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Children
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Easing the impact of divorce on children….
11 Mar 2011 by Rod Smith / 1 Comment
Pain is an inevitable result of almost all divorce and hardly anyone in a family escapes it. The enduring stress, the separation period preceding the divorce, the event itself, and the process of adjustment, all impact family members.
When divorce is regarded as a process, and not an event, the impact is likely to be somewhat eased.
Out of the ruins of a broken marriage people do not easily embrace such principles. These are goals to work toward. Doing so is likely to ease the impact of divorce upon the children.
It is worthwhile noting that remaining (unhappily) married is often easier than becoming (happily) divorced.
Assuming no violence has occurred, the following attitudes expressed by the adults will allow for the best outcome when two adults divorce :
1. We will discuss the divorce with you, together, on a regular basis.
2. We are divorced but remain your parents.
3. It is our divorce, not yours. The implications affect everybody, but it remains our divorce.
4. We were once happy as husband and wife and you were born out of our love. We found parenting to be rich and rewarding. (Ignore if not true).
5. We will always help and protect you and cooperate with each other concerning you.
6. You have done nothing to cause our divorce and nothing you do will restore our marriage.
7. We will not destroy each other (verbally or in any manner) but will rather choose to honor and respect each other.
8. We will not use you as a go-between your parents, or as the rope in a tug-of-war, or as a commodity for child-support.
9. When you face inevitable choices, we will clearly communicate with you about your options. When this is impossible, we will tell you why it is impossible.
10. When choices cannot be made easier we will do all we can to make them clearer. We will honor and hear your voice in all choices pertaining to you and when and if it impossible to do so, we will let you know why. Hearing you (and each other) does not mean agreeing or giving you what you want. Divorce makes some things beyond the control of even the most loving and reasonable and powerful people.
11. We will support each others’ values and rules and will try to establish a similar atmosphere in each home.
12. We both want you to do well in life. Our failure at marriage does not mean you will fail at life.
13. We cannot predict the future, but we will both talk about it with you as we see it developing. You will have as much information as possible about your family and about yourself.
14. You will have as much power over your life as is age appropriate. Sometimes the divorce will feel more powerful than each of us alone and all of us together.
15. You will be able to visit both extended families. Your extended family will be as helpful to you about our divorce as we are. They are also committed to speaking only well of each of your parents. (Ignore if untrue. Let this be a goal).
16. You have permission to embrace any person each parent might include in his or her life. Accepting and loving a stepparent will not be regarded as disloyalty. You might even choose to call that person mother or father without our resistance.
17. All the adults (step and biological parents) will regularly meet to discuss matters relating to you.
18. We will try to lessen the amount of travel between homes so that you might be as settled as possible.
19. Failure at any venture on your part is not because of the divorce. Many people have had divorced parents and have made successes of their lives.(One person commented: “If I we could have done all that we’d still be married.” I repeat, these are goals, broad ideas for which to strive to make into a reality.)
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When ADHD comes home……
18 Feb 2011 by Rod Smith / 3 Comments
I am grieving. No. No one’s dead. I’ve not been deserted or fired.
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It really is a myth that women are the only ones who can serve as a ‘primary’ caregiver to a child…
31 Jan 2011 by Rod Smith / No Comments
Dear Rod Smith
I want to write this letter anonymously to protect the identify of my son.
I read your column of 26 January 2011 in The Mercury with great interest and really wish to comment.
It really is a myth that women are the only ones who can serve as a ‘primary’ caregiver to a child. Its ‘first prize’ if both parents are available and share the parenting responsibilities (even though they themselves might not be joined in a romantic or marital relationship). I am, in the same way as you, living testimony that men are totally able to provide for all the caring needs of an infant child. I reconciled with my son’s mother two days after he was born. He is not my biological son (although none of the family is aware of this) and since we took him home from the hospital, I have provided for virtually all his needs (material, emotional, developmental). His mother struggled to bond with him after his birth and with my support we worked through this period and I did my best to ensure that its effects on him are minimal. During this time, and even to now, I play the most significant parenting role in his life (and this does not mean his mom does not have a wonderful and loving relationship with him).
I believe that the myth that men are not capable or competent to nurture young children is institutionalised by views such as those expressed by the writer of the letter to you and this is as a child which leads to men being denied the opportunity to build strong and meaningful relationships with both their children and the mothers of their children. On the other hand I do feel that race can have its own dynamics, but need not necessarily be an impediment to good parenting.
Durban Dad
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His child has no respect for my daughter….
26 Jan 2011 by Rod Smith / No Comments
“My daughter is living with her fiancé. He has a nine-year-old daughter from a previous marriage. The girl has no respect for my daughter. My daughter and her fiancé argue about caring for his child. Now his daughter wants to live with her dad because her mom who does not work yells at her all the time. She is already living with them 3-4 nights a week. My daughter and her fiancé have a 1 year old and another ‘on the way.’ He expects my daughter to take his daughter to and from school and to all of her activities while also taking care of two babies. She cannot do this. He has told my daughter that he will always put his daughter first over her. Is my daughter legally responsible for doing this?”
Your daughter and her fiancé owe all of the children (including the one “on the way”) an honest discussion about marriage, child-care, the involvement of the former wife in the life of her daughter, and much else. I’d suggest you do not rescue your daughter or the children by functioning over and above the call of any sane, loving mother and grandmother. Attempts to “save” your daughter will prolong the couple’s avoidance of issues that ultimately must be faced.
This must be faced.....
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Three questions that on occasion come my way….
23 Jan 2011 by Rod Smith / 5 Comments
Any reasonable man, given my circumstances, could and would do the same. I loved the late night feedings and all that went with loving infants.
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Verbal log-jam
When I was a boy I’d endlessly practice the fluent delivery of my name but it seldom flowed easily from my lips. As if it was new news to me, adults pointed out my stutter. Perhaps they thought I was beginning, at that precise moment, for the first time in my life to spit from the mouth, twist at the neck, jig my head back and forth trying to expel some inane statement log-jammed between my gut and my throat.
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Life in our beloved 122
If the inside of a house (outside, too, I suppose) is a metaphor of the lives of the people who live in it – which is something I once read somewhere – gosh, are we in trouble. Our house is a mess.
I consistently clean it room by room, thinking often of the legend that the Golden Gate Bridge that says there’s some guy constantly painting it. I feel for him. While I am sure the view is wonderful I must believe that the poor guy whose doing it daily from one end to the other must find the wind and the weather quite a challenge.
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Being a white South African can come with complications
Being a white South African reared under Apartheid is no simple matter. It permeated everything for me. While I do not pretend to have been a political activist, I was always cognizant that my privileges, simply a result of being born white, were unmerited, and most unfair especially when enjoyed at the expense of others who were not. I think this unsettling truth (for I took advantage of my station in life) was somewhat of a companion to me from the age of about six or seven.
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Location, location – remembering winter in August
We live very close to our school and church, so close we can hear the school bell from our kitchen and the church bells in my bedroom.
Sometimes we walk to both and we don’t see the car for days.
I like it. I like not having to get in and out of the car. I like not having to negotiate traffic, something as synonymous with life in the USA as Disney, Fast Food, and the Fourth of July.
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Ready to adopt?
If you wait until you are ready to adopt a child you never will because you will never be ready. The baby, and only the baby, will make you ready. Reading the right books will be helpful, but “ready” magically comes upon you when a real baby is sleeping in your arms or crying in the middle of the night. If you are not ready to change diapers – and I always am amused at the big deal about this non-issue – being unprepared will last only as long as a clean diaper.
Life inside the Smith household
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