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I grew up with divorced parents, my mom was married for the third time by the time I was 10. It wasn't glorious. It was the furthest thing from glorious. They'r

I grew up with divorced parents, my mom was married for the third time by the time I was 10. It wasn't glorious. It was the furthest thing from glorious. They're all dead now and I'm old and I'm still pissed off about it. If you can't commit to bringing up a kid together then don't have a kid. I am so pissed off even writing this, I've just got to say it, fuck parents like you.

throwaway675309 5y ago
I understand where you're coming from, but the alternative to getting a divorce might be even worse, two adults constantly abusing each other within the household and the child in close proximity to it with no escape. We don't really know the situation and everyone's is different.
DoreenMichele 5y ago
Glorious perhaps for the parents. Reading some of the comments here, I'm reminded of a story I read about several couples renting a summer house, sending all the kids from all the families there for the summer and the parents taking turns spending their vacation there to supervise. Some outsider was like "Oh, God, spending my two weeks of vacation tending to so many children sounds like a nightmare." And then someone pointed out that for the parents, the vacation was the other six weeks or whatever getting to live like a childless couple. (Please don't aim your anger at me. I'm on your side here.)
- ido 5y ago
  I guess it depends on the age of the children, but beyond a certain age wouldn't it be fun to spend a few weeks with a bunch of other kids in a summer home?
  - DoreenMichele 5y ago
    The kids apparently had a blast. I don't recall the age ranges. I think the only criticism was along the lines of "Well, that's great for the kids. But the poor parents! What in earth were they thinking?!" not realizing that the parents got a different kind of break in addition to doing something wonderful for the children who all got to spend like eight whole weeks at a lake house instead of just two and got to do it with lots of built-in friends to play with, rather than being lonely on an adult vacation away from their friends.
    - ido 5y ago
      So I’m not sure what exactly are you finding bad about this? Or did I misinterpret your post (specifically about the “anger”, why should describing a positive experience all around elicit anger)?
      - DoreenMichele 5y ago
        I think you probably are misinterpreting something. I'm not saying it's bad. Just that the part that was good for the kids was different from the parts that were good for the parents. People here saying "That sounds glorious" about 50/50 custody arrangements strike me as thinking about it from the point of view of how the parents experience it and not how the children are likely to experience that. Everything I've read suggests that shuffling the kids back and forth like that ends up being distinctly negative for the children in most cases.
        ido 5y ago
        Thanks for explaining! I guess I expected a more tight/direct analogy to the original divorce scenario (kids feeling neglected because their parents left them with other adults in the lake house?)
        deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
- jefftk 5y ago
  Parents also vary a lot in how they feel about having kids around. Spending a two-week vacation with my kids and their cousins/friends is something that I personally would find really fun! And I know many parents that wouldn't feel that way.
jiggunjer 5y ago
Isn't the point of the article that things are getting better compared to how it used to be?
- s-lambert 5y ago
  Divorce is always going to suck for kids though even if it gets better.
jquery 5y ago
- staticassertion 5y ago
  The point isn't about not divorcing, it's about committing to the kid whether you do or not.
  - jquery 5y ago
    >it's about committing to the kid whether you do or not The point gp was making was very much about divorcing, or at least co-habitating. Otherwise the anger makes no sense.
- dang 5y ago
  Please don't cross into personal attack, regardless of how you feel about or perceive someone else's comment. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html Edit: you have a long history of posting flamewar comments here and otherwise breaking the site guidelines. You've been continuing to do it a lot, unfortunately. If you don't stop this, we're going to have to ban you. I don't want to ban you, so if you'd please review the site guidelines and stick to them from now on (that means all the time, in every post), we'd really appreciate it.
bbgtpm 5y ago
Right there with you, my mother entered marriage number four as I turned 10 (not a competition - at least not one I feel I won). Hearing parents talk about how they went the extra mile to make things better for the kids after the divorce honestly strikes me about like John Wilkes Booth offering Lincoln some gauze for his head wound. Like, it's a nice gesture, but he'd probably have been better off if you hadn't shot him in the first place.
- ido 5y ago
  Do you think growing up with parents that would rather not live together would have given you a better experience? Not asking cynically, genuinely curious. Nobody marries expecting to divorce.
  - bbgtpm 5y ago
    Oh absolutely! The psychological safety benefits of having a stable home, the ability to "be a kid" with emotional support from parents instead of having to grow up way too soon and serve as their emotional support, the luxury of not always feeling like you're waiting for "the other shoe to drop" when things are going well, having fond memories of holidays instead of anxiety-inducing split days where you feel guilty for not spending them evenly between households. Not to mention all of the logistical nightmares (never time to spend with friends because you're in transit or the parent wants to have "their" time with the kids, different rules in different households, schoolwork getting mixed up/dropped between cracks, clothing, etc.). Even for married parents that have struggles and disagreements, the fact that they stay together serves as a rock-solid signal to a child that the family as a whole is important and that ultimately the parents care about the child even more than they care about themselves. Except in cases of physical violence, I believe it's always better for the children if the parents stay together. And it's not close. Also, while I'm certainly jealous of people raised in married households, I don't blame them in the slightest for not having much of a sense of how the other half lives. The only way to know is to live through it, and I wouldn't wish that on anyone.
    - throwarerain 5y ago
boppo1 5y ago
If the relationship is genial, what is the real problem with being a child if divorce? I have no doubt about your experience, I'm asking from a place of "I don't know and can't really imagine it." I was very, very lucky with the family lottery, so this is pretty foreign to me.
AtlasBarfed 5y ago
I think the worst thing for the child is that they aren't settled anywhere. It's one week, then you move and... do you have all your toiletries, what clothes do you have at this parent's, what different schedule and rules, how do I see my friends here, what's around this neighborhood. Although, sometimes situations like that make you perversely stronger/more flexible/more mature. Adversity is a forge, in the right doses.
ido 5y ago
I'm sorry if this drudges up unpleasant memories, but can you elaborate about what was terrible about it? Was it about having to change homes every week?
dang 5y ago
Please don't break the HN guidelines like this, even when you feel strongly for legitimate reasons. You may not feel you owe divorced parents better, but you owe this community better if you're participating in it. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- rufus_foreman 5y ago
  After careful consideration, I stand by my previous statement.
  - dang 5y ago
    That's fine, but we need you not to post like that to this site. "Fuck parents like you" is egregiously against the HN guidelines, no matter how legitimate your experience has been. (I have no doubt that it is completely legitimate.) https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

