aag

As I’ve said before, my parents divorced recently and I have considerably younger siblings.

It might be that the designations “mommy’s house” and “daddy’s house” are temporary, a way of establishing new concepts through language, as children often do. In time, your kids may return to calling one or both places “home,” particularly if the rituals that always defined that place persist. I don’t think your children will always feel they have a sum of “zero houses,” but I do think they’re on reshuffle right now. Keeping things in your home as consistent as possible will probably do the most to stabilize the situation.

My ex and I have joint custody, and we have 2 boys, 18 and 14. This means that they spend 1 week with me and one week with their Dad. They have clothes and stuff in both houses, mostly to make life easier, so that we don’t have to carry things back and forth. From what I see and from what I hear…. home for them is wherever they are at that moment. They feel equally comfortable in both houses. I don’t think they felt that comfortable at the very beginning, but it is now 4 years since we divorced and it has become such a part of our lives that we do not notice it. I asked my eldest about it, and he said that when he tells his friends that he’s going home, they have learned to ask if its Mom’s or Dad’s. I think from what I have observed and experienced, anything new is scary, but with time it becomes routine, and then its such a part of your life, its not noticed anymore, and so not that that scary. Your children are young and from everything I have read and heard, they will quickly adjust to the changes and will not remember any other way. And please do not worry that your kids will think that they are being punished for cleaning up. Everyone pitching in to help clean up is one of the best lessons to teach children. You are showing them that you are a team and everyone helps out. Talk to them ….ask questions….especially why…why they did something….why they think something….its always amazing the answers you get back, and you open up the most interesting discussions, especially as they grow older.

Dora said what i was going to say, but when have you known that stop me?

“but also so that I don’t have to deal with their mess when they aren’t here. Does this send the message that I’m pushing them out?”

No, it sends them the message that their toys are THEIR toys and THEY must be responsible for them.

You’re doing great, AAG. All power to you.

Love,
Juno x

I’m also trying to adjust to the situation of two homes for my kids (6/9). My ex is having a really hard time. My kids seem to be OK with it, although they always want to know, where are we going tonight?

Secretly I sort of envied my friends who shared custody of children; they had some nights “off.” There are some good things about splitting kid time: when they’re not with me I have adult/work/play time; when I have my guys I’m totally focused on them. And I don’t have to compromise anymore in my own space.

That said, it’s still hard. Feel for you.

Well, this isn’t what i thought I was going to be reading about on this site. You don’t say how old your kids are, I think that makes a huge difference on how it’s handled. My parents divorsed when i was 8, I had no problem handeling the ” MOMMY DADDY” house. I now had double of everything. My brother was 12 and it was much tougher. If they are younger you have the wonderful oppurtunity not to play good guy bad guy, and make them feel comfortable in both places. In the long run it makes everyone happy.

The fathers of my kids were never involved in our kids lives, so I am of no help at all today. Most days I am glad of that fact that their fathers are not around but then I have days where I so envy that other single parents get a weekend off here and there while I never will.

Ive done the divorce thing not once but twice. My children were very young both times but I still had to deal with one ex and “his place” which for awhile was his folks disgusting house, then his much older girlfriends. My daughter learned that home is where she is happy. Her dad now lives in Ohio and I am still in Michigan. She adapts and makes it work. It took a long time for us to find “home” but I stayed in the family home after the divorce and it helped.

I don’t know if you are still in the same place or moved but have the rooms decorated (or keep it the same) and if your place is the primary residence, then just re-inforce that with a great deal of patience, never not calling Dads place home and a smile. Its ROUGH. I hated pretending like things were dandy and his place and his girlfriend were “home” too but its not about me and my wants or needs, it was about keeping my daughter feeling comfortable.

Grin and cope. Decorate, make time JUST for the kids to bake cookies or read, watch a movie together, go to the library or movies. Be MOM better then he was ever Dad.

I wouldn’t get hung up on te terminology they use. Like Marcelle said, it is probably temporary. Things will play out naturally over time. After a while they’ll relax more about the divorce and use more casual terms, like “home”.

After 20 years of marriage, I can tell you that the “me” time issue is probably one of the hardest things to work out. Like it or not marriage is mostly about the “we” not the “me”. It’s challenging for partners to respect that they each need “me” time. It’s even more challenging when only one of the partners respects the need for “me” time. The only way I have been able to work it out is to be totally engaged in the “we” time, state my need for “me” time, and then actually use my “”me” time for what I intended. It is a little disrepectful to claim “me” time then waste it.

When I was younger and my son was four or five, I felt totally consumed. In the blink of an eye, we are shopping for high schools and I see clearly the fork down the road when he leaves for college. Then I will have more “me” time than I ever bargained for. From your beautiful posts about your children, I can see you are really enjoying their youth. I am glad for you, because those years go by very quickly.

