Moving on to the Brightside Part 26

[Dawn70]

I was a band geek all through school and my mom went to most of my stuff while my dad rarely did. My dad was (is) a farmer and he worked weird long hours so he had little down time that he wasn't working so going to a band concert wasn't high on the list, even if it was his kid. Neither of my parents attended football games where our band marched, but my mom did come to all the concerts. I was also very active in 4-H and both of my parents were active in those activities, serving as volunteer leaders. I don't have bad memories of my dad not showing up, I just know he didn't because he had work to do and I understood because that was our life.

I said I was judging J's XW the other day and while I was grouchy when I said it, I still stand by it. To your point, G, I think there is a HUGE difference in self care and missing the occasional activity to do something with friends whose schedules only align once in a blue moon and a parent who is "off the clock" when they don't have the kids and the way I interpreted what J wrote was his wife was "off the clock" completely when the girls are in his care. Absolutely, single parents, married parents, ALL parents should practice self care and if they miss a kid activity because of it on occasion, oh well. You can't be an effective parent without that self care, in my opinion. Far too many parents (mothers and fathers both, though it seems to be more heavily directed at moms usually) feel like they have to be all in all the time and that just isn't sustainable. However, in my opinion, if you are a single parent and you just completely shut off when the kids are with the other parent, that seems odd to me. I think I'm likely particularly sensitive to that issue, though, because when XH and I were first married, on the weekends that his girls stayed at our house instead of their mother's, their mother would literally shut her phone off or send their phone calls straight to voicemail so that she could have uninterrupted time with her boyfriend. The girls were teenagers at the time so they really didn't need anything from her, but they occasionally just wanted to chat with her and she would ignore them for 3 or 4 days at a time, saying they could get whatever they needed from me and XH. It was very cold and hurtful to the girls. I'm sure it is different when the kids are younger and actually need care from the parent, but that is why I feel strongly about the whole being totally off the clock thing.