Wednesday, 10 March 2010

• Baby, It's Time to Split

  
  

  
  Kayla was busy coloring in her "Dora the Explorer" activity book when she said, without even looking up from her heavy yellow and orange scribbling, "I can't picture you and Daddy ever being married."

  Jenna was surprised. Oh, she knows her daughter is a rather precocious 4-year-old, deep into the "why?" stage, and Jenna is used to her astute observations about flowers, doggies, clouds, spiders and the world around her. But could Kayla really see that her ex, Rick, and she were such different people that they really shouldn't have been together?

  This was the first time Kayla seemed to "get" her parents' split, which had happened when she was just past a year old.
  

  But then it hit Jenna — maybe it wasn't that at all. Kayla knew she had a mommy, she knew she had a daddy, she knew she had family — she just didn't have a clue about what a mommy and daddy living together looked like!
  

  "Kat, I've never regretted my decision to divorce," she told me as we sat side by side getting much-needed pedicures, "but for the first time I'm wondering if there might have been a better time to divorce."

  I never thought about that before, and I'm not sure any of us do. Well, we all know a divorce is going to have huge, long-lasting impacts on our kids, but we might be paying closer attention to the timing of selling the family home — now, when the real estate market is tanking? — than the timing of our kids' developmental stage.

  Experts say early childhood, like Kayla's age, is a tough time for parents to split. Young kids need so much care and hands-on parenting, but divorce often sends stay-at-home moms or dads into the workforce full time. Anyone who works 40-plus hours and has a young child knows how utterly exhausting that can be.

  Of course, my former hubby, Rob, and I didn’t pick a good time, either. Trent was a preteen — the second most vulnerable age for kids to experience a split. Just think about it: If you’re in the middle of your own developmental stuff, flirting with temptations, pushing the boundaries, desperate for independence while trying to figure out why you’re suddenly crushing on a pimply “hunk” who up until that point had been a pesky geek or a wallflower-turned-hottie (with breasts!), who wants to deal with your parents’ antics? Duh! They want you to continue be their school-mall-soccer-tutor-appointment chauffeur, personal chef and laundress. It’s no wonder kids at that age get pissed off, judgmental and embarrassed, especially if their parents start acting like hormonal adolescents themselves.

  But even when you think you're clear to split, you're not.

  Scott and Carol called it quits after 32 years. Well, it was Scott who did the calling; call it a midlife crisis or the recognition that "enough is enough," but he told her the fateful words, "I want a divorce," one night after the third knock-down fight they'd had that week. A year later, Carol's still feels angry and bitter, but he's moved on and is much happier.

  Their kids, however, are not. Matt, 24, had always felt his family was one of the lucky ones to have escaped the dramas he saw his friends go through when he was a teen. Now he feels like he doesn't have a safe place to return home to. Michelle, 28, won't even speak to her dad — "My childhood was a sham!" she yelled at him one day. Plus, she has the burden of being her resentful mother's confidante.

  So if toddlers are too needy, adolescents are too pissed off and adult kids won't even talk to you, when can you get divorced?

  I guess there's only one perfect time — right after birth. Most couples say they feel unhappy, emotionally distant and sexually frustrated after a baby is born anyway. So, you'd be doing yourself a favor!
  

  Post from Kat Wilder
  

  Image Source

  • 4:37 PM
  • 662 Views
  • 22 eProps
  • 12 Comments