Posts Tagged ‘divorced dads and single dads advice’
Moving from one side of the US to the other side was an awesome adventure/road trip. Although I did not experience too many Clark Griswold moments, it wasn’t for a lack of trying on my part. This is a big ole Country and when you start off your trip West by going South and East, one is bound to run into their fair share of situations. However, with the help of my trusty GPS and an ice chest full of Coke Zero, I survived and somehow made it to Boise, Idaho. Just in time for more rain than they have ever had in the month of May. So I got that going for me.
Now, I find myself moving into my apartment. Do not ever fool yourself into believing that downsizing is an easy thing to do. Going from 3000 square feet to 1000 aint easy, mostly due to the lack of space to “put/hide” stuff until you get around to doing what ever it was you planned on doing with it. Too bad my complex does not have a real garage where I can stash all the extra boxes of stuff. Looks like I will be renting some storage after all.
There has been one awesome highlight of unpacking, and thanks to this highlight the process is taking 3 or 4 times as long as it should. I am talking about the pictures and photo albums I brought with me. I have been enjoying 23 years of memories. The best part is the pictures are in no particular order. I will open a box and carefully wrapped will be Ziplocs of pictures from the late 90’s, another will have baby pictures, goofy pictures, teenage pictures, every year (up until 3 years ago when I switched from film to digital) of my kid’s lives are right there in front of me. I am re-living the “good” parts of our lives, after all most of us don’t pull the camera out to capture sad we use it to capture good.
I know somehow someway I will figure out how to preserve these memories for myself and my kids. Those simple pictures have given me the greatest joy. My decision to be a Dad first has been validated. I would not trade a moment captured in the pictures for any amount of money or job title. The laughter and tears I have enjoyed the past couple of days are truly priceless.
I encourage all of you Parents reading my blog to take some time this weekend and capture your joy of being a Parent. Nothing in this world is more important than the relationship between a Child and Parent. Do yourself a huge favor and create your memories of these awesome times. Now go do what you have to do to…
Make it a Super Day,
Kevin
One of the smartest things I did after my divorce was to start to listen and observe the interactions between children and their parents. Did not matter if I was in the store, Church, Library, Restaurant, Ball Fields, on a walk, the Golf Course, anywhere, I was always watching and learning what works and what didn’t work. At first I concentrated on “actions” and kept a notebook full of observations. As time went on I added sound and surrounding to the mix. Over the years, I have become pretty good at my stealth fact finding, although every now and then one of my kids will tell me to stop staring and acting like a creeper!
I’m telling ya Dad’s, you can learn a lot watching others. One of the big things I have noticed is the different ways people react to the same situation. We are all hard wired to behave in certain ways. All of life to this point has made you who you are. Because of this you react certain ways, however, at any time of our lives we can change the wiring and start to react differently. I’m sure if you spend some time thinking about this you will understand what I am saying. Think about the evolution of your ability to drive a car. When faced with an emergency you react based upon what you have learned (driving in rain or snow or ice). For example, people who grew up driving in real snow are clueless how to drive in Southern snow (ice).
Along with observing I started to ask parents why they reacted the way they did. Their reasons almost always go back to “That’s how I was raised”. I believe I can best explain this if we use a restaurant as an example. Picture separate tables at your favorite “family’ friendly restaurant, and think back to the kid’s actions. One table the parent is constantly ‘shushing” and giving directions to their kid’s to sit straight, be quiet, don’t put 10 sugar packets into the glass with 5 lemons and water, stop talking loud, stop hitting your sibling, be patient the food will be here soon, etc. Another has no kids sitting at it because they are up and playing video games or hanging out in the front of the restaurant. A third has a group discussion going on about school or sports or the other families at the restaurant. Finally the fourth has a calm and relaxed parent sitting at a table of kids who are clam and relaxed just being kids (sitting quietly, getting up, going to the bathroom, coloring, reading, texting, talking, laughing, walking around, spilling stuff, eating all the crackers out of the basket, etc).
