Dad’s: Stop Wallowing in Guilt!

Parenting from guilt can be considered one of the seven deadly sins of the blended family and remarriage.  Knowing that the adult problem of divorce affects not just our lives but that of our children, is not only discomforting, but heartbreaking.   When a woman divorces, she more than likely becomes a single-parent overnight.  As a result, it seems as if she turns on a mechanism that doesn’t have time to cater to the effects of guilt feelings right away, due to the fact that she has to put on and wear several hats at once.  Single moms are actually encouraged to put guilt aside and avoid blaming themselves.  However, with most of my male clients, I see the “guilt parenting” from the start.  In fact, most men that I meet that are divorced say the same thing…”My children don’t live with me so when they are with me, I overcompensate for not being there on a daily basis.”  So, essentially, most fall into the trap of being a “Disneyland Dad” and/or they allow negative thoughts to consume their feelings which in turn causes them to hazardly parent their children.  They believe that by “doing” things with their children instead of actually “being” with their children it will make up for their daily absence in their lives.  WRONG!  The myth that a non-custodial parent has to pack every single minute of the time they share with their children with fun activities and/or by giving or buying them things actually does more harm than good.  Dads….your children need a father not a playmate.  They need a structured environment, not a funhouse.  They need you to parent without guilt.

Loving our children doesn’t mean that as divorced parents, everything is always going to be hunky dorey.  We don’t prove to our children that we love them by showering them with gifts every other weekend or spoiling them beyond comprehension.  When we do this, our children equate “love” with “things.”  More importantly, loving our children means disciplining them when their behavior isn’t favorable (whether that be due to blended family issues or any concerning issue for that matter).  Many times, many non-custodial parents (and some custodial parents) will not hold their children accountable for their behavior, especially when there is a step-parent in the home which in turn sends destructive mixed signals to the children. 

Often times, Dads try too hard to protect their children from the issues that ultimately they will have to face as a child of divorce.  Albeit natural, we all want to protect our children from pain, but at the same time, we cannot brush problems under the rug and believe they will simply go away.  By doing this, they are not allowing their children nor themselves to heal from the wounds divorce creates in the first place.  With the guilt, they over-protect, which is a lot of the time to the detriment of the mental well-being of their new wives, their children and themselves as well.  As Dr. Wednesday Martin has said about divorce…”when unions dissolve, children do suffer.”  My advice would be “why make them suffer more by pushing them into “poor Dad or poor Mom” mode? 

Parents, let’s be realistic.  We make mistakes and some of our mistakes are big ones!  NO parent is perfect.  Looking back on my 23 years of parenting, I know I have some guilt.  Heck, I can’t blame anyone but myself for some of my errors.  However, if we wallow in the guilt of our past mistakes, it hampers our ability to parent effectively.  Plain and simple, there are no easy answers to parenting.  It’s all about trial and error and making the best of the situation we have at hand.  

Parents, children equate love with discipline, structure, boundaries and the love that we show them on a daily basis, not by the “things” we do with or buy for them.   For example, making them respect their step-parent at all times is huge.  This teaches them unity, love and respect.  If you allow discord, you teach discord.  If you allow unruliness, you teach unruliness.  In other words, if you teach what it really means to parent effectively by showing love and respect, they will always find and implement that in their own lives.

Peace & Blessings,
Di