throwaway675309 5y ago

I understand where you're coming from, but the alternative to getting a divorce might be even worse, two adults constantly abusing each other within the household and the child in close proximity to it with no escape. We don't really know the situation and everyone's is different.

DoreenMichele 5y ago

Glorious perhaps for the parents. Reading some of the comments here, I'm reminded of a story I read about several couples renting a summer house, sending all the kids from all the families there for the summer and the parents taking turns spending their vacation there to supervise. Some outsider was like "Oh, God, spending my two weeks of vacation tending to so many children sounds like a nightmare." And then someone pointed out that for the parents, the vacation was the other six weeks or whatever getting to live like a childless couple. (Please don't aim your anger at me. I'm on your side here.)

ido 5y ago
I guess it depends on the age of the children, but beyond a certain age wouldn't it be fun to spend a few weeks with a bunch of other kids in a summer home?
- DoreenMichele 5y ago
  The kids apparently had a blast. I don't recall the age ranges. I think the only criticism was along the lines of "Well, that's great for the kids. But the poor parents! What in earth were they thinking?!" not realizing that the parents got a different kind of break in addition to doing something wonderful for the children who all got to spend like eight whole weeks at a lake house instead of just two and got to do it with lots of built-in friends to play with, rather than being lonely on an adult vacation away from their friends.
  - ido 5y ago
    So I’m not sure what exactly are you finding bad about this? Or did I misinterpret your post (specifically about the “anger”, why should describing a positive experience all around elicit anger)?
    - DoreenMichele 5y ago
      I think you probably are misinterpreting something. I'm not saying it's bad. Just that the part that was good for the kids was different from the parts that were good for the parents. People here saying "That sounds glorious" about 50/50 custody arrangements strike me as thinking about it from the point of view of how the parents experience it and not how the children are likely to experience that. Everything I've read suggests that shuffling the kids back and forth like that ends up being distinctly negative for the children in most cases.
      - ido 5y ago
        Thanks for explaining! I guess I expected a more tight/direct analogy to the original divorce scenario (kids feeling neglected because their parents left them with other adults in the lake house?)
        deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
jefftk 5y ago
Parents also vary a lot in how they feel about having kids around. Spending a two-week vacation with my kids and their cousins/friends is something that I personally would find really fun! And I know many parents that wouldn't feel that way.

