Should Divorced Parents Spend Time Together for the Sake of Their Children?
On the Slate podcast for parents , Mom and Dad are Fighting, the presenters discussed a difficult question: should you spend time with the whole family after a divorce, if the child requires it?
A mother named Amy called and said that she and the father of her children are going through a “peaceful” divorce, but her four-year-old really wants the family to hang out together. This will be “unhealthy” for Amy, and she fears that this will send the wrong message to the children, giving them hope that their parents will one day be together again. She wanted to know what to do.
Councilors Carwell Wallace and Rebecca Lavoie were divided.
Wallace advised her to go for it, this purposefully planned family activity – an hour or two a week with “ultra-clean boundaries” – will help the children cope with this very difficult transition period. Lavoie disagreed, believing that while school concerts, birthdays, and other child-centered events could be attended with the whole family, anything outside of that would create a slippery slope and could affect new relationships.
With the increase in divorce leave, more parents go to great lengths to show their children that relationships can still be meaningful, even if they don’t work out as planned. In the New York Times Modern Love essay, Lara Baselone described the unexpected success of the Fourth of July family vacation she took with her kids and ex-husband. “At its best, divorce is a love reborn, born out of heartache, anger, despair and ultimately out of forgiveness that creates a different type of family,” she wrote.
If you are divorced, do you plan on spending time with your family? How it works? What does it look like?