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Talking with parents over the years we have been aware of the profusion of books and articles counseling parents to "take care of yourself" to hasten the recovery from a divorce and to best serve the needs of the children. While it's true that everyone, even the unhappiest of individuals has a recovery time, parents are not in the same position as other adults who divorce. Having the freedom to shape a new identity, pursue a new social/sexual life, build a successful career sounds wonderful and tempting--if you can put parenting on hold. Sort of put things in cruise control for a while.

Now we've all had times, divorced or not, when we want to get time to stop, to take a break from responsibilities--and we've all learned we can't! But the divorce books don't seem to have gotten the point--so many parents are genuinely mystified why they haven't been able to do what they are told everyone else is doing. They've understandably bought the line--"you can have it all". It's been preached to mothers for a long time, more recently to fathers as well.

If It's Good For Me, Then It's Good For the Kids

Not quite. The message to parents has been that what serves your self-interest as a parent serves the self-interest of your children. We find the lines are drawn a little differently--going out on Friday and Saturday may be very, very good for your personal life, but it's questionable what it does for your kids. Since it is necessary to have an income to pay for the groceries, a job to provide that income may require time you'd rather spend with the kids; but that's entirely different from taking the seventy hour a week job that buys steak for everyone and a boost to your self-esteem at the expense of having free time on nights and weekends.

A Different Approach to Parenting