So how can you have 4 families at the same restaurant in the same environment acting in 4 completely different ways? I will bet you it has everything to do with how the adult was raised and nothing to do with the atmosphere at the restaurant. Which way is the best? That depends on your definition of “best”. Table 4 might be best for the adult, table 2 might be best for the kids, table 3 might be best for family and table 1 might be best for making you laugh at the poor adult’s efforts to raise perfect(?) children. There are no right and wrong ways. There are only ways that work best for you. If you see a family having a meal together and you like the interaction and parenting style, go ask the parent to share with you how they were able to make it happen. You might be surprised at just how easy it is.
Now y’all don’t have to limit your observations to a restaurant. Everywhere you go you have an opportunity to see new and exciting ways to parent. Do not feel embarrassed to ask “How do you do that?” people love to share stories about their kids. And we all love to share stories about how we did it right. Watch, talk, listen and learn. That is what being a Parent is all about. Now go do what you have to do to…
Make it a super day,
Kevin
As y’all know I recently sold the house I raised my children in after making the decision to move away from the Buffalo area. The process of going through 23 years of memories and accumulated stuff was at times a tremendous relief and at other times pert near the hardest thing I have done as an adult..be it married, divorced or single parent..As I was going through the process I was forced to make some decisions on possessions. Do I keep and move with me, give to a friend, put into storage, throw away, or donate to a local charity. I don’t know how well I did in this decision making, but will definitely have a better idea once my stuff arrives.
Now my kids need not worry, Dad did not get rid of all your things. Heck there stuff was the hardest to go through. No matter how many of my friends I asked, it seems none of them had a need for plaster casts of y’alls hands, so I still have those. Most of my tears of joy at remembering were your things. I’m pretty sure I remember all the clothes y’all wore while being clueless as to why I had 3 leather jackets of different shades of brown. Plus why did I have all those 40 and 42 inch waist jeans and shorts?
However, when all was said and done, I still had clothes, furniture, books and stuff which I wanted to donate. So I started the process of finding good homes for my old things. My first chin scratcher had to do with men’s clothing. For some reason Church clothing pantries aren’t hurting for men’s clothes. They all wanted kid clothes and any winter coats, but pants and too small for me golf shirts just weren’t big ticket items. My books were not “hip” enough for the new age book stores and too explicit for Church Libraries. Finally, I realized that there really isn’t a place to give away all those late night infomercial purchases. You are going to have to do some homework in order to donate your stuff.
In the end I had great success with AMVETS and Goodwill. They not only were an outlet for much of my things, but they thanked me for donating. Kid’s clothes went to local Churches. Infomercial stuff went to an odds and ends store way out in the country. My only complaint involved some furniture I tried to donate to Salvation Army. I did not know that they only take furniture they can resell in one of their stores, and a tear on the lining of my couch disqualified it from being donated (find out the rules before you have them show up to remove your things). However, the men loading the truck did haul the couch to the curb and an add on craig’s list “free couch/bed, first come first serve” had that thing gone in no time.
As I write this blog post, the things I did ship from Buffalo will be arriving in less than 24 hours. That will pretty much occupy me for the next few days wondering why I brought this and not that. So y’all know what I will be up to. Now go do what you have to do to…
Make it a super Day,
Kevin
HAPPY MOTHER’S DAY
I thought that in light of today being Mother’s Day, I would let one of my “go-to” single Mom friends share some incredible advice. I have told y’all many times that I do not have all (many times my kids would argue any) the answers. Therefore, I am constantly asking Moms, Dads, Single Parents, Grandparents, Teachers, Coaches, etc for advice on best practices for raising kids. My friend Annamarie is one of those “go-to” friends. Here is some sage advice she shared with me.
