Swallowing our pride, how tough is that????
Jessi's perspective
I'm about to get real real over here y'all, are you ready?
If you have ever walked away from a divorce and there are kids involved, come on women we group ourselves with our kids right? We don't want to be alone or do alone thinking so we lump ourselves with our children so we have other people who are in this situation with us so somehow we don't have to admit that this relationship was over for us (the adult) and not the children. It's a hard pill to swallow to realize that your kids are still going to be part of the life of the other parent and you aren't. I completely understand if you did this or are still doing it, you may not even notice you are doing it, but it's seriously ok to come to the realization that your kids don't follow the same path as you in the divorce journey, you guys are both your kids' parents so you have to swallow that pride pill and accept there are 2 parents. I thought I would feel the swallowing of that pill for years but here I am living and loving every aspect of life (it gets better people!) I know this doesn't work in every situation and every divorce is different and I know how blessed I am that my ex husband (Jordan) wants to be as involved as he does because not every time does both parents want to still stick around.
But wait, as I now am having to swallow that pill, now I have to swallow that pride pill once again because now there is another mother in this dynamic and man does my parenting not align with hers. Now her parenting is amazing, she's on top of everything, her expectations are high, she demands respect that she deserves as a mother, but she knows when to be soft and dang do our kids love her, it's beautiful. Me on the other hand I like to understand why the kids made that decision, like what was the thinking behind it because maybe there is a lesson involved I can find or I can figure out what exactly went wrong. I am a reasoning person, I want to know their reasoning first and investigate and find the missing link and I want to talk to them about where they could have chose a different route and have them be a part of the punishment so it's understood why a punishment is warranted. I don't like my kids to fear me, I want them to know they messed up but it's ok we are going to figure it out. Now don't get me wrong I do lose my mind sometimes and snap and yell just like every other parent but I tend to circle back around quickly and figure it out. My parenting style works for me in my house but I have to remember that there are more parents involved and the next week they go to Jordan and Heather's and if they do the same thing again I have to recognize what I tried failed and that maybe another route is needed. I consult Heather a lot now about how to handle a situation when I can't seem to make it resonate with one of the kids (and text excitingly when it works, you have to show you appreciate the help and their opinion was needed and valued, key skill to co-parenting!!) and guess what guys it's ok to say you know what this is what I tried because I thought it was best and it didn't work so now I need help. Our goal is to raise children that aren't assholes right and who can work a can opener alone, so if you have the resources to have help with making sure your kids aren't out in the world acting like turds then why not use them??
I used to get this feeling that Heather was superior to me because our views were different and were her views better than mine. I can be stubborn especially when I feel inferior, I'm not going to give that person any more power so I would constantly put my foot down and stand up to things that honestly didn't matter or honestly that I thought she was right or that her view was better and could work better but I wasn't going to let her know! This whole co-parenting journey honestly wouldn't have happened if it wasn't for her and now I openly admit it was the best decision for our kids, but I fought it and I fought it hard. If I moved to SC was my life going to be on their terms, would stuff I had done in the past be forgiven, was I going to be punished for moving the kids away in the first place, did they for real want to co-parent or was there an agenda behind what we were doing. Let me tell y'all I thought of every worse case scenario to fight this decision I could. But honestly I had to learn to swallow my pride and swallow the fact that maybe I didn't have every answer for the kids and maybe there was value to having all of these parents around and different backgrounds coming together to raise these beautiful kids and give them the life they deserve after divorce. We had to come together as 4 capable adults and make the decision that all 4 of us were going to put our pride behind us and put these kids first, and I tell you once those kids are the priority, really amazing things can happen!!
Heather's perspective
Who likes being told they’re wrong? I’m pretty sure I just heard crickets and I’m right there with y’all!
I'm about to get real real over here y'all, are you ready?
If you have ever walked away from a divorce and there are kids involved, come on women we group ourselves with our kids right? We don't want to be alone or do alone thinking so we lump ourselves with our children so we have other people who are in this situation with us so somehow we don't have to admit that this relationship was over for us (the adult) and not the children. It's a hard pill to swallow to realize that your kids are still going to be part of the life of the other parent and you aren't. I completely understand if you did this or are still doing it, you may not even notice you are doing it, but it's seriously ok to come to the realization that your kids don't follow the same path as you in the divorce journey, you guys are both your kids' parents so you have to swallow that pride pill and accept there are 2 parents. I thought I would feel the swallowing of that pill for years but here I am living and loving every aspect of life (it gets better people!) I know this doesn't work in every situation and every divorce is different and I know how blessed I am that my ex husband (Jordan) wants to be as involved as he does because not every time does both parents want to still stick around.
