Stay at daddy’s or mommy’s tonight? Don’t make her choose

The quick answer to this question is don’t ask your daughter this question. Here’s why.

With our share custody schedule, we rotate our schedule on a fixed day of the week: Monday. One parent drops off at school on Monday morning and the other picks up from aftercare that afternoon. For long weekends, the weekend is extended another day. Sometimes, we shift around some days to balance it off to make the time as equal as possible so our daughter has equal access to mommy and daddy.

On a particular situation, I wound up getting a string of nights that went beyond a week and the rotation wouldn’t be up for another couple of days. In all fairness, I asked if my daughter would be missing her mommy and would instead want to spend time with her earlier than expected. She was a bit silent at first and then said that she would be okay if she stayed with me or stayed with her mom.  I sensed the non-commitment as she vacillated back and forth and I pressed her for an answer. She declined to make one. Then I deferred the discussion since we didn’t need to make the decision right away.

Lesson for me was that even though I thought I was being considerate in asking my daughter if she wanted to go and see her mom early, what she felt was me pushing her away. Now I know. Some things you just don’t ask.

That night, I thought about this little encounter and realized that I had inadvertently asked my daughter to choose between her mom and me. To me, it was just an evening. To her, it probably meant picking one parent over the other and she was uncomfortable doing this. She didn’t want to risk hurting my feelings by leaving early or hurting her mom’s feelings by electing to stay. She would rather someone else make the decision and she would be okay with either decision.

For children of divorce, both parents are anchors to their world that has already seen so much upheaval. Blame, loyalty and closeness are top of mind for them. To press them to decide over a seemingly benign choice is to ask them to state their loyalty. Children really want and need to stay out of the cross-hairs and away from the conflict to maintain good relationship with both parents.

I awoke the next day and told my daughter that I decided she was staying with me until the end of the rotation. I also told her we were going to spend extra time doing things.  She was delighted. I will never know (because I didn’t want to ask), but I think her elation was threefold: she didn’t have to choose; her dad wanted her to stay, rather than pushing her out; and her mom will be a sight for sore eyes after she’s gotten her fill of daddy time as a new rotation begins.

That last day spent was a great cap to a perfect long weekend which ended appropriately as everyone was prepared to head back to work and school. It was also a natural transition to a new week with her mom as they began their rotation, rather than struggling to find something to do at the end of a long weekend.

Lesson for me was that even though I thought I was being considerate in asking my daughter if she wanted to go and see her mom early, what she felt was me pushing her away. Now I know. Some things you just don’t ask.