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Single parenting
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Ex husband has introduced my children to his new woman…
08 Feb 2006 by Rod Smith / 1 Comment
My husband left me a year ago for another woman. He has introduced my children (12, 14, 15) to her. She stays the night with them at his flat every second weekend like they are one happy family. My children come home very upset. They cannot tell him they do not like this arrangement. He says they have fun with her. I know they are being nice because they are nice children and don’t know how else to treat a grown woman. What can I do?
Rod Replies: Your children are walking the tightrope of divided loyalties. Children should be encouraged to tell their parents the truth about what they see and feel, even if what they see and feel does not please the parent. This is a very difficult situation (for all of you) over and above the inherent difficulties of divorce.
Try not to talk negatively about your ex-husband or his new woman as such talk will only serve to set the children against you. If you are able, pass no comment about his living arrangements. Your children are old enough to draw their own conclusions and make their own assessments about their father and his values.
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Easing the impact of divorce on children
01 Feb 2006 by Rod Smith / 4 Comments
Pain is an inevitable result of almost all divorces 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, its 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 married is often easier than getting divorced. There will be times when the divorce is more difficult than the marriage.
Assuming no sexual abuse 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 and are no longer husband and wife. We are still both 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.
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 make us get back together.
7. We will say nothing negative about each other.
8. We will not use you as a go-between, between us.
9. When you face inevitable choices, we are committed to communicating with you about your options as clearly as possible. When this is impossible, we will talk about why it is so.
10. When choices cannot be made easier, we will do all we can to make options clearer.
11. We will support each other’s values and rules and will try to establish a similar atmosphere in each home.
12. We want you to do well in life. Our failure at marriage does not have to become your failure 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 youself and your family. We will do what is possible to reduce your need to employ guesswork regarding what is going on around you.
14. You will have as much power over your life as is age appropriate.
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.
16. You have permission to embrace any person each parent might include in his or her life.
17. Accepting and loving a stepparent some day, will not be regarded as disloyalty. You might even choose to call that person mother or father without resistance from either of your parents. 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 with divorced parents have lived very successful lives.
© Copyright Rod E. Smith 1998 / All rights reserved
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A meditation for “recovering” child-focused, child-obsessed parents…
30 Jan 2006 by Rod Smith / No Comments
Loving my children will be a priority, but not the central or only priority of my life.
Parenting, and loving my children will not consume me becuase I will not allow it to.
If loving my children has an all-consuming effect upon me, the parent, it will certainly also consume the children!
Undiluted, laser-like love, and focused attention, directed at any child will bother him, will unsettle him, more than empower him. Rather than helping him feel loved and secure he will feel unduly responsible for my emotional well being, and that will feel like a mountain too big for any child to climb.
Children deserve freedom from the intense, even loving gaze, of a parent.
Oh, of course, children want a parent’s undistracted focus, and of course they want their parents’ loving interest, but when a parent has too much love, and too much interest in their child (to the exclusion of the parent’s other interests and loves) then this “love” becomes a burden for the child.
Children want our love, not the sacrifice of our lives on their behalf.
Children do not need parents to be martyrs.
Children want parents to be parents.
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Reader expresses deep gratitude for advice given over a year ago
27 Jan 2006 by Rod Smith / No Comments
Dear Sir,
Towards the end of 2004/ beginning of 2005 I wrote to ask your opinion and advice on my decision to leave my son with my parents to travel to London from Durban and work there for the duration of last year.
You encouraged me to go, stating that if I did not do so I would regret it and that, as long as I knew my son was in a safe environment, I should not allow my life to stand still for him. You even called me from your home to speak to me in this regard.
I wanted to say a HUGE HUGE THANK YOU for all your encouragement. I did work in London for the duration of last year, recently arrived back and am intending on returning again towards the end of March. My son was indeed no worse off by my decision, in fact my working there allowed me to pay for him to fly to London to visit me, a fantastic and exciting event for a child of 12! I have realised by my decision that I am no longer afraid to travel, that the world may be a huge place, but that I have many many more options available to me now, that I am not afraid to apply to work in other countries, that I would like to try and live abroad (with my son) and work and enjoy another country and their cultures.
I cannot begin to express how grateful I am for your advice and encouragement in this regard. I am overwhelmed.
I wish you and your family all the best. Take care, and once again many many thanks!
Kind regards,
COLLEEN
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Home can be where the real hurt is ….
08 Jan 2006 by Rod Smith / No Comments
The “outside world” can be a dangerous place for children, but an exceedingly dangerous environment for children can also be their own home. While medicine cabinets, cleaning materials and unlocked swimming pool gates pose a real threat to the safety of children, the unguarded mouth of an angry adult that can do grieveous harm to a child.
A vigilant parent might lock a medicine cabinet, yet leave her anger lying all over the house for an innocent child to stumble upon. Unresolved anger in a parent, expressed through unpredictable displays of frustration and annoyance or rage, can quite effectively ruin a happy childhood – and set the next generation “on rage”!
It is in their own homes that children might be at most in danger, for it is at home they will learn about trust, and exercise the most trust. It is at home they will learn, or fail to learn, all about love. It is at home they will make the most mistakes and receive the most correction. It is at home that children will learn about fear and hurt and rejection.
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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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