Dont Let Your Kids Carry Your Baggage
I recently had a single mom tell me that her 12-year-old son came home from his father’s house with some emotionally-charged questions. “I was shocked to hear what his dad was telling him about why we had separated,” said the concerned mother. “Can you believe he actually asked me if it was true that I had been ‘sleeping around’ on his dad? I was furious. Even though it’s totally false, how was I supposed to defend that?”
This is not an uncommon scenario. After a painful breakup, there is often nothing left but raw emotions. Unfortunately, when we react to these emotions, we end up exaggerating reality and appease our anger by vilifying the other person. That might feel good, but it’s definitely not a healthy reaction to share with your children. Some parents ask, “Why not? Shouldn’t my kids know the truth about the other parent?” Well, let’s look at that rationally and ask a few simple questions:
1) Do your kids really need to know now what they will probably experience later? The answer is no. If the other parent truly is a “bad” person, your child will find that out on his own when he has enough life experiences to understand adult interactions. It keeps your child in the middle because he or she is faced with the burden of choosing who is right, when what they really want is to love both of their parents equally and to feel they are loved in return. It’s possible that the other person will change his or her ways somewhere down the road, so don’t taint the ideal image your child has of the other parent. In fact, divorced parents often think they will feel some kind of revenge when their kids grow up and finally realize what a no-good so-and-so the other parent is. But in reality, it is very difficult to watch a child deal with and accept the poor character of a parent. If you wish anything at all, it should be that the other parent would change so your children will be spared the same pain you experienced with that person. There is no pleasure in being right about this one.
2) What if you are wrong about the other parent? Behavior speaks louder than words. If you spend 20 years bad-mouthing a child’s father, for instance, and your child spends enough time with his father to discover he’s nothing like what you say he is — who is the liar? Parent-child relationships are much different than marital relationships. It’s quite possible that you could not get along with your ex because of fundamental differences in values and personalities. That doesn’t mean your child will see it in the same way you did. If you repeatedly tell your children that the other parent is lazy and uncaring, for example, but your children have experienced a very hard-working, loving parent when they have been around him, they will undoubtedly question your judgment over their experience. They will probably end up siding with the parent who isn’t poisoning the waters.
3) How does it make your child feel? It’s unfortunate that because we go through such intense emotions after a break-up, we too often focus on our own feelings over those of our children. Revealing all the nasty details about an adult relationship only serves to place your child in a judging position and it hurts their self-esteem. If they think they are one-half of each of you, how might it feel for them to hear awful things about what makes up one-half of them?
So how do you answer the question the son posed to his mother about “sleeping around?” First of all, you have to ask yourself why the child is sharing this information with you. More than likely, it hurt him to hear those things and in a roundabout way, he wants to let you know that didn’t feel good. So, acknowledge the feelings, but resist the urge to defend. That will only create a he-said, she-said conversation.
Instead, say, “I’m sorry you had to hear that about me. That must have made you feel angry….sad… awkward”, etc. Often that is all it takes to diffuse this kind of question. If he persists and says, “Well, is it true?” The best thing you can say is “I understand how that would make you angry to hear, but all I can do is show you the person I am and you can decide. As far as the details of your father’s and my relationship, that’s between adults and is not information you need to concern yourself with.”
If he persists, keep validating his feelings, but state over and over that you will not engage in a defensive conversation. Eventually, your child will learn that he does not have a right to know everything about his parents’ relationship and will stop probing.
Too often, we think we need to enlighten our children in the name of truth, but YOUR truth is not always the best thing for THEM. What you tell your children and when will depend on their ages, their personalities, their relationship with the other parent, and many other variables. Use your own good judgment. Bottom line… keep kids out of the middle at all cost, take care of their feelings over your own, and parent with integrity. Children in single parent families will defy the statistics when their parents rise to this simple challenge.
Diane Chambers Dierks is a licensed marriage and family therapist, divorce mediator, and parent educator in Atlanta, Georgia. She is author of “Solo Parenting: Raising Strong and Happy Families” (Fairview Press, 1997) and The Co-Parent Tool Box (Aha! Publishing 2014). For ordering information, call 404-218-1739 or visit her web site at www.dianedierks.com