The DHX: The Doughtie Houses Exchange

We played a game once at work called “The Saboteur”. We were divided into teams. Every team would have a saboteur — someone whose job it was to secretly undermine the team’s project without being caught. One by one we were called up to the front of the room to be shown a card telling us whether we were to be saboteurs or regular players. We watched each other walk and thought about each other’s posture and facial expressions and what they could mean. Walking back, being watched this way, was odd, too. I was a normal player. But it still felt strange to be scrutinized and suspected.

The game was hard. A maze (on graph paper) had been posted out of sight, around the corner. We had to first recreate the maze by going, one at time, to look at it, and then coming back and drawing as much of it as we could remember. There were four of us, and we could only look at it so many times without losing points for our team. We were racing against a bunch of other teams, and we were told that once we had a suspected saboteur, we could kick them out of the group to go sit in a “saboteur chair” so that they wouldn’t negatively affect the group anymore. If we started to think we’d been wrong, we could let them back in and kick someone else out if we liked.

I bet you’re already guessing that there weren’t any saboteurs. Our group suspected this and made a pact at the beginning that we wouldn’t kick anybody out and that we’d trust each other. But still, whenever someone came back and drew a piece of the maze that didn’t fit with what others of us remembered, we wondered. We suspected them. Other teams were kicking people out right and left. Maybe we’d guessed wrong. Maybe we did have a saboteur. Maybe our saboteur was having a field day. The problem was, all of us came back from around the corner at one point or another with memories of the maze that didn’t fit with what the rest of the group had down. And it could have just been that what we were doing was hard and that human brains aren’t entirely foolproof. We decided to keep trusting each other.

Eventually, we got it right. I don’t remember if we won or not, but we definitely didn’t lose. And we were right about the saboteurs. There weren’t any. The point of the game had been to show us how easy it was, especially under pressure and especially with a complicated task, to suspect or be suspected. We all saw cunning or undermining — even our team with our pact — when all that was there was trying and sometimes fumbling.

“Seek first to understand, then to be understood.” –Stephen Covey

“If you cannot transform your suffering, you will transmit it.” –unknown

“Parents are like shuttles on a loom. They join the threads of the past with threads of the future and leave their own bright patterns as they go.” –Fred Rogers

Tags: Fred Rogers, mister rogers

I was selling my book at the LA Times Festival of Books today, when I heard a woman’s voice say “Don’t I know you?” After about five minutes of cross-referencing, we figured out that we had shared a cabin at a church camp about 12 years ago, had had Thanksgiving together at my old house once, and had sworn never to lose touch. Which of course we had.

In the last twelve years or so, she has triumphed over two bouts of cancer and raised a spectacularly talented and beautiful Juilliard-bound daughter (who came by the booth and graciously asserted that she remembered me.)

In the last twelve years or so, I have disbanded my marriage, written a book, watched my own children grow up in an equally spectacular manner, and have done all the rest of the things one does when one is living life fully.

What was interesting about meeting up with her was that she was one of the first people I’ve talked to in years who didn’t know about the divorce. When I told her about it, she gasped and expressed concern and sadness. I felt instantly sorry that I had mentioned it so casually, but then realized how very far away from the whole “tragedy” aspect of it I have moved.

I hastened to assure her that it was all fine. I pitched her the book (of course), saying the long version of the story was in there. Then I told her about Jill and about this blog. I told her I had just started a really promising new relationship with a guy I’m crazy about. And I told her about my blossoming friendship with the mother of my new guy’s son. Even though I’m not nearly yet in the role of step mom, I now have a biological mom in my own life to be grateful for and to get to know.

In my fantasies I see my fella, his ex, their son, and the five of us Doughties all eating together at Thanksgiving, pouring wine for each other and embarrassing the boys with revealing family histories. Whether that cinemascope version of the extended family actually comes to pass or not, the fact remains that this has turned into a big rollicking happy fun family.

As I listened to my words I realized that I was being absolutely and completely sincere, almost like I was proselytizing divorce. I couldn’t imagine, actually, being happier in any way (well, in any way that still includes having a work a day job). I felt incredibly guilty as well, especially when she mentioned that she had raised her daughter all by herself. And here I was with all these extra adults supporting and advocating my kids!

