Shared Parenting

In the past week I have observed two shocking situations in families that have some level of child-sharing.

Situation 1:  I am sitting at the table with a woman and her two children.  Her child talks endlessly about a family member of his other parents family who was not treating him with respect and kindness.  The mother (who I'm sure felt sad about this and angry even) just sat and sympathetically listened to her child.  She spoke no words of support for her son's position or anger towards the offending party. She could not control or change these events.

Situation 2:  When driving through a trailer park I witnessed a man on his cell phone asking who I can only assume to be his child, "So, is your mom hanging out with any special "friends" lately!!?"

Um...the problem is this.  The children are stuck in the middle.  They don't know better than to rant about one parent in front of the other because they can't conceive the amount of pain that brings.  On the other hand, depending on the age, they may not be able to draw informational limits and refuse to be used as a pawn.

A while ago I read a book called "Between Two Worlds" by Elizabeth Marquardt.  In this book she talked about the child's perspective regarding living in two different families, houses and worlds.  She stated that the child never really feels home.  The rules are fluid based on situation and the sense that anything is permanent or lasting in life is thrown to the wind at a young age.   Divorce has become so common in our age-and since it has and these hardships on the parents are inherent-then let's step back and recognize that a child relates himself to both of his parents.  If one parent speaks bad about the other parent to the child-the child might believe that he is half bad, because he is half of the "bad" parent.  It is difficult to protect the children from these attitudes and frustrations that come up-but if they are protected from it, then it is out of love and compassion for the child. Even in the case of not sharing the child's outrage at an injustice as the woman in
Situation 1 showed.

Even in the hardest of situations-wisdom can be used in conversation to and around the children in regards to their "other" parent.  As the old adage goes "If you don't have anything nice to say...."