We all have our differences. We surely do. And in many instances we try to find ways that we can make things work. The harsh reality is that many of our families are moving away from tradition. Tradition in the sense of mother and father being married, an item or even friends. This begs the question of what is normal anymore. For many kids, especially those growing up in African American households, the reality is living with Mother, and either father visits and supports as well or Father isn't really around. The truth is that we have moved away from many of the very practices that made the traditional family makeup with all it's members and team dynamic intact. Commitment isn't as celebrated as it once was, premarital sex is far from taboo, and settling down happens much later ([if ever]on average) than the baby boomer generation. So the likelihood that a woman may become pregnant by a man who isn't her husband (or even someone who is committed to her) is stronger than it ever has been. My appeal to Moms on this Fatherhood Friday isn't to reach back into the depths of your soul and discover your inner homemaker/wifedom. I'm not even appealing that you guys wait until marriage to become sexually intimate (even though that's what most religions including mine, Christianity, encourages). I'm not here to tell you what to do. My appeal is this: DO NOT USE YOUR CHILD(REN) AS TOOLS TO SABOTAGE OR VINDICATE YOUR EX.
I know it's tempting. I recently was able to get some revenge on someone who wronged me. It felt good. I felt powerful. But here's the thing, negative reinforcement stops behavior, positive reinforcement changes behavior. That, my friend, is a pedagogical (art or science of teaching) , behavioral management truth. So, while this person will probably not step over their boundary with me again, I can't say that it won't happen to someone else. This type of truth can lend itself to all of you who deal with the challenges of creating two separate households and realities for your children because you guys weren't able to make it as a couple.
A child should not have to pay the consequences for mistakes we have made. Sure, some of the residual effects just come with the territory, but making a kid feel guilty about a gift from the significant other of their father's boo, or their mother's boo is just wrong. Fighting and arguing in front of the kid, wrong. Making the kid feel malice or anger towards the other parent wrong. All of these things hurts a child's ability to grow to be functionally social, intelligible, pychologically and emotionally healthy human beings. It does.
When you tell a kid all that's wrong with their father, you tell the kid that 50% of their genetic makeup is flawed. Even before they can verbalize the concept of genetic makeup, a kid knows that part of them is from their Daddy. Point blank.
Here's what we don't realize as adults. Many of the antisocial, dysfunctional, rude, disrespectful crap that kids end up doing they learn from adults. We model all of these things either in front of them to someone else or to our kids personally. My son doesn't have much of a concept of holding a grudge. He knows that when I don't give him what he wants that it hurts, he's sad and a bit upset. I encourage him to think about being upset and how it's ok to be at that place. I discourage him from retaliating with disrespect because that is an antisocial behavior. If he does respond with disrespect I reprimand him, and when he doesn't I praise him for it. What he doesn't get from me is a grudge, a prolonged period of time where I'm ridiculously upset at him. The GRUDGE is an adult thing, a behavior we learned from someone and we prematurely pass it to our kids.
I'm saying all this because I've seen and (on occasion) experienced the frustration and tension that comes from a co-parent who uses a child as a way to get back and control the other parent. We are adults. They are kids. It's not our job to make them feel more residual effects from "broken homes" than they do when they call for their father in the middle of the night and they realize, even in their deep sleep that he isn't in the room, home or building to answer his midnight call.
Just as that call falls on ears that can't hear it, you guys need to turn your critical frequencies towards hearing me out on this. Your kid will thank you in the end. Get along for the kid. Not tea and crimpets get along, but make parenting work get along. Our community needs it.
Photo found here
"Art of the Father," a young man's tale of the lessons instilled in himby his father. Please read it at http://wp.me/pC3Xj-fX
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