jiggunjer 5y ago

Isn't the point of the article that things are getting better compared to how it used to be?

s-lambert 5y ago
Divorce is always going to suck for kids though even if it gets better.

jquery 5y ago

staticassertion 5y ago
The point isn't about not divorcing, it's about committing to the kid whether you do or not.
- jquery 5y ago
  >it's about committing to the kid whether you do or not The point gp was making was very much about divorcing, or at least co-habitating. Otherwise the anger makes no sense.
dang 5y ago
Please don't cross into personal attack, regardless of how you feel about or perceive someone else's comment. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html Edit: you have a long history of posting flamewar comments here and otherwise breaking the site guidelines. You've been continuing to do it a lot, unfortunately. If you don't stop this, we're going to have to ban you. I don't want to ban you, so if you'd please review the site guidelines and stick to them from now on (that means all the time, in every post), we'd really appreciate it.

bbgtpm 5y ago

Right there with you, my mother entered marriage number four as I turned 10 (not a competition - at least not one I feel I won). Hearing parents talk about how they went the extra mile to make things better for the kids after the divorce honestly strikes me about like John Wilkes Booth offering Lincoln some gauze for his head wound. Like, it's a nice gesture, but he'd probably have been better off if you hadn't shot him in the first place.

ido 5y ago
Do you think growing up with parents that would rather not live together would have given you a better experience? Not asking cynically, genuinely curious. Nobody marries expecting to divorce.
- bbgtpm 5y ago
  Oh absolutely! The psychological safety benefits of having a stable home, the ability to "be a kid" with emotional support from parents instead of having to grow up way too soon and serve as their emotional support, the luxury of not always feeling like you're waiting for "the other shoe to drop" when things are going well, having fond memories of holidays instead of anxiety-inducing split days where you feel guilty for not spending them evenly between households. Not to mention all of the logistical nightmares (never time to spend with friends because you're in transit or the parent wants to have "their" time with the kids, different rules in different households, schoolwork getting mixed up/dropped between cracks, clothing, etc.). Even for married parents that have struggles and disagreements, the fact that they stay together serves as a rock-solid signal to a child that the family as a whole is important and that ultimately the parents care about the child even more than they care about themselves. Except in cases of physical violence, I believe it's always better for the children if the parents stay together. And it's not close. Also, while I'm certainly jealous of people raised in married households, I don't blame them in the slightest for not having much of a sense of how the other half lives. The only way to know is to live through it, and I wouldn't wish that on anyone.
  - throwarerain 5y ago

boppo1 5y ago

If the relationship is genial, what is the real problem with being a child if divorce? I have no doubt about your experience, I'm asking from a place of "I don't know and can't really imagine it." I was very, very lucky with the family lottery, so this is pretty foreign to me.

AtlasBarfed 5y ago

I think the worst thing for the child is that they aren't settled anywhere. It's one week, then you move and... do you have all your toiletries, what clothes do you have at this parent's, what different schedule and rules, how do I see my friends here, what's around this neighborhood. Although, sometimes situations like that make you perversely stronger/more flexible/more mature. Adversity is a forge, in the right doses.

ido 5y ago

I'm sorry if this drudges up unpleasant memories, but can you elaborate about what was terrible about it? Was it about having to change homes every week?

dang 5y ago

Please don't break the HN guidelines like this, even when you feel strongly for legitimate reasons. You may not feel you owe divorced parents better, but you owe this community better if you're participating in it. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

rufus_foreman 5y ago
After careful consideration, I stand by my previous statement.
- dang 5y ago
  That's fine, but we need you not to post like that to this site. "Fuck parents like you" is egregiously against the HN guidelines, no matter how legitimate your experience has been. (I have no doubt that it is completely legitimate.) https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html