But wait, as I now am having to swallow that pill, now I have to swallow that pride pill once again because now there is another mother in this dynamic and man does my parenting not align with hers. Now her parenting is amazing, she's on top of everything, her expectations are high, she demands respect that she deserves as a mother, but she knows when to be soft and dang do our kids love her, it's beautiful. Me on the other hand I like to understand why the kids made that decision, like what was the thinking behind it because maybe there is a lesson involved I can find or I can figure out what exactly went wrong. I am a reasoning person, I want to know their reasoning first and investigate and find the missing link and I want to talk to them about where they could have chose a different route and have them be a part of the punishment so it's understood why a punishment is warranted. I don't like my kids to fear me, I want them to know they messed up but it's ok we are going to figure it out. Now don't get me wrong I do lose my mind sometimes and snap and yell just like every other parent but I tend to circle back around quickly and figure it out. My parenting style works for me in my house but I have to remember that there are more parents involved and the next week they go to Jordan and Heather's and if they do the same thing again I have to recognize what I tried failed and that maybe another route is needed. I consult Heather a lot now about how to handle a situation when I can't seem to make it resonate with one of the kids (and text excitingly when it works, you have to show you appreciate the help and their opinion was needed and valued, key skill to co-parenting!!) and guess what guys it's ok to say you know what this is what I tried because I thought it was best and it didn't work so now I need help. Our goal is to raise children that aren't assholes right and who can work a can opener alone, so if you have the resources to have help with making sure your kids aren't out in the world acting like turds then why not use them??
I used to get this feeling that Heather was superior to me because our views were different and were her views better than mine. I can be stubborn especially when I feel inferior, I'm not going to give that person any more power so I would constantly put my foot down and stand up to things that honestly didn't matter or honestly that I thought she was right or that her view was better and could work better but I wasn't going to let her know! This whole co-parenting journey honestly wouldn't have happened if it wasn't for her and now I openly admit it was the best decision for our kids, but I fought it and I fought it hard. If I moved to SC was my life going to be on their terms, would stuff I had done in the past be forgiven, was I going to be punished for moving the kids away in the first place, did they for real want to co-parent or was there an agenda behind what we were doing. Let me tell y'all I thought of every worse case scenario to fight this decision I could. But honestly I had to learn to swallow my pride and swallow the fact that maybe I didn't have every answer for the kids and maybe there was value to having all of these parents around and different backgrounds coming together to raise these beautiful kids and give them the life they deserve after divorce. We had to come together as 4 capable adults and make the decision that all 4 of us were going to put our pride behind us and put these kids first, and I tell you once those kids are the priority, really amazing things can happen!!
Heather's perspective
Who likes being told they’re wrong? I’m pretty sure I just heard crickets and I’m right there with y’all!
For anyone who doesn’t know me-I have a very type-A personality and am stubborn to a fault (no doubt my kids get it honest from me). In any relationship that stubbornness can cause arguments, but thankfully my husband loves me despite it (AKA he’s mastered tuning me out). But when it comes to parenting in a four-parent dynamic it’s can certainly make waves.
One of the biggest adjusts in co-parenting was finding my voice in parenting decisions and figuring out how loud that voice could be and when to back down or admit my idea wasn’t best. Having been a parent before meeting Jordan and becoming part of a co-parenting team after that I already had a parenting style and felt like I had done a decent job raising Bear.
It’s no secret that Jessi’s parenting style differs from mine and that mine and Jordan’s are different as well. Eli hadn’t had kids prior to Bubba and Boo so he brought a totally different perspective. Somehow, we had to meld all these parenting tactics into something cohesive and consistent for the kids.
When Jordan and I first started dating I didn’t get involved in any of the parenting decisions. If Jordan asked an opinion, I would give it but otherwise we parented separately. Once we were married, we tried to meld our parenting tactics but we were so vastly different that it was very difficult and the kids noticed a difference between us and would choose who to tell something to - which is not what we wanted! It took a lot of compromise and communication (and us both admitting some fault) to try to create a consistent parenting style within our house. Now, we usually have a quick pow wow before we implement a punishment for one of the kids to make sure we’re both on the same page. The same applies for us now co-parenting – we’ll shoot a quick text (or the occasional FaceTime session) if it’s anything major so both houses are on the same page.
When Bubba and Boo lived with Jessi in Ohio, we couldn’t be involved in the day-to-day parenting and when the kiddos came to live with us in South Carolina Jessi couldn’t be involved in the day-to-day either. So, when Jessi and Eli moved to South Carolina we had to begin a compromise since we all were now involved in the daily decisions for the kiddos. We faced melding all of our parenting tactics into something that’s consistent at both houses but made us all feel good about the decisions being made. On top of that, Jordan and I had Bear and Ham who were being parented solely by us but had to have rules and expectations consistent with what their siblings had. There were A LOT of moving parts to think about! Throw in the fact that I am incredibly outspoken and stubborn and it’s yet another recipe for disaster when co-parenting.
Something I had to keep in mind is that although I may have dealt with a circumstance in parenting and handled it one way previously, I now had to make sure that dealing the same way again made sense to all the other parents involved and there have been plenty of times that the other parents didn’t agree. Cue the self-check on my parenting! I mean, I managed to parent just fine before I had to ask everyone’s opinion so what makes me wrong now!? I wasn’t always wrong necessarily, but it wasn’t the best decision for the kids at that point because what was best for the kids is cohesiveness at both houses. Just because I had tried something before or thought something could work didn’t make me right – and that stung!
There are still times that a situation arises and although I may not like the decision made or it wasn’t what I would have chosen to do if the choice were all mine – BUT I check myself a lot and ask is it what’s best for the kids. And once I do that and think it through then it’s a lot easier pill to swallow knowing I wasn’t right. In the end it’s not about being right, it’s about doing right for the littles and that’s all that matters. But…a side note to my husband – my way of folding towels is still the right way!!!
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