Step by Step Parenting

It was my daughter’s sixth birthday.

My husband and I woke up early to make sure that her birthday wish of pancakes for breakfast could be granted. I hung our felt-lettered birthday banner over the kitchen table. We got carried away, and I let her open all of her presents before school. I told her happy birthday more times than I could count, showered her with love, and carried her all around the house while we got ready, acutely aware that the days of being able to easily hold her are fading right before my very eyes.

It was just her and I on our drive to school, which consisted of less than five turns and takes no more than fifteen minutes. We were almost to the car rider line when my daughter asked, “If I could have one birthday wish, do you know what I would wish for?”

“What is that?” I replied with a smile on my face, eager to hear what the imaginations of her childhood had conjured this time. Maybe she would want a pet unicorn, or ice cream for breakfast, or for Pokémon to be real.

“I wish you and dad had never gotten divorced.”

Oh. Oh. Those words felt like a gut punch and for a split second, it felt like I couldn’t breathe. My face and tone remained completely neutral, however, as I asked, “Oh? How come?”

“Because then I could see you both every day, and you wouldn’t have to take turns,” she answered, sounding a little dismayed as she looked out the window. I shouldn’t have fallen into the trap, but I did: I tried to do some damage control.

“Well,” I began, “but you do get to see both of us today!” It was the truth, since it was her birthday, her dad and I were doing lots of things together with her.

“I mean every day, Mommy.”

“I know. But if your dad and I hadn’t gotten divorced, you wouldn’t have Kennedy and Thomas and Emersyn and Evelyn!” I replied, listing off her step siblings and two new little sisters.

“I guess,” was all she said, and I didn’t push it any further. I didn’t want to spend the last of my time with her on her birthday going over the wreckage of my divorce with her. Once I dropped her off at school, she would spend the day there until her dad picked her up in the afternoon and kept her for a sleepover. I wouldn’t see her until her birthday party the next day. This isn’t how I saw our last few moments going.

She chased the car and waved goodbye as I dropped her off, while I rolled down the window and sang, “Happy Birthday” loud enough for everyone to hear. She’s young enough that she doesn’t find me embarrassing quite yet, so I’m making the most of it while I can. I watched her skip into the building, her massive backpack bouncing as she walked.

And then as I drove away, the pit in my stomach grew, and I couldn’t help but wonder for what must be the one thousandth time, Did my divorce ruin my daughter’s childhood?

When I got home, I took a moment to clean up the tissue paper and gift bags scattered all over the floor. I took the dog out for a quick walk and placed the leftover pancakes in a gallon-sized bag in the fridge, relieved that I wouldn’t have to make breakfast the next day. A half-hour later, my husband returned from dropping his two kids off at their elementary school one county over. After he lugged both twins inside, I told him what Eloisa’s birthday wish had been.

“What?” he asked in disbelief, “she really said that?”

I just nodded, making myself busy with putting on makeup while he folded the mountain of laundry on our bed. It was quiet for a moment before I finally said, “I get it, obviously. I know she didn’t mean to hurt my feelings and was just expressing her thoughts. But…” I trailed off, searching for the right words, “that doesn’t mean it didn’t hurt.”

“Yeah,” my husband said, “I know. Did she mention me at all?”

“No, and I didn’t want to push it, not today,” I responded.

“I get that. Well, are you okay?”

“Yes,” I lied.

I didn’t know I was lying until several hours later.

It was later in the afternoon, while I was sitting at my desk at work, when the tears finally came.

I had met up with Eloisa’s dad earlier so that we could bring cupcakes to her class and have lunch with her. We were instantly the coolest adults in the school as we handed out mini cupcakes, that were really more frosting than actual cupcakes, to all of the excited first graders. Eloisa was smiling from ear to ear, thrilled that we were both there. Her dad and I frequently do stuff together with her, so this wasn’t out of the norm, but it still made her day. On our way back out to our cars, I told my ex-husband what Eloisa had said that morning. His reaction was the same as my husband’s.

“What?” he exclaimed, “She really said that?”

“Yeah, I know, I didn’t know what to say,” I responded, “I remember when Kennedy was around this age, she also really struggled with the concept that her parents were divorced, but it’s been four years for Eloisa, so I don’t know.”

