HAVING CHILDREN? GET A DIVORCE!

Beautiful! Lovely! How great to hear someone else revealing this: the best parents are the ones who aren't together!

In a blog piece entitled "DIVORCE'S DIRTY LITTLE SECRET," Elisabeth Joy LaMotte, LCSW, says this:

"As a therapist with over fifteen years experience, I hear a lot about divorce, particularly divorces where children are involved. I have noticed a surprising sentiment among many divorcees: people secretly like their time off from parenting."

Well, thank you, Elisabeth. Nothing more refreshing than speaking and hearing the truth. I have frequently pointed out to people, and written about on this blog and others, that in my 30+ years of practicing psychotherapy, I could count on one hand the number of people who told me that they wished their parents hadn't gotten divorced when they were kids. Conversely, I can't even count how many have told me that they were glad that their parents got divorced, that it was absolutely the best thing for all involved, etc.

Here's more from LaMotte's piece:

"A newly divorced client in her forties puts it this way:

"I feel terrible admitting this, but I cherish my down-time each week. It rejuvenates me and leads to a great amount of patience and positivity when I am with my kids. I totally lacked this in the past. I sometimes wonder if what my ex and I really needed was more help with the kids, more down time, and more romance.'

"A divorced dad in his thirties echoes this sentiment, admitting:

"It wasn't until we separated that I truly invested in quality time with my kids. When we were married it was as if we were stuck on this gruesome, endless treadmill of chores, meals and obligations. I was just trying to get through the day. I'd read books to my kids and have no idea of the plot, because I was thinking about what I would say in the emails I needed to send when I finished. Now, my time with the kids is limited and precious and I make the most of it. I listen to them and I'm totally in the moment."

Yes! Yes!! YES!!!

Parenting, as we know it, folks, is not only dysfunctional, it is impossible!

In the soon-to be-extinct nuclear family model (just follow the statistical trends), 2 people (usually young) are expected to undertake the most incredibly taxing job on earth, 24-7, for two decades, with no qualifications!

That's right. Parents, of all available adults, are usually the least qualified to raise children. You need to pass two tests to get a license to drive a car or sell real estate. It's required to have a college degree or some period of focused training for most careers. Yet, to have children, one of the most important and difficult occupations in our society, all you have to do is (excuse me) fuck somebody!

Children need love to thrive, yes, but let me say two radical things here that might upset some parents or prospective parents: 1. Love is not enough; and 2. Love is not a function of biology.

In other words, in addition to love, children need guidance and training and protection, and for that, the guides in question need to be self-actualized to a significant degree, which means they need to have some amount of serious self-work under their emotional belts. And to provide the genuine love necessary for children to thrive, the caretakers in question need to be capable of giving that kind of love, not the co-dependent, over-identified, symbiotic substitute that so often is mistaken for love. And once again, to be able to channel that kind of love to another human being, the person in question has to be fairly self-actualized and... well, we're back to the self-work, aren't we?

So, what about LaMotte's piece? Well, we're obviously not at a place yet in our society where people will commit themselves to the needed self-work before they become parents (The ones that do, more and more often don't become parents.), and we're not yet at a place in our development collectively in which we will allow the wisest of the "village" to raise our children, so...

Divorce is the next best interim step!

Here's LaMotte again:

"If you dig past the pain and disappointment that devastates those who divorce, many will admit that they recharge during their time away from their children and become--albeit in time-limited doses--the parent they always wanted to be."

Hey... You're human. I understand. You may really want to express your generativity by having a child (Please don't even think about having more than one!). Fine. Then consider this: you will need at least two separate households, and preferably two complete sets of parents, as well as a small staff (housecleaner, babysitter, driver, cook) to do it right. And obviously to do that, you need to be fairly well-established financially.

Will adhering to such measures probably decrease the world's population?

Would that be a bad thing?

Happy New Year!