Tonight I was met by a sad reality. I was reading a post on Facebook by a young girl in high school. She expressed how much she hated going back and forth between houses because her parents were so offended every time she was with the other one. She was torn between two parents who both loved her dearly, but were putting their daughter in an uncomfortable position for any child to be in.
My little brother has gone through the same thing growing up. He was so worried about things interfering with his dad’s time that he missed out on normal teenage experiences because of it. He was afraid to get a job because he may have to work on a weekend he was at his dad’s. He couldn’t do stage crew for his school play this year because practices happened to fall on his dad’s night. Time and time again he missed out on those opportunities because he was trying not to rock the boat with the visitation schedule.
Divorce is hard enough on our kids without them having to worry about which parent they are spending more time with. It’s not a competition. You both love your kids. Your kids love both of you. Of course you want to spend as much time with them as you possibly can, but there comes a point when your children need you to take a step back and let them be the guide. As they get older they need the opportunity to be a teenager and to have the same experiences and opportunities that they would have had, had the two of you stayed together. They need the support and encouragement from both of their parents.
I hope and pray that Logan never feels this way with his father and me, and if he does I hope with all of my heart that he would come to us and talk about whatever he was feeling. Divorce is hard enough, let’s not make it any harder.