Your daughter is not a mule
That’s what I said to my ex-wife over another futile exchange. Hard to believe but five years later, things seem to have changed little. We as parents do this all the time to our children: we use them as messengers. Once upon a time, I would say to her, “Tell your mother I’m going to the store to pick up some stuff.” Once upon a time, she’d tell our child, “Tell your father that the smoke detector needs new batteries.” Most of it was informative and inconsequential—little different from passing notes in a class. But after a divorce, everything takes on different meaning and even informative and inconsequential messages will be repurposed.
The other day, my ex who had previously agreed to drop off our daughter at my house at a particular time told my daughter to call me on the phone to ask me to pick her up at a different time and place. I can hear the hesitation in her voice. Seems the mom had changed plans last minute and the new plans were more convenient to her. Two days before that, I got a text message from my ex telling me that my daughter wanted me to pick her up for an extracurricular activity or she won’t be going! Seems the mom got a bit of traction from previous requests and wanted to push her luck. These simple messages can snowball from what was once marginally informative to being outright manipulative. It is needless and ultimately, it stresses the child. If the request is honest and made in the best interest of the child, then there is absolutely no reason why one parent can’t pick up the phone and state it with conviction and expect agreement from the other parent. Not doing so simply incites speculation and the message itself will reek of ulterior motive.
Simple messages can snowball from being marginally informative to being outright manipulative. If the message is honest and made in the best interest of the child, then there is absolutely no reason why one parent can’t tell the other. Not doing so simply reeks of ulterior motive. Teach your daughter to refuse being a messenger; it will liberate her from your battlefield.
When a child’s voice is expropriated or hijacked, the resulting message will inevitably contain missing information and hesitation. It invites misrepresentation and the act literally puts the child in the middle. Not a comfortable situation for anyone and certainly not for a 9 year-old who loves both parents very much. People generally have an aversion to delivering bad news or want to avoid being the messenger if they anticipate the reaction to be negative. I often see this in the workplace, too. Don’t shoot the messenger is a phrase that best describes these situations. So why did my ex send the hapless child to deliver the message? Because I am far less likely to say no when my child asks. But this teaches a child how to use manipulation and guilt-tripping as defensible strategies to obtain a goal. For them, they will experience the emotions of each parent: one being passive-aggressive and the other exploited over a weak point. The child will internalize all of it, will come out blaming herself and subsequently minimizing her own requests thereafter.
In my co-parenting scenario, I try to keep communications to a minimum and only for essential contact. My ex and I use the school and aftercare program for transitioning to our week-on/week-off schedule; one would drop off at school, the other would pick up 8 hours later. There’s no opportunity to see each other and this eliminates the friction. Exceptions exist, and however unfortunate this is, it works.
As for the phone call and text messages I received? I tried to contain my irritation and asked my daughter to put her mom on the phone which effectively did two things: cut my daughter out as the intermediary and sent a clear and direct message to my ex that the circuitous communication is not tolerated. The call with her mom didn’t end well and I was told not to come by to pick up our daughter and she hung up on me. In the end, our daughter was literally caught in the middle as she realized that her mom wasn’t going to take her and also prevented her dad from helping. I can’t help but feel badly for my daughter; at 9 years-old, she was very aware of the tension and very astute in reading the situation. But, the bright side is that my ex fully realized that any questionable messages sent through our daughter to me will result in an immediate phone call. Seems my offense is a good deterrent and she knew I had no appetite for playing mind games. In the immortal words of the WarGames computer, “The only winning move is not to play.” For my daughter’s sake, I told her one thing. If mom ever had a message for her to give to me and she felt uncomfortable, refuse it right away and state politely, “You should talk my dad directly.” And if I ever put her in a situation like that, she should immediately say, “Daddy, I don’t want to play monkey in the middle.” This will liberate her from your battlefield.