And it was true, when my stepdaughter was in kindergarten and first grade, she really struggled to wrap her mind around the reality of her parents’ divorce. It was a dark time for her dad as a result, and I’m sure her mom, too. We were all worried about her. That was immediately following her parents’ divorce, though, so the timeline made more sense.

Eloisa was barely two years old when her dad and I divorced, so I thought we were in the clear. Since she would never have memories of me being married to her dad, I assumed that us being divorced would be her normal. I assumed that she would never know what she was missing, and that therefore she would never think to wish it any other way. Apparently not, though.

It wasn’t until I left the school and drove to work that it really hit me that I wouldn’t see her again on her birthday. A fresh wave of guilt washed over me as I wondered what I could have done differently, not just that day, but in general. Then I started to cry.

I was the only one at work, so I decided to just let the tears flow. I scrolled through her baby photos while making her birthday Facebook post, and cried harder. I texted my husband that I couldn’t stop thinking about what she had said that morning, and that I was finally crying over it.

As I sat there in my pity party instead of my daughter’s birthday party, I went back to that same question that had crossed my mind earlier in the day: Did my divorce ruin my daughter’s childhood?

When I decided to file for divorce, the effect it would have on my daughter was naturally one of the biggest factors in my calculations. Like most parents, I wanted my daughter to grow up in a two-parent home. But I also wanted her to grow up with happy, fulfilled, and emotionally regulated parents, and after months of deliberation, I knew that wouldn’t happen if I had stayed in that marriage.

We did, and have always done, the best we could to keep our daughter’s life as normal as possible. Her dad and I do things together with her all the time, and my daughter knows that when she’s with me, she can call her dad whenever she wants, and vice versa. Our custody arrangement is extremely flexible when it needs to be, if it would make Eloisa happy. Whether she wants to spend an extra night at her dad’s, have a middle-of-the-week sleepover with me when it’s not my week, or something else, we try to make it work.

I have also done my best to answer all of her questions over the years. As she grew older, she slowly began to realize that her family wasn’t like her classmates’ or her friends’ family. She naturally had questions about why we got divorced, if we would get married again, and why I wanted to be married to my husband and not her dad.

She won’t remember life before her stepdad. I started dating Kevin shortly after my divorce, and we got married a little over two years later. He brought two kids from his previous marriage into our blended family, and Eloisa and them have been best friends since day one. They fight sometimes, as true siblings do, but they love each other fiercely.

Eloisa gaining two new stepsiblings was yet another reason I thought the divorce would be “okay.” When my husband and I welcomed our twin girls into the family, both of whom Eloisa is obsessed with, I was further convinced.

But helping a child heal from divorce is not a checklist. You can do fun activities as a family, remarry an amazing partner, introduce new siblings or pets, go on vacations, or hype up two Christmases all you want, but none of that can erase the collateral damage that comes with divorce.

Because yes, there is collateral, and it almost always affects any kids involved. For a long time, I was in denial of that. No parent wants to ever admit that a choice they’ve made to improve their own life ended up making something harder for their child. Even if it was the right choice, as is often the case with divorce, that doesn’t mean it cost nothing.

One of the hardest things to accept about divorce is that getting divorced was absolutely the right decision, but getting divorced still hurt my daughter, even if I tried my hardest to avoid it.

She has to spend her childhood moving houses every other week, always on the go. Me and her dad do our best to make each house feel like home for her, and she has more than enough clothes and toys at both places, but still. I think of how after vacation, I just long to sleep in my own bed, and wonder if she feels like that every week. Even though her dad and I try to celebrate most birthdays and holidays together, sometimes that only highlights the fact that things are complicated, and it backfires in our face when she asks why it can’t be like this every day.

None of this means that she doesn’t love her stepdad, her two stepsiblings, or her two younger sisters. It doesn’t mean that she wishes she lived with one parent and not the other. It simply means she’s six years old, trying to make sense of a complicated dynamic that she never asked for in the first place.

I know that her questions reflect curiosity more than they do trauma. I know that kids from two-parent households still have their own struggles and challenges. I know that my daughter is deeply loved everywhere she goes, and I know that I am exactly where I am supposed to be in life. I would not be the woman or mother I am today without my divorce, it is an integral part of my story.

I know that my divorce did not ruin my daughter’s childhood, but I also know that doesn’t mean it isn’t hard. And maybe that’s the whole point: there is still good to be found in our struggles in life, even if they also feel hard in the moment. Life can be tough, and at the same time, life can be happy. And that is okay.