The hardest part about letting a child grow is when the other parent keeps holding on too tight. Not only does it negate the work you’re trying to do, but it sabotages the relationship you are trying to build. There are a number of factors that apply here and are impacted. I want to chat about how the impacted child starts to view one parent vs the other and, perhaps consciously, perhaps otherwise, begins to pit the two against each other. Obviously, this is a personal one. I have an ex and I have a youngest child. He’s been the one most lost and most impacted by the divorce. Today he received his 6th and 7th D1 college offers. His brothers knew. Pretty sure his mom knew. I had to find out from social media. I texted him today offering congratulations and expressed a little disappointment that he hadn’t reached out. Not in a petty way, but probably a little passive aggressively. He acted like he hadn’t had his phone on, which clearly does not fit the narrative, which argues he simply did not think to text me the way he clearly shared the news with his brother (who said he’d been texting for like 30 minutes) and social media. I didn’t factor in.
I don’t factor in.
It is what it is, and it doesn’t make me love him any less, but it does remind me that the rift there is not something I created. He only reaches out when he needs something. I reach out to see how he is doing. He only speaks when spoken to at home. I initiate conversations to see how he’s doing. The relationship has gone zero dark thirty and I am not sure if we are going to move towards dawn or midnight. I don’t know that I can do anything about it, because on the other side of the parental divide, he’s being treated very differently and very much not like a growing, independent man.
Some Thoughts:
- Absolutely Bonkers Headline of the Day: “The world’s reaction to hantavirus is tinged by echoes of something else: COVID” Yeah, this is a low-key problem. Not so much that it will turn into this, but that we are no longer trusted on the world medical stage…