Very moving. My parents had one of those “good divorces”. There was no major custody battle. There was no abuse. There were no years of stress while they tried therapy. Everyone got along afterward. By all accounts, they did it the “right way”. But to us, it felt like they just gave up on our family. I think we would have been fine with a little “stress” if it showed at least a reasonable attempt at saving our family. The worst part of it was always being told we were “fine”. We weren’t allowed to care that our family was torn apart and we were perpetual guests in some other man’s home. We weren’t allowed to care that we couldn’t see our dad every day. That meant we were selfish and we didn’t want our parents to be “happy”. We were “fine”. We knew we were “fine” because our parents and the counselors they employed told us so. No arguing allowed. I just heard a woman complaining because her ex-husband wanted to alter their custody plan for Christmas, so that he could take the children to spend time with their grandparents and cousins on Christmas Day. She felt he was “turning the children against her” because they were upset that they weren’t being allowed to spend Christmas with their own family. Her plan for Christmas? Taking them to watch their step-siblings open a mountain of presents at her new husband’s parent’s home. The conversation made me sick. I remember being that kid, wishing I could be with my own family, sitting there pretending to be grateful for the plastic candycane filled with Hershey kisses that my step-mother’s mom picked up at Walgreens so we wouldn’t feel “left out” while my step-siblings played with their own cousins. Precious time wasted over a “custody arrangement” that no one bothered to consider the needs and desires of the kids for.
