Dad out of loop about mom’s surgery may be fear-based information withholding
Q: My children’s mother has to have surgery. I did not hear this from her but from the children. Evidently, she has had serious back problems for a while, yet I had no idea. The kids tell me they will be staying with their grandmother for about a month while their mom is recuperating. We share equal custody. Shouldn’t I be asked to weigh in on this? What’s good ex-etiquette?
A: So many of the co-parents I work with begin with the attitude that sharing too much information will in some way make them vulnerable to a custody change. Their co-parent will use the information to go back to court and take the kids.
That’s when I ask them: “How does not being well justify a custody change?” The answer is usually “I don’t know, but I know that they will use the information against me.”
Your co-parent is your ally in taking care of your children. If either of you is ill, it is your opportunity to demonstrate to your children that they continue to be safe. Your children must know that if either parent is ill, the other is there to fill in until they are well again. Yet this attitude is so foreign to some co-parents, they don’t even consider that sharing information with the other home is something they should do.
The whole concept behind bonus family living is to cultivate two loving homes that both support your children. If you do not, it undermines your children’s sense of security when one home is vulnerable.
Granted, in this case, the grandparents have been asked to take up the slack. However, grandparents are not parents, and the fact that they have been asked to fill in before the co-parent even knew there was an issue is an indicator that we have some fearbased information withholding in action. If the co-parent knew, they could be sensitive to the children’s concerns, guiding their worry to more productive thinking. The grandparents are probably concerned as well.
This is a time when that “village” we all hear it takes to raise children can spring into action and support each other. It doesn’t matter if the parents are “a couple.”
When co-parents remember to put their children first (Good Exetiquette for Parents Rule No. 1) they will reach out to one another because both love their children and they realize that their children need both of them — and grandparents, too.