So I’m a confirmation bias kind of girl.
I like to scour the internet to find some sort of reputable site that supports or provides a rationalization for what I already think I want to do.
I’ll simultaneously text several friends or groups of friends to run something by them (I don’t do phone calls… yuck).
So between the Google searches and the text-fishing, it’s not so much that I’m searching to find my opinions. It’s not even that I’m searching for a different answer than the one I already think I have. I think it’s more that if, after hearing (reading?) other possible alternatives, I’m still set to dig my heels in and back up the conclusion I’ve already arrived at, then by golly, that must be the right one for me.
And so in light of that fact that my husband and I are in the midst of a divorce, I, of course, went searching the Internet for books for our 5-year-old (her younger sister is blissfully unaware, at just under 19-months-old). What was looking for were not necessarily books for us on how to tell her, but books FOR her... to help her understand what was going on with Mommy and Daddy.
We’ve been in the midst of this whole process for about 4 months. We have sorted out finances and schedules and all of that. We wanted to reach that point prior to cluing her in because if WE didn’t know the answers to things such as who would be living where and who would be with her when, how could we possibly answer her questions?
There were lots of books that involved explanations of Mommy and Daddy yelling, but those didn’t seem authentic since that hasn’t been her experience. Tension? Sure. Passive-aggressive comments? Certainly. But in her recent memory, the yelling (at least in her presence) has been absent, perhaps because we had already resigned ourselves to what was going to happen, thus releasing the pressure and allowing us to just “be”. Which actually concerned me even more. Because we had been getting along so well, would it be even more confusing to her as to why Mommy and Daddy were no longer going to be married and why there would be two homes??
So I did more searching and read more reviews and looked at what I could of the inside pages of different books. And once I had weeded out the yelling books, it seemed like most of the focus for kids her age seemed to be on the two houses aspect as opposed to the relationship aspect. And I’m not sure why that surprised me. I had been racking my brain trying to figure out how to explain vows and love marriage and different kinds of love and families, and here were these books... meant for her, mind you… implying that maybe my focus was off target. That something much more basic would be at the forefront of her mind… the where and the what of where she would be and who with… and what would she get to bring.
I made my purchases - three books - and was simultaneously excited for and apprehensive about their arrival. Excited because then that would be one more thing off the “to-do” list: telling J. But apprehensive because, well then we’d actually have to tell her.
Amazon Prime worked its magic and within a few days, I had my three books. And I read them all to myself. And none of them felt right. The teacher and counselor in me understand why the focus of books for her age group would focus on those concrete aspects of what happens in divorce. The whole hierarchy of needs framework lets us know that if a person doesn’t feel safe, secure, and taken care of, they can’t possibly concern themselves with higher-level concepts like love and family. So for a five-year-old to know where she would come home to and where Mommy and Daddy would be and who would get her when made perfect logical sense.
But it also seemed like putting the cart before the horse.
In order to read books to her about how we would have two homes, we would need to provide the opening. I realized that this had been what I was trying most to avoid. I had hoped the books would fill in where we would undoubtedly mess it up, because I was already feeling like we were going to mess her up. But holding the three books, I realized that we couldn’t get someone - or in this case, something - else to do our dirty work for us. Much like my husband had been the one to tell her about the death of her Papa, which I then provided a book for in the aftermath, we would have to break the ice (“Grandad’s Island”, by the way; it’s wonderful).
Daddy: Honey, Mommy and I have something to tell you.
J: Okay?
Daddy: You know how people are married? Well, Mommy and I aren’t going to be married anymore, but we are all still going to be a family.
J: How come you’re not getting married?
Daddy: Because we just want to be friends and that’s what makes us happier, which means we can be a better mommy and daddy to you and your sister.
J: Okay! *back to playing*
Admittedly, I haven’t even given her the books yet. I hid them when they first arrived (so she wouldn’t see them too early) and can’t remember where that “safe place” was. But since the initial conversation, I have had mini-follow-up discussions with her, inspired by the missing books, about who she will be with and when and about the fact that Daddy will have a new house at some point. And she’s pretty happy about getting to pick out things for her new room at Daddy’s house. So I’ll give the books the credit for getting me to think more about the concrete and less about the abstract. I know we’ll have to get a bit higher-level someday, but for now she can enjoy pumpkin picking with her family (all of us) and picking out just the right rainbows for the walls of her new room and knowing that whether here or there, she’ll always have a family to come home to.