Now… as the child of parents who were married eight times between the two of them, I have no difficulty remembering that divorce is always a wrenching, uncomfortable, psychologically disturbing event. In no way do I want to present it as anything other than a difficult and painful transition.

And yet… it can be alchemized. You can take all the messiness and ugliness and, with compassion and mindfulness and LOTS of luck, and move it into something else. It takes time — there is no substitution for the passage of time. And it takes a huge quantity of humor. And I cannot emphasize the consciousness part of it enough.

But I believe it can be done. And it should be done. Because otherwise we’ve capitulated to the dark side and the ugly side and agreed that that’s how life is and always will remain. And what a drag that would be.

“The family. We were a strange little band of characters trudging through life sharing diseases and toothpaste, coveting one another’s desserts, hiding shampoo, borrowing money, locking each other out of our rooms, inflicting pain and kissing to heal it in the same instant, loving, laughing, defending, and trying to figure out the common thread that bound us all together.” –Erma Bombeck

“Comparisons are odious.” –unknown

It was Tuesday. Jack’s class was leaving for Wyoming the following Sunday. We got an email from the trip organizers reminding us that it would be about fifteen degrees there and re-sending us the list of things he should bring with him: a warm winter coat, wool sweaters, a waterproof jacket, long underwear, and rain pants, among other things. The weather here is always pretty nice. We don’t tend to have wool sweaters and winter coats and rain pants in our closets, and especially not in kid sizes, since they — the kids — grow so much. I was gearing up for an expensive trip to REI, when I got a call from Kathy. Since we use a single email address for school stuff, the email had come to her at the same time. She had a bunch of cold weather gear from a couple of trips she’d taken the kids on a few years ago. Some of the things she got for Chris then might fit Jack now. We made plans to get together with Jack at her place and try it all on him before the weekend.

Wednesday, a friend lent Kathy a barely used boy’s snow jacket. She came by to pick up Jack after school, and before they left he tried it on. It was a little big, but not too big. It was just fine.

Thursday night, Jack and I drove over to Kathy’s to drop him off after school and to go through Kathy’s stash. Chris and a friend were hanging out in the street. I honked at them as I drove up. Kathy was talking on the phone about a project. Chris and his buddy came in the house and got put to work unloading the dishwasher. Sam the dog ran around between everyone. Kathy got off the phone, and within twenty minutes Jack had tried on all manner of warm and waterproof things and he had all the snow pants, long underwear, hats, gloves, rain pants and other warm things on the list. All we needed at the end of it was a few more heavy socks. No painful trips to REI had to be made. In the bustle of Sam touching base with everyone and Chris and his buddy in the kitchen and Jack putting on and taking off all kinds heavy things, I felt happy. This felt good.

Kathy packed all the warm gear into a couple of bags for me, and as I was walking out the door, Sam nosed out with me and escaped. Kathy went back inside to get the kids to help to catch him, and I walked over to the car to load up the gear. I caught a glimpse of him and then studiously ignored him. He came over to investigate. I dropped my bags and grabbed his collar before he could register what was happening, and handed him back over to Kathy and the boys as they were coming out. I’m not the wiliest dog wrangler in town, but I felt pretty proud of myself as I handed him back to Kathy. I was learning. We were learning. We were in this together.

Sunday, G and Chris and I drove to the airport to drop Jack off with his class. Kathy was coming, too, to say goodbye. She gave me a call after she’d parked. “I’m here. Where are you guys?” she asked, just as I saw her walk through the sliding glass doors.

“I see you. You’re in the right place,” I told her. And she was. And we were.

