It's Christmas Eve in the Bracken household. I am completely absorbed by the family this morning, forgive me for this, but I imagine that it is Christmas Eve in most homes!
Like many other families up and down this country, and across the world, ours is divided and today the kids go to Dad's.
The eight year old threw something in frustration, which just missed her Mom. The ten year old was silent and sullen and the older one spent most of the morning wither in her room, or flouncing about. She does a good "flounce".
As this Diary is separated by a funny orange squiggle, so are families divided by divorce and re-marriage. Let's go take a look at some of the implications.
Christmas, or whatever you describe this holiday as, is for the children. Sure I learned about Baby Jesus in Sunday School. Even my Atheistic parents thought that Sunday School was a good idea for us, until we were excluded for, oh, I dunno, asking questions. My Mum made sure we were nicely scrubbed and polished, and dispatched us for her two hours of peace, for a while anyway.
Anyway, as adults we can process our own thoughts and feelings about various holidays, but Christmas is for the kids. Children are voracious, predatory beasts. I say this with some conviction having been at least partly responsible for raising five of them. My five are nice children, children you are not ashamed to be seen in public with, children who visit other children and are invited back. So I feel that my kids are at least representative of decently manner and well-adjusted children everywhere.
Yet Christmas is a stressful time, as well as a lucrative one, for all five.
The oldest boy lives in London, at College. He is in Amsterdam this weekend visiting his girlfriend. His complication is that Dad has been absent at Christmas for many years now. Christmas Day is his Birthday, he will be nineteen. The next one down is Joe. He just turned seventeen and has a head full of Guns 'n Roses and Graphic Design. He plays guitar and he got a nice new one recently from his Grandparents and me.
Those two boys are a credit to their Mum, but they also miss their Dad and holidays are the time they miss absent parents the most.
Then there are the three little monsters darlings that I inherited when I moved into their lives nearly seven years ago. The youngest was only two years old. Now she is eighteen, or at least she thinks she is.
The three American kids live here with us. Dad lives just a few miles away and has remained fully involved with his kids. Today they went to Dad's for Christmas, and they will be back tomorrow evening. From the youngest to oldest (13) they have exhibited various symptoms of distress over the last day or so.
The older girl doesn't say much. She just asks questions .... When are we coming back? It's boring at Dad's ... Grandpa is mean (he is, racist old bigot). It cuts me to the core to hear the kids say things like this. I am a Dad and I would simply be distraught were my children to react like that to a potential visit. I feel for their Dad. Our relationship hasn't always been easy, but he does his very best and gets a lot of credit for so doing.
The middle boy is pretty quiet. I worry a bit about him because he seems conflicted about the roles of his Dad and his Stepdad. He loves us both but we are very different people and it confuses him. He will work this out, and I'll be right there to catch him when he falls. Meanwhile, it isn't always easy.
The youngest, the aforementioned "old lady" is eight. She has been very clingy, even to the point of not wanting me to go run my regular Karaoke Show last night. This is unusual, because Friday nights without Steve are a regular feature around here. Mom lets the little ingrates pile into bed with her and they have their time with the TV and the electric blanket on. Last night was different, and it gave me pause for thought.
An added complication is that they will get better "loot" from Dad than they will from us. Things have been tight for us, and while Dad isn't particularly flush right now, he compensates for his absence by being rather more generous than he can really afford. The kids do have nice things waiting here for them. Rather nicer, I think, than they are expecting which is nice because we have always taught them not to expect too much. It's reasonable for children to anticipate their presents, but "too much anticipation" will have me telling them that the stuff would always be gratefully received by Goodwill.
We are not alone in these complicated family dynamics. Indeed there are some places where the classic nuclear family of Mom, Dad and two point two children is the rarity, rather than the norm.
It struck me particularly when Mrs Twigg and her Ex were trying to negotiate the custody arrangements during the separation and divorce. This is not a time when adults are at their best, thinking most clearly, and the various arrangements they come up with demonstrate this.
We went to great lengths to try, as much as possible, to put the needs of the kids before the desires of the adults. This is not an easy thing to do. Both parents want the kids and they especially want them at the highpoints ... Mother's Day, Thanksgiving, Christmas. Ironically, most are pretty happy for the kids to be at the "other" parent on New Year's Eve!
My input was pretty simple. Ask yourself what experience, what memories the children will form and retain if you try to slice and dice their time at holidays. Remember when you were a kid, the things that last, the things you take away. On Christmas morning you wake up and, having dragged your parents out of bed at 5.30am, the whole day is family time. You open presents, you eat, watch TV, play with toys. Dad fails to follow the instructions and your toy plane ends up looking like a bicycle. Mom burns something, but no one minds. "It's a Wonderful Life" is on TV again, and even the six year old can recite the lines before the actors. Then, at the end of the day you go to bed, with your new toys, and bits of their wrapping paper in bed with you.
That is what it should be like. Then Mom and Dad can't agree, and Christmas morning is with Dad, in the afternoon you get in the car and go to Mom. Maybe Dad will let you take some toys with you, and maybe not.
So we made a rule. Wherever the kids wake up on Christmas morning is where they will go to bed that night. This year we are breaking that rule a bit, but that's because of other circumstances pertaining to Dad's job. We think it important that, on all of the highpoint days in a child's life, they get certainty, consistency and breathing space. They do not need to be in the car on Christmas Day traveling between parents. They do not need to open all their presents at Mom's, only to be told to put them away because it is time to go to Dad. That is the adults feeding their own needs, and your kids hate it. It's painful. The adults feel the loss. We feel the loss. Tomorrow Mrs Twigg and I will have a very nice meal (I am cooking), but I would rather be chasing the cats out, admonishing the kids, joking and playing with them. This "time off" is not all it is cracked up to be.
It's the right thing to do, which doesn't make it easy.
I tore me apart yesterday to see my baby girl not wanting me to leave the house. She even asked if she would see me again before Christmas.
It's the right thing to do, and as we continually find, doing the right thing is not always easy.