Talking trash about your ex in front of your (now older) child
The golden rule to parenting is never to fight with your spouse in front of your child. For me, that rule broke years ago. The new golden rule in co-parenting within in a two-household situation is never to speak badly about the other parent in front of your child. That rule broke also. The new, new golden rule is never to take that fight virtual. Well, the rule on no cyber-attacks crashed and burned. Sigh.
The stuff my ex and I fight about aren’t petty anymore. They are serious items like where our daughter goes to school, her continued participation in extracurricular or even which home she spends the most time! It is more and more difficult to be discrete about these fundamental decisions as they impact the child so much. And as she hurls headfirst into the teenage years, it is not only futile but paternalistic (or maternalistic) to believe that the parents can resolve issues without the child’s input! So be mindful of a few more golden rules.
Always be prepared for war. You may not pick fights but be prepared to defend your position permanently so that skirmish don’t keep popping up over the same things. You’ll need to keep your wits about you to ensure that previous decisions are either adhered to or enforced. It’s unfortunate for me that my ex feels that time diminishes the legitimacy of decisions made in the past. Time changes only the relevancy of those decisions to the child. Once upon a time, our daughter bounced between two households equally. Now the demands on her time in competitive extracurricular means the logistics of travel and the impact on equal custody might need to be rethought.
As she hurls headfirst into the teenage years, it is not only futile but paternalistic (or maternalistic) to believe that the parents can resolve issues without the child’s input.
Keep it factual. It’s emotionally easy to embellish and sensationalize the outrageous views of the other. Here’s the litmus test: write it down and if it can’t survive the objectivity of the legal lens, then don’t even engage. Not taking the bait frees you from contemplating immaterial matters. It might also have the effect of extinguishing the issue before it even heats up. An added bonus is that as your child becomes more engaged in some of these discussions, you’d want to keep things actual and faithful to what is good for the child. I used to not speak badly about my daughter’s mom in front of her for obvious reasons. Now, I speak neutrally so that if her mom’s arguments are examined objectively, it could fall apart not only in my eyes, but also in my daughter’s. Once, my ex took our daughter out of class early. My daughter tried to placate me by saying that they were only playing bingo and she wouldn’t miss much. I asserted that bingo was being played in language class so in effect, the lesson was learning numbers in a foreign language. Perhaps skipping out early wasn’t justified.
Keep the kids out of it; but keep them informed. Even though your fights have little to do with the kids, they are all about the kids. For most divorced couples, kids are the only reason why there is still contact. Pre-teen and teenage kids are not stupid. And in my daughter’s case, she already knows a lot; she knows the issues and the positions of the arguments held by dad and mom. She doesn’t get involved in the battle, but she knows what the fight is about. This is all the more reason why most discussions, arguments and resolution must be forced into the open and not be swept under the rug. You’ll never have a large enough rug. Bring it out into the open and transparency will burn away subjectivity and frivolity. I also take my daughter’s cue on some issue to determine which issues are more important to her, not me.
I don’t pick fights, but I am prepared to end them. As much as I’d like to prove the other is wrong, it’s more satisfying when they do that themselves. And I’ve learned that no amount of personal commentary is as powerful as the legitimize choice of the child. And while my ex may think that the fight is about us, increasingly, my daughter is wise to it. I don’t need to talk trash about my ex—I only need to speak candidly and impartially. Put another way…trash happens.
