Parenting A United Front
This segment will take a look at a united front between parents whether they are married or divorced. It seems that unity between parents has been superseded in today’s society by a priority for open, honest communication with children, sometimes even if it is about their other parent, and that causes problems for children.
In your grandparent’s day, the family with two parents was typical. Children in today’s society may have multiple parents and caregivers. Sometimes they will have one, three, or four parents. Sometimes grandparents or aunts and uncles help with parenting. According to a Census Bureau report, only half of this country’s children live in traditional two-parent families.
It’s important that those adults who guide children’s lives guide them in a united and reasonably consistent way. Even though the adults may have some differences in their preferred styles of parenting, the view from the children’s perspective should be of fairly similar expectations, efforts, and limits.
If adults are reasonably consistent, children will know what is expected of them. They’ll also understand that they cannot avoid doing what feels a little hard or scary or challenging by the protection of another adult. Benjamin Spock, in his book A Better World for Our Children stated it well: “. . . the best-behaved children are those whose parents are clear about what they want from their children and go about it in a friendly way.”
Competition invades families. Underlying parent rivalry are parent’s concerns about being good parents. That wish to be a good parent may be internalized as being the “better” parent. Sometimes a parent’s effort to be better may cause the other parent to feel that he or she can never be good enough.
One parent may see him or herself as being the best parent by being kind, caring, loving, and understanding. The other parent may see him or herself as being based on being respected and expecting a child to take on responsibilities and showing self-discipline. Although each parent sees him or herself in these ways, he or she doesn’t necessarily see the partner in the way that the partner describes him or herself. The parent who sees him or herself as kind or caring, therefore, may be viewed by the other parent as overprotective. The parent who sees him or herself as being disciplined and responsible may be viewed by the other parent as being rigid and too strict. They don’t see each other in the same way as they see themselves, so they unconsciously decide that because their own ways are better, they must change the other parent.
After fruitless efforts to change each other, they give up and decide that they must balance out the other parent be becoming more extreme in what they believe. The kind, caring parent becomes more protective in order to shelter the children from the parent who expects too much. The expecting parent becomes more demanding to balance out the overprotective parent. The more one expects, the more the other protects. The more the second protects, the more the first expects. The “balancing act” approach draws them further and further apart, leaving the children caught in the middle, not sure they can ever meet one parent’s expectations, but absolutely certain the second parent will approve of almost everything.
If children face parents who have contradictory expectations and lack the confidence to meet the expectations of one of their parents, they turn to the other parent who not only unconditionally supports them, but accidentally teaches them “the easy way out.” The kind and caring parents, without recognizing the problem they’re causing their children, unintentionally protect their children when they face challenge. When children have grown up in an environment where one adult has provided an easy way out for them, they develop the habit of avoiding challenge.
The balancing act increases in complexity when there are three or four parents involved. Each parent is desperately anxious to provide the best parenting to keep their children’s love. After divorce, parents are more likely to believe they can tempt children to love them by protecting them the most, doing too much for them, or buying them more.
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