Practical Parenting Thursdays

Every Thursday, I attempt to bring a few simple but often overlooked ideas to the emotional minefield of single parenting in what I call Practical Parenting Thursdays.

Separation and divorce make children frightened, confused, and insecure.  It's not surprising; I feel that way, and the separation was my idea!  Expect the unexpected, though.  My 4 year-old cheered when we told her Dad was moving out.  She probably recalled the awesome swimming pool at Dad's apartment when he briefly moved out before.

Fake Pro Tip:  Swimming pools make divorce fun!

There are many resources available to divorcing parents (I've found Kids Coping with Divorce by WebMD and Children and Divorce by The Mayo Clinic helpful).  Here are some things things I've learned that help me be a better parent through my separation:

• Take care of yourself.  Even if you want it, divorce is painful.  Transition is scary. Sometimes familiar discomfort seems better than an uncertain future, even if that future possibly involves scantily-clad cabana boys bringing margaritas on command.  Do what you need to do to take care of yourself mentally, emotionally and physically.
• Don't rely on your kids for support.  It's alright to let your kids see that you're human, but don't rely on them for emotional support.  Turn to friends, family, and the aforementioned cabana boys if you need support, but never your children.
• Let your kids feel.  Burying emotional owies in ice cream seems like an awesome idea, but it's (sadly) not.  Tell your kids it's okay to be sad, angry, or scared, and remind them you and Dad love them.  Make it abundantly clear there is nothing they did to cause this, or anything they could have done to prevent it.

Also, get a swimming pool, because they apparently help.

Please share your thoughts, experiences or suggestions in the comments.  The best wisdom is collective wisdom!  Or, share pictures of cabana boys.  It's therapeutic.

The Silence of the Absent Lambs

Mother's Day was a couple of weekends ago, and starting about a week before, mothers on the social networks I frequent began discussing their plans. Many wanted a nice day with their families. Several had high expectations of their spouses. Some discussed an article that indicates registrations on AshleyMadison.com, a website tailored to spouses looking to cheat, spike the day after Mother's Day because of so many women disappointed with their lackluster treatment.

What I've always secretly hoped for on Mother's Day was not really discussed:  quiet.  I'm not the only one who's felt that way, but it certainly doesn't seem to be the most visible viewpoint.

It's ironic, then, that the most difficult thing about the separation with my husband has been the prolonged, almost tenable silence.  It's like this:

You can almost hear the theme from "The Good, The Bad and the Ugly" playing mournfully.
"Oo-ee-oo-ee-ooooh..."  Image credit: Sandman.

It's so quiet in that picture, you know the slightest bit of wind would roar in your ears.  If a tumbleweed blew by, it would loudly scritch-scratch its way across the landscape. There are certainly no ear-drum bursting wails of a disappointed four year-old, or even the barely audible grumblings of a grounded ten year-old.

And that’s my house, three nights a week and one weekend a month:  tumbleweeds and abandoned railways and implied ghost towns.

The first thing I did was buy a boombox so I could keep the radio on.  (Side note:  do you know how hard it is to buy a boombox these days?!  And they’re so expensive!  Curse you, 80s nostalgia!)  The second thing I did is stop ignoring my dog, Baxter:

Too cute to be ignored.

Also, I might have cried a little bit, which certainly helped to increase the noise level in the house.

I look forward to the time when the silence is peaceful and comforting instead of scary and lonely. Until then, I’ll have to suffer through Delilah on the radio every night.

Singular Mother, Squared

Ten years, 6 months and 2 days ago, I became a mother. Four years, 10 months and 18 days ago, I became a mother, squared.  I say "squared" rather than "times two" because, in my experience, having two children is not twice as difficult, but rather exponentially more difficult than one.  I've tried to be an involved, attentive mother who puts great thought into doing and saying the correct things to give my children the best shot at only needing a few years of psychotherapy when they're adults.

Three weeks, 2 days and 11 hours ago, I became single.  I suppose I became single again, seeing as how I was presumably single before I was married (though it's hard for a mentally-elderly person like me to remember so long ago).  When you've been not single for 8 years, though, you can't just go back to where you were before.  You emerge from a marriage a wholly different person than the one who went in, so saying I am single again incorrectly implies a return to a state that no longer exists.  Perhaps I'm single, squared.

To the chagrin of my mother and many of my mommy friends, I have never felt defined by motherhood. It's something I do, and try to do well, but not something I am.  Single parenting, then, has been a unique challenge for me.  While I'm lucky to have an involved co-parent, and have a couple of kid-free nights a week, when the kids are with me, they're with only me.  I live three hundred miles from my nearest relative, so I'm it -- the end-all and be-all of my children's well-being for several nights every week.  I have found this overwhelming, frustrating, and terrifying, but at times oddly liberating.  I hope you will join me as I set out on the journey into the unfamiliar territory of complete self-reliance, and contribute your own fears, successes, failures, and oh-my-gosh-there-was-poop-everywhere stories.  I can't promise I won't laugh at you, but I can promise I'm completely willing to let you laugh right back at me.