I’m divorced, and so every summer, my four sons — ranging in age from toddler to preteen — go to their dad’s house about two hours away for about two weeks, which is the biggest block of continuous time they have with their father all year together. They also spend time with their extended family and grandparents, too. That extended family used to be my family too — people who stood elbow-to-elbow with me in the kitchen as we mixed potato salad and shaped ground chuck into hamburgers and yes, okay, gossiped sometimes. Now the potato salad gets made without me and I can only assume that the gossip is probably about me.
I’m not pulling this out of thin air, to be clear. When my sons get home they struggle to look me in the eye after our initial happy greeting; they often seem angry at me and also sad for me. “Grandpa doesn’t like you,” one of my sons told me one year. “Grandma says you have to make us do our own laundry,” another son added. I never know what to say and so I just stand there with my face stuck in a frozen smile, trying to look neutral.
It’s not unusual for my kids to hear negative stuff about me from their dad, I’m sorry to tell you. If I’m being horribly honest, I’ve been known to sink to that level a time or two. But it makes everything so much harder, sending my kids off for a long stretch where they’re away from me, around people with whom I don’t get along. It feels like one long opportunity for piling on about how our little family lives the rest of the year — too far away, too different.
For one thing, I don’t like the position it puts my kids in. They’re trying to understand if it’s okay to be messy and silly when they are home with me. They know we are happy but that gets flipped on its head when it’s criticized by my ex-husband’s family. They are trying to figure out whether two worlds can exist, neither one wrong.
It’s more than the comments, though. Our approaches are just so different. Bedtimes move from 9 PM to 7 PM because they’ve been told “in THIS house, we like structure.” There’s no sunscreen because it’s supposedly a fad. Everything seems to circle back to me and what I am doing wrong at my house. I have chosen the wrong spoons to eat our breakfast; I taught them to wash their hair the wrong way.
Their dad’s family is not the only culprit here. I’ve caught my own family in the act. Rolling their eyes or snickering a little about his family. I put a stop to it if I’m there, but I would really love to put a stop to it on all sides for good. I see the way my kids slump or look embarrassed when these comments come up. Teasing might make us feel better in the moment but it certainly does nothing to the people we all love the most — my sons.
I see them looking at themselves differently. And I don’t want this to be their story because really, it’s not supposed to be. They didn’t get divorced, we did.
This is something I realize I believe when I say it out loud. I realize that our lives are removed from them in ways they did not expect. That maybe they feel like they have no stake in the people my sons are becoming. That maybe they miss them and they’re trying to find a way to make them a part of their lives instead of just visitors from another house their dad’s family doesn’t really understand.
I remember making those potato salads and those burgers with people I used to love. I remember the people they really are instead of the people who are saying things they probably don’t mean about me. I tell my kids about how much I used to love going to their grandma’s cottage when they were babies. A reminder that we are all connected and we all have loved them always.
We play the game where they tell me three new things they did while they were away and I tell them mine. We think about what to make for dinner. Maybe order pizza.
We breathe and breathe and breathe. And we make it through.
Jen McGuire is a contributing writer for Romper and Scary Mommy. She lives in Canada with four boys and teaches life writing workshops where someone cries in every class. When she is not traveling as often as possible she’s trying to organize pie parties and outdoor karaoke with her neighbors. She will sing Cher’s “If I Could Turn Back Time” at least once but she’s open to requests.
