What's it like to grow up with divorced parents?Please share

amother

Papaya

Sun, Apr 23 2017, 10:49 am

amother wrote:

What s it like to grow up with parents divorced, one frum and the other not religious at all.
Would love a little bit of insight of what my children are experiencing.

You been there? Please share.
Tia

Hi OP.
I don't know. But I do want to pipe in here to tell you to stay strong and do what is best for you! I with you, and it is scary either way.

amother

Amethyst

Sun, Apr 23 2017, 2:11 pm

amother wrote:

My parents were divorced from when I was very young, and I grew up religious with my mother, but my father was not religious at all. I don't mind sharing, but could you be a little more specific?

The children have weekly contact with the father.
Is it unsettling/confusing? Especially for a very expressive 5 year old? What about teenagers who used to live a frum life with their father years back. Do they feel betrayed? Is their respect for him the same as before or is that individual? I could go on ......

How was your mother towards him?
What about the rest of the family?

amother

Crimson

Thu, May 04 2017, 6:36 pm

amother wrote:

Hi I'm so sorry I forgot to come back and check for a reply! From my experience with myself and the kids of divorce that I knew, the effects are drastically different, based on the particulars. I was very young when my parents divorced. So it wasn't confusing in that sense, both the divorce, and the non-religious dad, because it was all I'd ever known.

As I got older I think things got harder in the sense that I realized that things could be different, and I suppose in my mind, better.

There was a lot of acrimony in my family, a lot of difficult personalities involved. That isn't the case in all families. Also my extended family was small on both sides and not available or supportive. Also not the case in all families.

I don't think there is necessarily that much to be taken from one's experience to another's. For example my best friend was from a divorced family and her biggest complaint was that she had two separate families with half siblings and step siblings and new grandparents and old grandparents, etc. My biggest problem was that I had nobody.

See, experiences are just drastically different in many ways.... Bottom line is, I think if the children have the love and support and involvement and, as is necessary in situations like this, an honest dialogue about the realities of the differing lifestyles, it can be just fine, not necessarily traumatic or confusing.

I'm sorry, I don't think I was too helpful...

amother

Crimson

Thu, May 04 2017, 9:56 pm

amother wrote:

Crimson, thanks for coming back.
How was it for you as a young girl to see your father's house with no yiddishkeit versus your mothers, I assume where you spent most of your time?

Sure:)

My dad was kind of.... eccentric, not a very typical parental sort. He didn't particularly care whether he fed me kosher food or not, and from a very young age it was up to me to make sure not to eat what I knew wasn't ok.

Again, NOT typical. So in my case, I think my father's not being religious just sort of factored in to my overall child's understanding that he was different in general, from other parents in general. He didn't care much for rules, and with him, anything went. And it's true what they say, that for a child that is fun up to a point, but mostly it is scary and confusing.

So yiddishkeit in my mind I suppose, in my mother's house, was the norm, and safe, and how things really were "meant to be", whereas my dad kind of represented a general departure from the norm.

Wow, I've never really thought this all out before.

I was a sort of inward child, very shy.... I felt very different from everyone else on a regular basis, because I didn't have a typical home with two parents, because I didn't have a dad in shul, because I felt like we didn't fit in anywhere, belong anywhere. I felt very marginalized, but again, I don't think that is necessarily a symptom of divorce, but rather, my individual situation. There was no extended family in my case, no aunts or uncles, cousins, etc, to add another dimension to my family life.

All these details are so incredibly individual, and I'm sure don't apply to your children's reality. Obviously, they will have their own set of individual issues to address and come to terms with. I think that divorce is one of many possible components in a child's life that will naturally lead to questions and modifications, and acceptance and understanding but ultimately, personal growth.

amother

Amethyst

Fri, May 05 2017, 2:52 pm

amother wrote:

Did your mother not mind you going to your father and not having kosher, him not being reliable? I wouldn't allow that.....
Did you enjoy going to your father or itcwasnt a regular thing anyway? My older children aren't very excitedly going there. I wonder if they do because they feel bad for him...

amother

Royalblue

Fri, May 05 2017, 5:33 pm

amother wrote:

Yes I'd love to.
How does it feel? How did you feel towards your parents? Were you torn or conflicted?Did they respect each other... ?

