Navigating holiday visitation schedules can be war. Before firing the next shot, think of the kids.
An acquaintance asked recently why I still talk and write about my single mother days. As if that time in a parent’s life – for me it spanned a decade – could ever be erased, or irrelevant. My time as a single mother is still the best explanation for how I came to be who I am, even now.
The person who asked this question meant to be kind, but she has never been a single parent and didn’t know me back in the day. She assumes my memories consist mostly of loneliness and loss. I knew my share of that, and too many sleepless nights when I roamed the halls like a ghost in my own home worried about money and my kids and money, always money.
Still, each of us is the author of our own life story. With a combination of will and luck, and the help of friends who became family, I filled those chapters with enough memories that would not haunt me in my old age. For the first time in my life, I was the only adult in my home. I was determined to learn how to be happy on my own, without a partner. I’m not inclined to apologize for that, but I also don’t pretend it wasn’t plenty hard.
Who gets the kids?
I included this personal backstory because, while I have written about the following topic annually for nearly two decades, it’s the first time I’ve done so as a columnist for Paste BN. You should know that I have my biases, and my share of lessons.
This is the month when I start hearing from single parents – and grandparents, divorce lawyers and judges in family courts. I can sum up in a single word their reason for writing: holidays.
For clarity, we add this word: visitation.
Here's a tip: Stop dueling with people who disappoint you, move on and take deep breaths
For all our claims of human progress, parents’ battles over holiday visitation rights continue to offer evidence to the contrary. The target may be ex-spouses, but the injured parties are always the children we claim to be fighting for.
Halloween is later this month. Next is Thanksgiving, and then comes Christmas, Hanukkah, Diwali and Ramadan – and the ever-fraught New Year’s Eve. Every holiday is a chance for redemption, or escalation. Despite claims to the contrary, most of us get to choose. Now is the time to negotiate in good faith for our children’s holidays.
This is not a column for parents dealing with dangerous former spouses. This is for the majority of single parents, many of whom want to create healthy environments for their children even as their own wounds have yet to heal. It is too easy to weaponize children to hurt the person who hurt us.
My son was grown at the time of my divorce, but my daughter was still a little girl. I know how hard it is to imagine a holiday without your children, but I learned that I could endure their absences by building new traditions with friends. I also learned that the human face never suffers permanent damage from a forced smile, and that love for our children could turn me into Sister Maria swinging her suitcase as she sings her way to the Von Trapps.
Forget the battle, be the hero
As parents, we are bound to disappoint the children in our lives, but we should never doubt that they want us to be their heroes. Not the kind in capes and tights, but the grown-ups who are brave enough to put their children first even when it hurts to let them go.
And here’s the thing about those departures: We won’t always have a say about who is in their orbit. Children grow up, and they get to decide for themselves who remains in their lives. We want to be on the right side of that equation, which is a calculation of time served.
My faith is a source of comfort. Defending that to fellow progressives puts me in a mood.
Over the last two decades, I’ve interviewed hundreds of single parents whose children are grown. The cautionary tales announce themselves before saying a word. Revenge so often misses its mark, and years of rage carve intractable maps on the human face. There is no undoing the crime of revenge parenting, nor is there a balm for that brand of regret.
Who were we when our children most needed us to be strong and kind? What did they see when they looked into our faces, searching for signs of hope?
One way or another, someday our children will surely let us know.
Paste BN columnist Connie Schultz is a Pulitzer Prize winner whose novel, “The Daughters of Erietown,” is a New York Times bestseller. You can reach her at CSchultz@usatoday.com or on Twitter: @ConnieSchultz