The Gathering: Co-Parenting - The Step Equation.

Welcome to The Gathering.

Parenting is one of the hardest roles we ever take on. The role of being husband or wife or partner is also one of the hardest. They are both also some of the most fulfilling roles and relationships we make. Things become even harder though, when a relationship dissolves and children are involved. The falling apart of a family is one of the hardest things for a child to go through; sometimes affecting them well into adulthood. (But what a parent does, whether together forever with the child’s other parent or not, will affect them into adulthood, in both the good and bad) Add in a custody war and some new partners perhaps with children of their own, and you’ve got yourself, what feels like a full-blown disaster.

Lately I’ve seen a lot of posts about “an open letter to my daughter’s step-mother” or “A family photo – that includes all members, steps and exes included.” But in reality things like this don’t happen over night, and for the majority I don’t think they’d want it to right away.

It wouldn’t be fair for me to write these posts each week, about things I go through and things I’ve learned, and not to share some of what I’ve been going through lately with my (step)son, as so many of us do.

The thing is, how we all get to this situation is so individual. There is no cookie-cutter method for how we end up in custody disagreements, or co-parenting. Everyone got here on a different route, but when we get here we are all going to face the same challenges.

So regardless of how I got here specifically, over the last two years my stepchild was placed in my husband, and my care and we are now facing, that soon we will co-parent. Again, despite how we got here or there, will be different for everyone, but in our situation, we’re just about to embark on co-parenting. Myself included, as the stepmother.

To be clear, by co-parenting I mean that both sides will be equally sharing time and responsibility.

To anyone facing this, I have a few thoughts on the subject:

As I’m sure all of us try to, remember that we want to make decisions moving forward for the right reasons. That means, not pushing the anger, resentments, or worries away, but not letting them fuel our decisions and responses. These things are real and shouldn’t just be swept away, but they also shouldn’t be the place where we make our decisions and actions and words.

All parents involved, yes the step, yes the real, yes the new and yes even the old, if they are involved, are going to want to actually be involved. And chances are everyone involved feels at least a little awkward or skeptical about another one. Your mindset will play a large part in how this plays out. Hope for the best and be prepared for the worst. After all, this should be a good thing for the child.

The child; as it should be, is the main concern and all you can do as a parent, of any type, facing this change, or situation, can really only focus on what we do as one party involved. All we really want to do, as any parent, is help and guide and teach and love, so all we can really do is continue to do that. And, be as open to loving and teaching this child as we ever have been and hope that the other party will do so too.

You don’t want to sabotage the situation by having your guard up so high that you create problems where they shouldn’t be. Parenting is hard and any and all of us on any given day don’t really know if we’ve always done the very best we could’ve so unless it is an extreme situation, we should try not to make it one.

I’m not saying let’s be best friends with everybody, most likely no one wants that, but for the sake of the children, let’s try to get to a level where we can acknowledge that the benefit of the child is all anyone is trying to attain, and that’s not a bad thing.

The people, who are not actively involved, don’t matter at this point. But the people who are do. And, it matters to the child how we approach this.

As a person who grew up with steps, and parents, and the lot, I know that making this more difficult because of our personal feelings, effects the child, is acknowledged by the child. And, so despite however we got here, we must rise above.

I don’t know if any of this will help anyone. But it is what I feel this Sunday.

Thank you for joining me in The Gathering.