Haaaaaaa

It’s just a phase. If you got a new car, they would be shouting “the NEW car!” After a while it just becomes “the car”. It’s almost their way of showing acceptance of a situation… to articulate it back to you. While their words may not express the situation exactly, that they express it to you at all is their way of letting you know they understand it.

Pluff

like some other commenters, i would stress consistency in schedule. i work with families going through divorce and when a client calls upset because their kids are depressed or doing poorly in school or having behavior issues i always ask if the visitation schedule has changed or is inconsistent. the two correlate 99.999% of the time. kids feel much less anxiety when they know where they’re going and when.

I don’t have any advice, but I wanted to offer *gentle* hugs to you and your kids.

April

Not the same, but I have a similar problem when I talk about visiting my parents and my own apartment: I call both places home. This becomes really strange when I start talking about going home (to my parent’s place) and when I will be coming home (to my own place). It’s all very strange, but I always enjoy time spent in both homes, even if I always miss the one when I’m at the other.

So, in conclusion, they’re still adjusting and figuring out the rules of their new world. But I know that your place will always be the one they consider home (the most), because that’s where mommy is and that’s (I suspect) where they spend most of their time.

“The stb-ex and I never managed that sort of thing. If we were together managing kids, he would sit back and do nothing while I directed the action. Then he’d need his own “free time” to rest or work; the only way I could get the larger household jobs done was to demand my own chunks of “free time” as well. We negotiated our free time well enough that we had practically no time together as a complete family.”

This is an oh-so familiar situation. Even now that we are seperated and he recently bought a house with is new other half, my time is still not considered as precious as his.

My son calls my house Mummy’s house, and he goes to Daddy’s house. I don’t think it means anything significant, it’s just an easy way to refer to the places he is going.

AAG,

When I was growing up, alot of my friends/classmates experienced divorce in their families–this was during the “divorce boom” of the 80’s and early 90’s. I think nearly all of them adopted the speech pattern of referring to their two homes as “Mom’s House” and “Dad’s House”; but the key thing here, is that they regarded both as “home”. I concur with the prior posters: this is just your children’s way of delineating which home they are traveling to/from.

Also, I applaud the fact that you even worry about this–it clearly shows how much you love your children and your desire for them to live through this transition as happily and as well-adjusted as possible. You’re doing a great job AAG, I wish you all the best.

I’ve never commented before - bu t I feel for you. My ex-wife and I deal with this the same as you - “mommys house” and “daddy’s house”. We do as several commentators siad and each have toys, clothes, etc, so there is no “packing a bag” to visit.

It is nice to come home to “down time” in some ways when the kids are gone, but a part of you also wishes for the way things were (even if that is just an ideal, and it wasn’t really that great).

We are three years in (with 7 year old twins), and they are now to the point where this arrangement is really all they remeber, so it is the norm to them. I can’t decide if I am glad that there life is now their “norm”, or sad that they will never remember a two parent home…i think I am a little of each.

Hang in there and it will get better!!

as a child of divorce - my parents split when i was 7 and couldn’t stand even talking to each other, but i still spent two nights a week at my father’s house…

it was weird at first - but i grew to love it (only annoying thing was the clothes situation - should i keep some clothes at mom’s and some at dad’s or all at mom’s and bring some over when i when to dad’s??? it was all very exhausting)…

i loved not having to sleep in my same boring room every night - having a different routine at each house - having different activities - eating different things…

i think i made me into a much more dynamic person, i can adapt to lots of situations quickly…i can feel comfortable in a place easily…

and the movement seemed to squelch a little of that ‘teen boredom’ when i hit that age…i got to get away from both my parents on different days of the week…

i am glad i had two homes growing up…it made things interesting…

stay strong…

and i am very sure that they don’t think you are pushing them out the door - they are probably too preoccupied by the adventure ahead of them at dad’s house…

We did the one week on and one off back and forth thing. This worked well for the kids as they could settle in and not have to be like little pieces of popcorn going back and forth to both multiple times each week.

After awhile they came to live with me full time. But my kids were older (15,11 and 7).

I know two families that did it in an entirely different and unique way.

As they figured it was the parents that had the issues and the kids were now the innocent ones having to “pay the price,” the kids had the house full time so they had a stable environment. Mom and Dad went back and forth. I can’t remember if they each had a small apartment or shared one outside the main house.

I thought this the best arrangment of all and would have pushed for this if we weren’t at the stage of them living with me full time.

In ALL cases, AAG…hear this: your kids are going to be fine. It may not seem that way now..we fret, we are sad at breaking up a family, but your love for them will always be primary and they will carry this with them.