• Parenting Advice: Working It Out After Divorce - Co-Parenting As A Lifelong Process - “Children feel all the tension that exists between their divorced parents. And they often suffer when parents ignore this tension or act out from it. Children often feel ‘in the middle’ (and are sadly, too often placed in the middle when parents cannot contain or work through their disappointment, anger, fear, or hurt). And even when they are not placed in the middle, they still feel pain that their parents are treating one another with animosity, contempt, distrust, disrespect, anger or fear.” (more)
• Darlene Weyburne on DivorceMag: The Co-parenting Relationship - “Support your children in loving and building a relationship with the other parent. Never start a sentence with “If your father/mother really loved you…” Don’t allow your feelings…to interfere with your support of your children’s need to love and be loved by your former partner. Just as you’re able to love a new baby without loving your other children less, your children can love more than one parent… They’ll develop healthier relationships if they don’t have to choose between loving you and loving their other parent.” (more)
• That And Two Dimes: Fun and Games - A fun weekend at Aunt Pillowhead’s house: “[I]t seems we all have found a new comfortable place to enjoy each other, and it’s working. I’m really happy about that, and trying to just appreciate it while it lasts.” (more)

“There’s something unique about being a member of a family that really needs you in order to function well. One of the deepest longings a person can have is to feel needed and essential.” –Fred Rogers

Tags: mister rogers

• Woulda Coulda Shoulda: Life isn’t fair - “I have to believe that it will be okay, somehow. I sit here and try to push King Solomon out of my mind’s eye. Instead, I replace him with Chickadee and Monkey as grown adults rather than the gangly weeds they currently are, and in my vision they are whole and happy and whisper to me, “We love you. We love all of you.” It won’t be fair, but it will be enough. “ (more)
• Jeffrey Gurian on firstwivesworld: The Spiritual Perspective on Divorce - “I am very grateful to my ex-wife for allowing me to have the experience of…having children. If it was not for her DNA, I could never have had those particular children who are so dear to me, and make my life amazing. I might have had other children, or maybe I would never have had children, but I certainly could have never had THOSE children.” (more)

As we know,
There are known knowns.
There are things we know we know.
We also know
There are known unknowns.
That is to say
We know there are some things
We do not know.
But there are also unknown unknowns,
The ones we don’t know
We don’t know.

– Donald Rumsfeld, Department of Defense news briefing. Arranged into a poem by Hart Seely.

“The only way I can be angry at you is when I have thought, said or done something that is unkind in my own opinion.” — Byron Katie

This sounds pretty backwards, but it resonates with me.

One of the things I had to learn as a newbie stepparent is that I can’t do stuff for the kids because I’m counting on it earning me points, love, appreciation, affection, cooperation, understanding or anything else. I can do stuff for the kids because I want to do it, but I need to expect that the doing it in and of itself is what I get out of it. I might get satisfaction or pleasure from helping them or contributing to their welfare, but that’s the end of the transaction. I can’t create an emotional debt in them by giving to them or doing for them. I can’t do anything to earn any emotional or behavioral responses from them. The satisfaction I get by loving them comes from inside me — from the pleasure of loving them or the pleasure doing what I feel is the right thing.

The question I try to ask myself these days is, “Do I want to do this, or do I feel I should do this, regardless of whether it helps me build a better bond with the kids?” And if the answer is no, that’s okay. Giving to or doing for kids because I’m trying to get something from them that I think I couldn’t get otherwise seems like a recipe for pain and disappointment and estrangement down the road. Because of course I don’t ask the kids, “If I buy you those big, fuzzy slippers, will you approve of me?” They don’t know the deal I’m making with them. Even if I feel like I’m making it with them, I can be pretty sure they don’t know they’re making it with me. Because they’re not.

Bonding with the kids is important, but it’s different from providing for them and caring for them. I don’t think it’s fair to the kids or to the relationship to link the two things together to the point that they depend on each other and affect each other. I think parents of newborns know this almost immediately, long before the kids can communicate through language. As a new stepparent to kids who could talk, it was a little harder to see this at first. It’s can be easy to see kids who can talk as mini-adults. With adults we engage in much more reciprocal relationships. With kids, that’s not fair.

So, the “transaction” ends when I do whatever it is I’m doing for the kids. What I get out of it is the satisfaction of having done it. The transaction ends with the action. It doesn’t create a debt the kids are expected to repay.

Tags: stepfamily, stepmom, stepparenting

“When it comes to divorce, may happy extended families one day be the norm!” –Jennifer Newcomb Marine, No One’s the Bitch

Tags: coparenting, Divorce, extended stepfamilies, family, Remarriage, stepfamilies, stepparenting