A guy was complaining to me recently.about the law that you cannot smoke in your car if there are kids in it. I explained to him that second hand smoke was harmful to them. "Nonsense!" he exclaimed, "I had the window open". I explained that, even with that, they could be affected. "Well not enough" he retorted, "To make a difference".
Thankfully, society has seen fit to legislate that law! Unfortunately, cops can't as easily write a ticket when divorced or divorcing parents say or do things in the presence of their children that are like second hand smoke to the minds of those kids.
Most divorcing parents make the same claim at the outset of divorce mediation: We want to make sure that what we do is in the best interests of our kids. We don't want them to be harmed.
And that's just as it should be. Children have a right to an uncomplicated love bond with both parents. They have the right to be protected from the negative energy between divorcing parents (for more on kid's rights, read our article: Respecting Children's Boundaries. Just go to www.Sagestones.net and click on the article link).
But humans are complicated, we're capable of claiming one thing, then doing the exact opposite. Through the important tools of rationalization, minimization and justification, we can walk in a straight line without tripping over the tangled feet of what we claim we want ... and what we do.
The divorce process is just the slippery slope for that jittery dance. It's tough to stay mindful of others (i.e. our kids), when we are swept up in emotions like fear and anger.
Like the guy who can't wait until the kids get out of the car to light up. It'll just be a few blocks, he rationalizes. I'll roll my window down, he minimizes. I'm so pissed right now!, he justifies...
So this blog begins a list of things parents say and do, that can, inadvertently, harm their kids. I've listed a few things to get us started. I invite you to add to the list. My hope is that we'll share this list with our friends divorcing or divorced with kids, who might then become cognizant of the toxic smoke of their words and actions that, when expressed within range of the kids, is harmful like second hand smoke.
Here we go:
1) When we talk on the phone about the other parent, thinking that the kids can't hear us. Safe Rule: It's better to assume that they always do.
Ex: A mom was downstairs and outside talking to a lawyer about her ex-husbands demand for a paternity test of their 12 year old son. The son was already hurting because his dad, who has a drinking problem, rarely sees him. Mom felt safe to have the conversation because her son was in his room, which, unfortunately, was upstairs with a window over the back yard. He heard every word. After mom got off the phone, her son came down and said; "So dad doesn't think I'm his?". Already feeling abandoned, he now wondered who has father might be. In keeping with our analogy, the smoke from mom's cigarette wafted right into her son's room.
2) A dad remarries and has a terribly low opinion of his ex-wife. Even though she is the mother of the child he dearly loves (Oh, the things we forget to honor). To compound this problem, he and his new wife are devoutly religious and as they settle into their new church, they hate the idea of others knowing he'd been divorced. After-all, they justify, God hates divorce. So he tells his 9 year old daughter to say that his new wife is her mother. Let's see if we can figure out how many ways this confused that little girl: a) She's supposed to go to church and lie. b) She's supposed to disown the mother she loves and replace, for dad's convenience, mom with a woman she barely knows. c) She's not supposed to mention this to her mom, so she gets to feel like a betrayer as well as a liar.
After telling her mom what happened (Dad forgot that confusion has a voice), dad significantly minimized his time with her so that she didn't go to church with him anymore. I wonder what that taught her about truth, love and living the religious life.
I'll be adding more to this list as I, and the other mediators for Sagestones, work clients through issues that reek of second hand smoke. We look forward to your contributions to the list, and hope that this list reaches parents who are capable of setting aside minimization, rationalization and justification, and smoke only when the kids are at the other parent's home.
Warm Regards,
Rudy Gartner
Sagestones.net
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