I promise.

This probably wouldn’t work in your situation, but I have friends who have managed to remain surprisingly civil during their divorce, and are totally committed to their children’s well-being. The kids have stayed at the same (family) house, and the mother and father each live in a small apartment, plus have separate bedrooms in the house, and THEY go back and forth. They are very fortunate to be able to afford this unusual arrangement. It prevents the Mommy’s/Daddy’s house confusion, plus it allows each adult to truly have his/her OWN kid-free space (”office”), where boyfriends/girlfriends/toys can safely spend the night without creating an uncomfortable situation or scandal. I do wonder if the kids really understand that their parents are no longer a couple, since it’s probably not that different from back when their father was ‘never home’.

Perhaps instead of calling it “Mommy’s house” and “Daddy’s house”, you could say “our house” and “your other house”…that way it involves them in the ownership and gives them two houses. That is what we did when my son was little. I will echo some of the other comments: you are doing great and your kids will be fine! It’s tough, but just keep showing that you love them and all will be well.

My ex has been out of the house roughly 10 months now. During that time, he’s moved at least 3 times, had a fiance, broke up with her, and seems to just continually be in an unstable situation.

I tried desperately to keep things as normal and close to routine as possible around here. We just moved at Christmas, and I can tell you that we still seem to be doing well.

The boys (4,6) seems to be well adjusted and really like the new place. They refer to it as “Mom’ s house”, but refer to the ex as just “going to see Dad”.

They know first and foremost the we love them unconditionally. The ex and I try to remain civil, although it’s difficult when the lies continue.

The boys and I have a great time when we are together. We miss each other when we are apart. Still, I think that we all are adjusting rather nicely.

I, too, want them to consider this home as “theirs”, and I think that they do. Referring to things as Mom’s or Dad’s is just a way for them to differentiate really. For them, I think that home is where they are and where they are loved. It’s both places for them.

I found your blog thru a standard “six degrees of blog separation” experience. Great stuff. As to your question here, I don’t have anything but there’s a cool set of parenting blogs called offsprung.com. A blogger friend of mine has a blog there called “Don’t Forget To Flush,” and it’s all about a single parent dealing with a recent divorce and how it affects his son. You may find some good insight there. But if nothing else, it’s some pretty funny stuff. Hope you can find some answers…

I was one of those children who had two houses. My sister and I switched houses between my mother’s and father’s every two weeks. And yes, it does feel like you have no home rather than two. You feel like a transient and a nomad without being old enough to know the words. And yes, when your parents prepare you for the switch, it feels like they are trying to get rid of you, which in my father’s case was an accurate assumption. But it’s an adjustment. Once it doesn’t feel different, you don’t question two houses; it’s just how it is. I would suggest to contact your kids while they’re with their father. Nothing major. Just a mommy says hi and how are you while you’re gone. Let them know you’re still thinking about them, you didn’t bail on being their mother in their absence. But in the end, you will all adjust, and it will be easier.

This is more on the topic of what monogamy means– or should–, rather than on the topic of shared custody, but I found it so stunning I had to share it here:
http://www.chloebancroft.co.uk/?p=70

Thank you sex!

I couldn’t agree with her more.

Great blog.

We’re going through this now. I’ve been the stay-at-home parent for our daughter’s whole life. My stb-ex-wife ain’t leaving, ever, so I will. She wants custody, and I don’t have any hope of winning a fight, so I’m not.

The ex-wife’s house will be “home” for our daughter. I will be in various itinerant situations and won’t be able to afford a place where I could host a child visit, really, and so I’ll visit her at her home, which will be my ex-wife’s. We’ll do that until my ex can’t stand having me around “her” house anymore, at which point I will pay out the ass in child support and won’t see my kid anymore.

Right now, our daughter is walking around carrying a picture of my stb-ex and I when we were dating. She just wishes we’d stay together. It’s heartbreaking. She doesn’t want to lose her daddy, who has been more like a mommy to her than a daddy.

There is no way around this without great anguish and suffering. It is a no-win situation. I’m just picking the least worst of tons of awful options.

The fathers of my kids were never involved in our kids lives, so I am of no help at all today. Most days I am glad of that fact that their fathers are not around but then I have days where I so envy that other single parents get a weekend off here and there while I never will.

Yeah. Ditto.[

Except that ‘never’ part. Mine are 28 and 17 now. I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. There will be weekends off. Soon.

My heart breaks for gc, particularly, and I count myself fortunate that my girls have two homes rather than zero. Some things (instruments, earrings, the current books) go back & forth; some things (dolls, clothes, art supplies) migrate randonly; some things (pets, stuffed animals) pretty much stay in place.

I think it helps that the girls have each other.