They had a pretty respectful relationship, they both got remarried and they were able to coordinate shabbos and holidays without getting into a fight. My mother stopped being frum, but she remarried a frum guy ( she did participate in the Shabbos seudas, but then she went to the mall in the afternoon) and I attended beis yaakov. My father is a regular litivish guy, Flatbush style family.
There was stability and I was always welcomed by step parents. My father always had money, so he always paid child support and my mother didn't rip his wallet. I guess that played a big thing ( money and stability). So, no I wasn't resentful at them. My family/friends always have told me that the fact my mother isn't frum was a business between her and Hashem. I understand that the relationship that she has w hashem has nothing to do w her love for me. She is a wonderful mother.
I was an average student at school and I had friends and family so I did not see myself differently than the girls from married parents. The difference was I had 2 houses to go to and I was welcome at both! My father called me daily and he was involved in my life. So yes, I had a happy childhood/ teenage years.

amother

Crimson

Fri, May 05 2017, 5:35 pm

The kashrut was one of various ongoing issues, although not necessarily the biggest one. Because of how my dad was, my mom had to constantly remind him about things he needed to do for me, like show up, or not drive with me on his lap. As I said, he was not very dad-like. I never slept by him. There was no joint custody in that sense, it was just visitation, and even that was not entirely consistent.

I think my mom felt that it was very important for me to know my father, and so she kind of kept on him to be there for me. I think I probably would have seen him quite a bit less if she had left him to his own devices. I think that she probably had a general awareness that occasionally I ended up eating something less than 100% ok, but I was so young, and I think she was kind of looking at the bigger picture.

So basically he knew that he had to buy me pizza at a kosher restaurant, and I knew which candy or snacks I could choose and not choose when we were out. Occasionally I'd be by my dad's house for a while, but there was no real cooking going on.

I would struggle profoundly with such an arrangement now for a variety of reasons. But this was a generation ago, and certain things that we are so hyperfocused on, both safety-wise, and religiously, were a little more lax then in general....

amother

Amethyst

Sun, May 07 2017, 3:33 pm

Thank you so much for your replies. It means so much to me that you shared this.

I want the best for my children. Most are ok ish but my little one is so young and I don't want her to get confused.

I find it hard because he has different values which are not according to the Torah and don't really want her to be exposed to it. BECAUSE THEY ARE WRONG and I can't tell a 5 yr old what your father is doing is wrong. I don't want her to look down on him.

So go explain a 5 yr old that it's ok for dad to drive on shabbos????

amother

Crimson

Sun, May 07 2017, 8:07 pm

amother wrote:

I'm so sorry that you and your children have to go through this. Your concerns are valid and important.

I'm not sure there is any exactly right approach, except for perhaps a general existential acceptance that at some point, all children WILL encounter conflict, confusion, and dissonance in their lives. Some younger than others.

We are not really in control of the curveballs that life throws at our kids, just how we comfort and explain and help our children to understand and feel safe despite them.

Perhaps because of some of the confusion and discord of my childhood, as a young mother I was extremely overprotective, trying to shield my children from unpleasantness, fear, any sort of negativity. But my experience has been that it finds you in the end, in some way or another; it's an impossible task, to shield children from life's truth.

The reality and truth that your children will have to make sense of, in their own way and on their own terms, but most importantly, with your love and guidance, is that their father is who he is, and believes as he does. And they will have to process it and make sense of it and draw conclusions from it. I think it is ok for them to know that you think he is making a wrong lifestyle choice, and I think even a 5 year old can understand and accept that it is ok to love and respect him anyway.

amother

Jetblack

Sun, May 07 2017, 9:16 pm

Amethyst amother:
I am in a similar situation to you. My kids are also little so I don't know how this will work in the end. But as for what to tell them that shows what's wrong while also not disrespecting their father, I had a big conversation with them about right and wrong and about how everyone has a yetser hara that sometimes they want to do the wrong thing. And sometimes the yetser hara is so smart that he even makes us think that the wrong thing IS the right thing! I used a kid-friendly example of "Malky" or someone who doesn't want to come when her mother calls her. They related to that. And I made it sound like we feel so bad for Malky because she is really a good girl but her yetser hara is so strong that she ends up doing the wrong thing. We still love her even though she made a big mistake. And when I was pretty sure that they got that very clearly, I told them that poor daddy has such a big yetser hara that it makes him not want to keep the Torah at all. I think the tone of voice is enough to make it clear that that is a terribly sad thing, not like it's an option to just decide not to keep the Torah. But he's still the daddy and he can still be a good person even though he's making this big mistake. And then the next stage of the conversation was that when you're a child, you have parents and grandparents and teachers who are in charge of helping you make good choices. But when you're a grownup you generally have to be in charge of your own decisions. So we are not going to tell Daddy what to do. We are just going to accept that he is going to have to deal with this as an adult. We have to try to make our own good choices and not be busy judging other people's.

Of course part or all of this conversation is going to need some repetition and reinforcement especially as they get older and things may get more complicated, plus XDH is still changing (in the less desirable direction that makes it harder to explain) but that was the framework I chose. I got some of the ideas from other imamother threads!