06.30.2010
Divorce. It’s usually nasty and painful, and if there are kids involved it can get that much more nasty and painful.
My mom divorced my sister’s dad and, oddly, I don’t feel the actual divorce hurt me much. His short stay with us was the damaging part. My mom made it a point to not speak badly of my sister’s dad to her but, unfortunately, I was the ear to all of her opinions and troubles with him that, of course, helped shape my (negative) view of men.
Despite that, though, my mom’s attitude towards my sister’s dad and the divorce isn’t nearly as bad as I’ve seen with some families. I hate to keep bringing up my teaching, but, I witnessed so many things while teaching both in English school at Lithuanian Saturday school. One thing I consistently saw was parents using their kids as leverage against the other parent. This always devastated me.
I had a 6th grader once who came back from x-mas vacation bragging about how his dad got him the latest video game system and that once his mom found out about it, she ran out and bought the competitor’s system, which was more expensive I think. Everything was a competition while the kid's grades sank into a deep oblivion. The parents desperately tried to outdo each other forgetting that their kid’s future was the most important issue at hand and not their damn pride.
Another parent (from Lithuanian school) argued with me that I had no right to give homework and that I shouldn’t be giving grades. He claimed that Lithuanian school was “social hour” and if his daughter had a question about something or wanted to know more about something she could look it up on her own time. I knew he was doing this because his hot little ex-wife was flirting her way through the Lithuanian American bachelors and the daughter didn’t want to do any work, and so he wanted to come out as the hero.
I can’t speak from experience on this because I’ve never been divorced myself, thank God. But, as a (former) educator and society participant, I wish that parents would be more aware of how their actions are affecting their children. I understand that sometimes it’s better that 2 people don’t stay together but to use the kids as bullets against a spouse is cruel and lifelong damaging. In almost 10 years of teaching, I have only seen one set of divorced parents try their best to be civil to each other for the sake of their kids.
Two people may split up and the journey together as a couple comes to an end. But responsibility toward your child doesn’t.
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