“..this may not apply to all single parents but one of the BEST pieces of advice i got when i was going thru my divorce was from my sister’s friend dodi (who’d been there, done that…) who told me you don’t have to bad mouth your children’s father, nor do you need to tell them the (whole) truth if he’s not a role model father/husband/man, etc… your kids are intelligent and some day, they will grow up and come to their own conclusions about the man they call dad…it’s not about shielding them from the truth, it’s more about taking the higher road, not ‘gossiping’, not focusing on someone else’s shortfalls. Kids turn into adults and someday…man it seems forever sometimes when you’re biting your tongue…someday, down the road, your kid will look you in the eye and say something that makes you realize they know…they accept and they understand, and they figured it out themselves! It doesn’t really change anything for them – they still love this man for who he is to THEM…but hopefully they gain an understanding for the other parent’s decision”.
Did y’all notice that you have no clue what if anything her husband did to her way. We don’t know what was involved in breaking them up. We don’t know what her kids came to realize and share with their Mom. All we know is that while her kids were growing up, my friend was able to bite her tongue and not be mean towards her kid’s Dad. What an incredible gift of advice for those of us strong enough to accept it, Thank you Annamarie. Now go do what you have to do to….
Make it a super day,
Kevin
The Second Sunday in May is and always will be designated as Mother’s Day. As a divorced single dad what exactly does “Mother’s Day” mean to you? Did your responsibility end when you separated or finalized your divorce? Do you get a green light to plan to be “away” that weekend? Do you just write it off as another made up Hallmark holiday? Do you deserve a gift because you are technically both Mom and Dad when your kids stay with you? Have you even given the Mother’s Day dilemma any thought?
My guess is that the majority of single dads can answer the questions above with 2 words, “Nothing” and “No”. My feeling is the majority of y’all need who think this way need to definitely get your own Mom’s some amazing gifts because you obviously haven’t grown up. It is time for you to stop being a hurt little boy who is not gonna acknowledge that nasty woman who you once were married to because she was mean to you. Y’all need to realize that it was you who put the seeds of celebrating Mother’s Day into play to begin with.
I have had 16 years to think about and struggle with “Mother’s Day”. The number of times I have just wanted to crawl under a rock and pretend it didn’t exist are too numerous to count. However, I realized that the day and the celebration of being a Mother, wasn’t going to go away no matter how much I wanted it to. Also, it wasn’t going to go away even though the celebration of Father’s Day wasn’t anything like what you insured happened on Mother’s Day.
I believe that single dads need to look at Mother’s day as an opportunity to honor their own Mom(s) as well as the Mom(s) of your children. The day has nothing to do with you and everything to do with her. It is what it is and will never change. The rules are different because Moms are involved. The weather is different in many locations (snow in the forecast this year on Mother’s Day in Buffalo) so picnics and bar-b-que may not be an option. It is a Day to honor Moms. So get off your lazy butt and make sure your kids honor their Mom. Note to Women reading my blog, Dad’s have feelings too so stop your selfish ways and help your kids honor their dads on Father’s Day.
So what to do? Volunteer to take the kids to any and all ball games that are stupidly scheduled for that day. Ask your kid’s mom if she wants to wake up with the kids or have them come over later in the day. Find a florist that you can establish a house account with and use them. Truth time, my Mother made me do this on one of her visits to Buffalo..thank you Mom this is definitely one of the greatest pearls you ever shared. I use Graser’s Florist and they can send flowers anywhere flowers can be sent. Make a trip to the Dollar Store the weekend before and buy your kid’s mom a card, while you are at it go ahead and buy cards for any of the “Moms” who help you out (Team Moms, car pool friends, neighbors whose house your kids play at, etc). Stop basing your “gift” on the “gift” you got last Father’s Day, it will never be equal, get over it. Sit you kids down and watch them sign the card for their Mom, address it, put a stamp on it and mail it. Make sure your kids call their mom if they are away at college or camp or anywhere else.
Celebrate the day the way it should be celebrated. After all even NASCAR takes that weekend off. Now go do what you need to do to…
Make it a super Mother’s Day,
Kevin
