Divorced parents and shared families face new challenges.
Pandemic presents a new challenge for divorced parents and shared families
Murray Newman and his older son waited to flush out the raccoon family until his wife arrived. He wanted another adult in the house in case the extraction went sideways. His efforts would eventually prove successful, but not before he trapped the neighbor’s cat.
Newman’s family has spent the past month largely hunkered down at a lake house about two hours north of Houston. Every other week, they are a trio. Every other week they are four. His older son Luke spends one week at the lake house, playing board games and learning to drive.
Then he heads back into the city, where his mother, Sylvia Escobedo has a pool. Sometimes Newman’s younger son from his second marriage, Smith, tags along for the drop-off. At Luke’s mother’s house, Luke started teaching Smith to swim.
To some a shelter-in-place provides a haven, to others it feels like a prison. For divorced parents during a pandemic, the possibility arises for increased anxiety as children split their time between homes. With family courts shut down but for emergency cases, and the Texas Supreme Court ordering that divorce decrees do not change under circumstances such as the
coronavirus outbreak, people parenting from two homes have found the process challenging. Yet resilience has arisen. In many cases, the kids appear to be all right.
“For all the bad things happening, there’s also an opportunity created here,” says Dr. Carl Pickhardt, an Austin-based child psychologist. “Even divorced parents have an opportunity to be together in ways they were not before. Sometimes you see a situation where parents are put in a different situation around their child, and they reflect afterwards that they liked their ex better than they have to.”
Such a scenario certainly is what the court system hopes will unfold. The Texas Supreme Court passed an emergency order last month that runs through May 8. It clearly stated divorce decrees would be unaffected by the COVID-19 pandemic: “Possession of and access to a child shall not be affected by any shelter-in-place order or other order restricting movement issued by a governmental entity that arises from an epidemic or pandemic, including what is commonly referred to as the COVID-19 pandemic.”
Both marriage and divorce rates have slowly been declining over the past decade. Still, according to a January report based on 2015 Census data, about 27 percent of U.S. children (22.4 million) had a biological parent living outside their household.
Kyle Sanders, a Houston-based attorney at Gray Reed who specializes in divorce, says the order “is just to protect parents from having another parent use this situation as a sword.” He heard anecdotally about cases at his firm in which a father was living with seven other people. And another in which a frontline health care worker agreed to minimize time with a child for fear of exposure.
But he describes a pandemic scene closer to calm, as parents follow their divorce decree or cooperate and agree upon alterations.
Pickhardt points out, “It’s a lot easier to get divorced than to become divorced.”
Newman and Escobedo, both attorneys, have navigated custody of their son for more than a decade now. Since Newman lives further out in the country and Escobedo is more centrally located in the city, they’ve worked out a week-on, week-off system.
“Our relationship is based on one premise we agreed on from the get-go,” he says. “Do what’s best for Luke.”
Escobedo adds, “I don’t understand parents fighting over petty things. There’s one important thing that matters, and that’s the emotional health and safety and well-being of the child.”
Not only are pickups uneventful, their lives share space comfortably.
“When all this COVID stuff went down, we got inside our bubble,” Newman says. “And metaphorically Sylvia’s in the bubble with us. And we’re inside her bubble, too.”
Last year, Newman’s younger son insisted on picking out a Mother’s Day card for Escobedo.
Other separations haven’t had the time to evolve the way theirs has.
Pickhardt says a crisis like the pandemic can “create a nonusual situation. And in many cases like that, people are at their best.”
Tammy Dowe, a government and public affairs professional, says her divorce “was like two years of intensive training for this.”
The divorce was finalized days before the coronavirus prompted a shelter-in-place. Her two children are both teens, so she says, “It’s not like slinging around a car seat. Or midnight feedings. It’s clear plastic folders with information about homework, schedules, schools, camps, Social Security cards, a life insurance policy. It’s a notebook about us. It’s my new family Bible.
“My systems were all in place. I had this personal tornado two years ago, and I had a sharp learning process for how to cope with consistent unknowns.”
She says the process of splitting time with her children has been less of a struggle because of the systems she put in place. She spends time doing communications and advocacy work – and playing piano – when they’re not there, so she can engage with them fully when they are.
“It doesn’t have to be hard,” she says. “These are human beings we’re talking about, not property.”
Pickhardt says “divorce teaches kids a lot about their parents.
“A child starts noticing differences between parents and contrasts in how they work. And this is more apparent when they live apart. The kid understands two different rhythms. In a unified household, you don’t see that contrast as sharply. Not that I recommend divorce as a vehicle to get to know a parent.”
He also points out that dual fears persist during this pandemic: the pandemic itself, and the fear and anxiety it stirs. Pickhardt says such situations can be used as teachable moments.
And while many parents and children have successfully navigated an insular period that has exceeded one month, the uncertainty ahead remains a source of unease.
“Not knowing how long this will last does create an incredible amount of stress and tension,” Sanders says. “If we knew May 15th it would be over, parents could model how to handle custody and kids over the summer. But we don’t know that.”
Says Newman, “We just pray a lot that nobody in our circle gets sick. This is working well. It has for a long time. We don’t want to have to figure out how to redefine the bubble.”
“(A crisis can) create a non-usual situation. And in many cases like that, people are at their best.”
— Dr. Carl Pickhardt