All the talk on twitter this morning about the Family Justice Review and disputes concerning children got me thinking about the role parents play in their children's lives.
My experience growing up was that my Dad worked pretty long hours and it was Mum who took us to school, doctors, dentists, hairdressers etc. It was Mum you went to if you needed something. Generally it was best to stay out of Dad's way in that slot of time between him getting home and us going to bed as he was often stressed and trying to unwind from a long, hard day. Apparently bouncing children did not assist with this! But I always remember rushing to the door to see him and I know he appreciated just seeing us even if he didn't feel able to deal with lots of "children stuff" of an evening. I have a good relationship with both my parents and my Mum looks after my children and does the school run 1 day a week.
OH and I have a very different set up to my Mum and Dad. OH often looks after the children 1 day in the working week because of his job. He also waits till my Mum arrives on the day she does and drops my son at school and my daughter at nursery on one day. I expect him to assist with the housework and running of the house and he completely accepts this. He is a very accomplished cook and enjoys it. He's less good with the hoover but we all have strengths and weaknesses. So our family set up is very different to my Mum and Dad's.
OH is also more hands on with our children than my Dad was with me and my sister. I don't think my Dad has ever changed a nappy and OH has changed thousands. I think this reflects a changing trend and also the fact that I work and have gone back to work after both babies whereas my Mum stopped work after having me and didn't return until I was 8 or 9. I could not do my job and manage a house myself without my parenting ability being seriously affected.
This means that OH plays a key role in our children's lives and in the smooth running of family life. This is not always plain sailing as I am a control freak who would happily micro manage every aspect of our lives whereas OH is not like that. Whilst I have had some "moments" (*coughs*) about all this I have had to accept that although OH does things differently to me it doesn't actually mean he gets things wrong. He has different ways of dealing with naughty children and of getting them to do what he wants. We both get to the same place in different ways and that's OK, as long as we respect each other's ways of parenting. We are not an interchangeable unit, we offer different things. Obviously I mean this to a certain extent - we both feed, clothe and put children to bed etc.
From looking at friends of mine I think it's harder when Dad is not involved as much as my OH is because I think some mums are so use to doing everything themselves that they find it hard to let Dad in when he is there and so Dad's role gets marginalised a bit. I really do believe that Dad's are not just for throwing the children around for an hour every week. Hard as it is (and trust me I'm still navigating this minefield) mums and dads have to work together to both play a role in their children's lives and to work out what that role is. This is quite hard work in a happy relationship but to embark on this for the first time upon separation must be nigh on impossible.
Despite only having maybe 5 minutes every night and only really enjoyed time with my Dad at the weekends, this does not in any way mean he played a marginal role in my life. My Dad was responsible for some of the best things I did as a child: he got me a chemistry set and we sat at the kitchen table and made things spark, he let me and my sister try to surf on a lilo in pools on holiday (thinking about this now I would stop my children straight away because the fear of a cracked head would be too great for me to watch), he taught me about different cars and makes and models (so I'm a girl that doesn't just say I like the blue one), he taught me to recognise number plates from different countries and their country stickers, and despite being a big stresshead like me he helped teach me to drive without ever raising his voice (how he did this I'll never know).
I also look at the role my OH plays in our children's lives. I've blogged about our circumstances after our daughter's birth and how this affected their relationship initially. But now she absolutely loves playing up to daddy and trying to get him to take her side in dispute with our son. I seem them both light up when he comes home. They play excitable games before bed despite me saying a billion times that they're supposed to be having quiet time. Last weekend he collected his steam engine from his parents' so he and our son can play with it together. He's always firm but fair and he absolutely adores our children as I do.
I'm conscious that I am extremely fortunate in that my parents are still married and OH and I are still married and very happy together. I'm also conscious that I've been lucky enough to have a Dad that cares about me and that I'm married to a man that is interested in our children and cares passionately about them. Not everyone is this lucky and that breaks my heart.
But even if there had been a separation in either marriage I cannot envisage a situation where I had not maintained a relationship with my Dad, or that our children would not see OH. I'm acutely aware that people do not think straight when they're going through a separation and I see this constantly. Absolutely it is the hardest thing in the world to make big, complex decisions when you feel like you're dying inside. But I also believe that when you sign on to be a parent you're signing up to the big decisions. I tie myself in knots about whether my children are eating the right food, getting enough exercise, whether I'm passing on bad habits, whether they're happy at school/nursery etc etc. This is parenting! The guilt, the anxieties, the waking in the middle of the night wondering if daughter is constipated (that one might just be me the other day), the constant balancing act and yes the really hard decisions. I'm not going through a separation but not a day goes by when I don't look at my children and look at myself and think "am I doing the right thing by them". Don't get me wrong I think that thought process would be a million times harder in a divorce and I'm very sympathetic to the problem. But one of the most important things you have to ask yourself is what is my role in their life and what is their other parent's role? Because 99 times out of 100 the other parent has a role to play too and you have to find a way to accommodate that. For your children's sake.
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