Five years ago legally (eight years spiritually), our marriage ended. But regardless of how you count it, our parenting experience was not dramatically affected. I have notes from a few days into our “new normal” when G said, “Mama, I have the music on loud.”

“Yes?”

“And I’m bouncing the big ball against the door.”

“Yes.”

“Am I bugging you?”

“No!”

“I love my life!”

During that time, she gave me many messages saying the same thing: I love my life. Whether the wisdom of hindsight or the insight of age will bear out this opinion I do not know, but back then it was just another day. X and I had an amicable divorce, and in the beginning there was a certain relief (with a healthy dose of anxiety) that the weight of indecision was lifted, and fresh air could flow again. On August 25, 2010, I started parenting totally solo with X visiting for the weekend once a month. Prior to our marriage, we had decided that we would divide earning and parenting responsibilities, one for him and one for me. I was happy with this choice in theory and in practice. When he departed to pursue dreams of self-discovery, greater liberty and creativity, my role as parent and domestic didn’t seem any more difficult than it did when he was living with us. In the first few months the basement flooded, the kitten got caught in the tree, the power went out, and yes, the lifting seemed heavier, but on an average day sometimes it actually seemed lighter.

Years passed. We developed new patterns. X came and went, sometimes living closer, sometimes farther away. It was unclear that his living closer made things easier. At times his energy confused things for all of us, and when he traveled on to his next adventure we each settled back into our natural routines.

More years passed. When G was 12 ½, she lived part of the week with her dad and part with me. This was good for their relationship, but a point came when this, too, reached an impasse.

More adventures came and went until we reach the place where we find ourselves now, legally divorced but living closer and more peacefully than we have since 2008. When X is not on the road, he stays in the restored barn next to my house on the property that we both are renting.

Regardless of anything else, three facts are indisputable:

(1) We are parents, together.
(2) We love our child.
(3) She is a teenager.
Post script: We always have been friends. We still are.

I am discovering that solo parenting a teenager is a brave new world. I’ve watched as my ability to solve and/or ease the pain of her problems dissipates into nothingness. Almost overnight I went from being joyful company to a nuisance, insightful to clueless, helpful to helpless. One day I had value, the next day I was obsolete or as the English so perfectly put it, “made redundant.” Redundant by the fact that she now is capable of enormous autonomy (and that which she does not have she fights to gain at the earliest possible moment). Of my former jobs—chef, butler, cleaning-person, fluff-and-folder, chauffeur—only the latter remains. For the year remaining until she can drive herself, I’m left with the work of converting my job from “manager to consultant” (Michael Riera) and “letting go while setting limits and making demands” (Anthony Wolf). The hardest re-training I’ve ever encountered. Sitting on my hands, biting my tongue, marshaling all of my self-control.

For the first time since our marriage ended, I miss X. I see the role of two parents as uniquely valuable now. It seems to me that teenagers need not just one but two supportive people on the same side of the fence. My heart goes out to all single parents in a fresh way. Lacking spousal support is yet another arrow of the many slung our way.

When the kid tells me that our relationship is over and I may as well get used to it, when she violates curfew not once but many times, when she lies or insults me—alone, it rips my heart. When X is here, it almost feels humorous. Memories of my own adolescence replace the shock of how could she say that to me? I am reminded of a line from my high school class in Modern European History, “war is good for the home country.” Thus it is for us. When G says, “I don’t care” or “whatever” we look at each other and smirk. X is subject to the same treatment now, which is especially amusing for me because heretofore he typically got a bye.

Also I have noted that G is fractionally better behaved (or at least engaged) when he is here—or maybe I am? Everything seems improved. She lingers. She listens to us chatting and occasionally jumps in with her opinion from the next room, despite not wanting to engage.

She says “we” when referring to us, the three of us. (She never says “we” about the two of us anymore.)

Single parents are expected to perform multiple roles. Mom, dad, pal, disciplinarian, shoulder to cry on, listener, advisor, and more. Roles that are ideally met by at least one other person. Until this point, the need to subdivide never seemed all that necessary. A teen benefits from more than one voice, and as a teen’s parent, it is a struggle to maintain one role, let alone two. Moreover, there is no backup, no affirmation or support, no fellow negotiator. I must be the “bad guy” yet leave the door open wide enough for heart, openness, communication. It seems impossible. I fear it is.

As when G was little, I’m combing though books on her expected development. Solo parenting gets very little air time, mainly just the message, “it’s tough.” Right. For me, the additional challenge is that I’ve never been an authoritarian, punitive parent. I don’t operate on fear as currency. I’ve put a premium on honesty and dialogue, integrity and trust. However, in the teenage years, all of these seem to be up for review and while positive intent may be alive and well, the necessary pushing of limits often begs a response or consequence. A way of saying, “until you can manage completely on your own, don’t worry, I won’t let the cart run away with the horse. You are safe to test here.”

Suffice it to say, X and I do not always agree on discipline. He has come into his freedom late in life and is eager to proffer G’s early. I am under no delusion that if he lived with us full time these issues would magically disappear. I can see that I would still be the bad guy.

But his presence makes our house more of a home and turns us back into a family. There is justification for more moments of connection, even if the junior participant is reluctant.

With just me here, she’s not missing anything when she leaves. With X and me together, she might be missing something—whether it’s a conversation, a movie, or an intangible sense of belonging she can touch for a moment without compromising her quest for autonomous selfhood.

Alone, I represent half of the dyad she feverishly needs to break for her successful transition into adulthood. Time with me must be measured, controlled, and surrendered only with the greatest care lest she feel like she’s lost all of the headway she has fought so hard to earn.

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You are invited to join a secret group on Facebook being built to discuss the issues that are discussed on this blog. Please contact me via email you use on FB or through the contact page if you wish to join, and I will welcome you. Thank you!

 

CREDITS:

Michael Riera, Uncommon Sense for Parents with Teenagers
Anthony Wolf, Get Out of My Life by First Could You Drive Me and Cheryl to the Mall

“Four-Handed Seat” (modeled on X’s and my hands) pencil sketch by G