few years that sharing things with my children’s stepmom is more rewarding than I thought it would be. For one thing, there’s another adult who loves my children enough to help with homework, drive to practices and share their joys and tears. She and I don’t do everything alike but my kids are savvy enough to know the difference and kids are rarely confused in these situations about who is their mom. 

    Communicating with my children’s step-mom is also a way to keep everybody’s schedule straight. My children have a sense of ease in talking about their lives with all their parents. Nobody gets away with much either because kids can’t play one parent against another when the parents are communicating. My kids’ dad, step-mom and I work out our schedules regularly over the Internet and we spend time sharing the details of our children’s lives over the phone and email. My boyfriend completes the picture when he attends family meetings and parent-teacher conferences. My kids refer to each other and the four adults who love them as their family.

    For children like mine, divorce provides not one place to call home, but two. Often mom or dad will pretend their children have only one home while the other parent’s house is just a place to visit. There are many children in those circumstances who suffer what Dr. Richard Gardner, Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at Columbia University, calls “Parental Alienation Syndrome.” PAS happens “when one parent consciously attempts to program their child to reject the other parent.” It applies to situations where a parent hasn’t really done anything to warrant the child’s rejection. According to Gardner, “it is the exaggeration of the ‘hated parent's’ flaws that is the hallmark of the Parental Alienation Syndrome.” It’s easy to see how an injured party might want to share every flaw they see in the other parent. For many people a divorce is the ultimate relationship failure and failure is tough to admit. We want to blame someone for our failure and the most convenient person we can blame is the ex-husband or ex–wife.

    The publication of Judith Wallerstein’s book, The Unexpected Legacy of Divorce, has supported arguments encouraging the maintenance of marriages for the sake of the children. This is an old argument bolstered by new evidence. Over twenty-five years ago, Judith Wallerstein began talking to a group of 131 children whose parents were all going through a divorce. She followed them over a period of 25 years and published her findings in what has now become the anti-divorce bible. Wallerstein’s study is fairly small and her analysis somewhat subjective. Anecdotal evidence and in-depth, though potentially biased, interviews form the bulk of her statistics. Though many groups use this study to promote the maintenance of marriage regardless of the circumstances, the study is really only a start to exploring the effect of divorce on children.

    The oversimplification of Wallerstein’s study by advocates of marriage-at-any-cost has bolstered the idea of a ‘second class family’. According to interpreters of the latest studies, children of divorce are statistically bound to fail. This simplified response rarely indicts the real culprits: poverty, substance abuse and negligence. While these factors are found in single parent homes, they are not the result of solo parenting but the reverse. Drug abusers are just as capable of producing children as non-abusers. Their children suffer for reasons other than living with a single mother. For many parents this concern over statistics adds another layer of anxiety to an already stressful event. Many so-called family experts insist a bad marriage is better than a good divorce. For some, no marriage, no matter how bad, should end in divorce if children are involved. There are marriage proponents who conclude there is no emotional price so high that adults become dysfunctional as parents. This is an unwarranted assumption. A child whose parents have given up any hope of a good life are better served by loving, happy parents in separate homes. Wallerstein’s study refutes this by interpreting the data according to some very old ideas of what constitutes a ‘whole’ family. A child may suffer in a difficult divorce, but that same child may also suffer when society tells him that his home is ‘broken’. My three children live in two happy, complete homes with one whole family. They make excellent grades in an accelerated academic program. They enjoy extra-curricular activities by choice. They have great relationships with friends and family. Furthermore, my kids are not unusual. They all have friends who are raised in two separate homes by one whole family working together for the good of the children. For many of these families, parenting skills have improved as a result of raising kids in this new environment.

    Perhaps what’s been overlooked in the popular analysis of Wallerstein’s study is society’s attitude toward single parent families. I’m not suggesting we throw a big party every time someone gets divorced from his or her dirty rotten spouse. What I am suggesting is that we give partners the space to respond to their former spouses in a loving way. Why is it that people who have been best friends and lovers must suddenly become bitter enemies? We have a standard in our society that regards ex-spouses who are still friends as weird. Rather than being anomalies, what if divorced partners as friends became the standard? The next twenty-five year study might place children of a loving divorce in-step with children from homes where long-term marriage is the norm. Proponents of marriage might use Wallerstein’s study as a place to start educating people about the benefits for children of a healthy marriage rather than use it as a scare tactic for couples whose marriage has crumbled beyond repair.

    While I was married I never imagined I would be living apart from my spouse. Now, though, it’s settled into a comfortably loving relationship where the children provide enough joy to fill two houses and the parents provide enough love for all four kids. With more examples in the news of families creating fresh bonds and forming non-romantic friendships after divorce there is a chance that we will begin to see the benefits of this approach. The loving divorce is possible. It is also vital if we want our children to thrive. When three or four adults show up at a parent-teacher conference for any of my children we send a message to kids and teachers, alike. We are a family. No matter how you think it should look, we are a loving, whole, two-home family.

Ten Ways to Make Your Two-Home Family Work

1.   Talk with ALL the adults in the other home at least once a month. Make it a sharing time. Use e-mail if that works. Whatever you do, don’t make it a dispute resolution time. That should be handled separately. Tell the other adults what funny things your kids said or did. Share anything thoughtful the kids said about what goes on in the other home. Catch up on what the kids are scheduled to do that month and work out who’s responsible for transportation.

2.   Resolve disputes quickly. If your children share with you something upsetting, make sure you get the whole story. Share with the other parents what you were told without adding anything. Sharing your kids’ words verbatim is best. It keeps everyone informed and teaches your kids that you share parenting responsibilities. When communication is clear, kids are less likely to play one parent off another.

3.    Use your best instincts. When a child asks you not to share something with the other parent, look and see what they are really saying. In the interest of creating a sense of security for your children you may want to ask them if you can share what they are telling you so the other parents can support the child. When you do share with the other adults, tell them your concerns first. Let them know your child is afraid of the consequences. Sometimes you have to decide if a confidence should be kept. It is best in the long run to encourage your children to share with all their parents.

4.   If you can’t be friends, at least be civil. Your children don’t have the same relationship with your ex-spouse that you do. You don’t need to share your opinions about anything your spouse does unless your opinions are positive. Save the grousing for your friends. Your children need to know that the other parent is still a hero. There will be times when you badly want to tarnish the other parent’s reputation. Count to ten and hold yourself back. There is a payoff in having healthy, happy, confident children. Besides, as they grow, your children will learn how to navigate the treacherous waters of adulthood by what you do, not by what you say.