As you all know I’ve been reading the “Co-Parenting Survival Guide,” by Thayer & Zimmerman. I read a couple of incredible chapters that I wanted to share with everyone this morning. I got side tracked a bit reading a novel, but am now back to “parenting” books. This might be a bit long, so I apologize for that at the onset.

“Choosing the Children Over the Conflict” talks about what the conflict does to the children. It asks a couple of really good questions, but more importantly makes the point that unless the other parent is extremely abusive, or a danger to the child, the child NEEDS the love of both parents. Further pointing out, “If you hadn’t gotten divorced, your children would love and be loved by both their parents. Why should this be taken away from your children as a part of the divorce” (41)?

Of course, as we all know the most important thing is trying to set aside our anger toward the other parent and focus on caring for the child. We, as wonderful step parents, believe we do this much better than the BM. But in order to benefit the children we need to stop fighting with the BM, even if it means giving up, giving in, compromising, or whatever you want to call it. I’ve posted this in a few different posts, but when we were in mediation last December, the mediator said something that both my DH and I remind each other of on a regular basis. He said, “you can’t control what the other person does in their home, and they can’t control what you do in your home.” Bottom line is, “Parents in conflict need to put aside their resentment and distrust of each other to take care of the children” (41).” Further, “The marital unit may have dissolved, but the parental unit needs to be maintained no matter what” (42).

A good question (more to the BM) the book proposes is “When your children are not with you who is with them” (42), excluding daycare or school? The answer is the other parent. At least, the other parent is with the child for 104 days per year … that’s more than 3-months. If you were going to have someone raise your child for 3-months or more, “how important is it for you to have an excellent working relationship with this person” (42)?

Next question (again more to the BM), how much information needs to be exchanged? And, “what would you want to know about this person and the care situation” (44)? Of course these answers are obvious, but one of our most common complaints in our groups is that the BM’s don’t communicate, or they want everything their way or no way. This chapter talks about regaining control of the situation and deciding that you will communicate with the other parent. Of course, as many of us say, this requires taking the “high road.” But the first thing we would do is “provide information because we know it’s in the children’s best interests” (45). This is what most of us would expect, and this isn’t an unreasonable expectation. The BIG question remains, how can we improve communications with the BM?

This chapter ends with some very enlightening statements. “What price should my children pay for the conflict I have with their other parent” (45)? Or, what price do our children pay? “Might (the children) think, ‘it is more important for my mommy and daddy to fight with each other than to take care of me’” (45)?

Stay tuned for the next chapter …

** ** So, some of you may be thinking ... this is GREAT, but how can I get BM to read it or pass this information on to her? DH and I have bought two copies of several books that we think BM should read. We are going to start with this one. He's going to send it to her with a handwritten note stating that we have read it, learned a lot, and we hope that she will take time to read it too. He's even going to address the envelope (everything else she gets is always in my sloppy handwriting).

~ Katrina