Every two weeks is a visitation weekend. If everybody
participates, this means my husband packs up the kids, drives 100
miles on a Friday night and drops them off for the weekend, and I
drive to Morgan Hill to drop off my daughter.
Every two weeks is a visitation weekend. If everybody participates, this means my husband packs up the kids, drives 100 miles on a Friday night and drops them off for the weekend, and I drive to Morgan Hill to drop off my daughter.
This means we only have our kids two weekends a month, and two weekends a month we don’t have normal dinner schedules on Friday or Sunday nights. It’s become a way of life and it feels normal now – even though all the driving might sound tiresome and keeping track of all of the different schedules might sound confusing. You get used to it and adapt yourself to the conditions that qualify your life.
Along with getting into the habit of making sure the cars have gas every other Friday, dinner is ready very early. The appropriate transport clothes are clean.
There’s another phenomenon, however inappropriate it may be, that has morphed its way into our parental behavioral patterns. It happens every two weeks on the Thursday before it’s time to leave for the weekend. It’s called pressure.
It’s the pressure to be sure the kids are in good moods before they leave. It’s wearing your cheerful face all day and taking it easy on the rules in the house. It’s the pressure to make sure everyone is happy. The reason for the pressure is that if a child gets out of my car and into the car of the visiting parent and (God forbid) is crying, all I can think is, “here we go.”
This is a “palm of my hand meets my forehead” moment. More than once, I have had a parent get out of his or her car and demand to know why his or her child is crying. Of course, this compounds the situation and maximizes anxiety for everyone.
Additionally, this gives the child ample leverage for optimal sympathy from the visiting parent. This parent might also undermine a punishment or correction that was just issued. Once the child is in the car of the visiting parent, he or she will then be interrogated – perhaps gently, but questions will be asked about the tears, and I can expect angry phone calls demanding answers.
Meanwhile, 100 miles away in another household, I am always fearful that the other two kids will go to visitation and say something that needs clarification. A 6-year-old boy cannot articulate the details of an event properly, and this can inadvertently instigate threats of custodial changes and again can result in unpleasant phone calls.
Here is a child’s version of an event:
“We were going to the beach, and Mom got us lost. I was crying for a long time, and we were someplace that smelled really bad. We had to walk on the highway, and Mom found a man that took us to the beach.”
What actually happened is that I took the kids to the beach, but the roads were under construction and smelled like new tar. We had to find an alternate route. One of the kids was crying because it was taking so long to get there. The parking lot was closed and we had to park along Highway 1, where a flag man helped us safely cross the street.
You can see how this might raise questions. But I don’t want the phone call demanding an explanation. The thing is, I don’t want to be confronted. I don’t want my ex or any other ex to assume the worst about me. My husband and I are very committed to raising our kids in a healthy environment, and I feel that the epitome of disrespect is to take a 6-year-old’s version of an event as a factual experience and then be confrontational about it.
This is why I have subjected myself to the pressures of making the last things they remember before they leave to be pleasant and uneventful. So, every two weeks, I wrap up the week with loose rules and a little extra goody during the day. We talk about the things we did all week, which gives me an opportunity to hear the kids’ version. I make some suggested changes in the way the story was told and hope for the best.
When they come home, I simply say, “I’m glad you’re home,” and then I feel a sense of relief that the phone never rang. Whew! No pressure for 12 more days.
Lydia Eden-Irwin and her husband were both raised in Gilroy. They have three kids collectively and have spent the past four years meeting the challenges of blending two broken households into one great family. Lydia can be reached at
ed*****@ao*.com
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