Keeping The Pain of Divorce Away From the Kids

Lauren Derrett - 21 Jun 16

I’m so glad that Fathers Day is over because quite frankly my ‘dad’ is a knob!

We bang on about the state of this generation and how they are all disrespectful and messed up, taking drugs, drinking early and mounting to not very much. Lets have a little look at why that may have happened.

In 2014 there were 13 divorces an hour in the UK a total of 118,140. That’s a lot of families (obvs they may not all be families) an increase of 0.5% since 2011. For every divorce there will be collateral damage and the majority will be children.

The reason I get so fu*king angry is because the ONLY people who can protect these children, keep them secure and loved is the adults involved. I fully understand how it feels to be the parent in a divorce, I’ve had 2, but we brought these kids into the world, they’re OUR responsibility! I’m also a child of divorce (2, I clearly take after my Mother) so I’m feeling it from both sides, the parent struggling to hold it all together and the child desperate for security and love, I’ve been both.

We can spend our days lavishing ourselves in self pity, we can drink too much to help numb the pain that divorce brings (it is a real pain and emotionally torturous) or we can choose to pretend none of it ever happened and set off into the sunset to start a new life (this can seem very tempting) BUT in the cases where there are kids involved we have to man the fu*k up and protect our kids. They didn’t ask to be born, they didn’t ask that their parents divorce and they certainly didn’t ask to become ‘baggage’ to the parent who just wants to get on with their lives.

This rant isn’t all just about the parent deserters, it’s also about every parent whom out of their own sadness, anger and pure hatred for the other parent use the children to punish them, they refuse contact, they bad mouth the other parent in the vain hope that it’ll score them some kind of ‘best’ parent award, they USE the children in an aid to heal themselves, the irony being by doing this they break their child.

There is no excuse (unless of course it would be dangerous for the children to have contact) for a child to not be allowed some form of relationship with BOTH parents. By walking away from our children we leave ourselves wide open for guilt and regret, we also pretty much guarantee a child whose left with serious trust and rejection issues (alongside many other issues). By bad mouthing the other parent to score brownie points, or even just innocently release our anger at the other parent, we put across a side of ourselves that isn’t pleasant and we run the risk of turning our children against us. In most cases the other parent, who they haven’t seen in however long becomes a fictional character, a superhero who would be there for them, but is busy right now, they can do NO wrong, so you slagging them off will only end up backfiring on you (until the child figures out they really are an ars*hole) is it worth the risk? Would you not rather just maintain some dignity and wait for the time to come whereby the child figures it all out by themselves (trust me, they will) Is there nowhere else, nobody else that you can off load on rather than your own innocent child who never asked to be born?

This is how me and my other half ended up here, we BOTH feel strongly that children need both parents (regardless of the set up of the parents) to grow well rounded people (as well rounded as they can be) they need you both! We BOTH lose our kids for half the week, we miss half their lives growing up, we hand over all their parenting for half the week and we remain respectful of the other parents at all times (unless they’ve behaved like complete knobs, kids still need to learn about how people being knobs is not cool)! Divorce come about due to adult choices and sometimes circumstances beyond our control, what does any of that have to do with our kids?? Don’t get me wrong we still struggle all these years on (10 years for me and 8 for him) we carry all the guilt that our children have ended up the children of divorce, we bite our lips until they’re bleeding when the other parents are parenting in a way that we don’t agree with and we’ve had to suffer the insurmountable pain of seeing our children bonding with new step-parents. But we take all this pain on, we don’t project it onto them, we don’t stop this from happening, we do what’s best by the kids.

If you are going through this right now or know someone who is remember to leave the kids out of this, you ADULTS are going through the hideousness that is divorce, don’t drag your kids along for the ride. Make sure they always feel secure and loved. The politics of divorces don’t need to involve the innocent children.

#PeaceOut

Lauren Derrett

I'm Lauren, Founder of Wear 'em Out, reusable period pads for the empowered eco-curious. Mother of 4, Step-Mother of 2, I've been parenting for 24 years so have seen and learned a lot of stuff

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