Why Can't We Be Friends?

So I was up late the other night when I happened to catch a previously aired episode of The Wendy Williams Show.  During her initial gossip talk, she began talking about Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson.  She said she thought he was the perfect guy until she recently found out that he is still not only friends, but also business partners with his ex wife.  She was also alarmed by the fact that he did not pay her alimony, as he only pays child support.  She felt this was a red flag and asked the audience how many would be comfortable dating their man knowing his ex wife still in the picture in this kind of capacity.  Many in the audience shook their heads no.   In fact, her words were “I knew he couldn’t be as perfect as he seems.”  I think I must be different because I found that very odd.  I found that to be a plus to him.  I'll admit that there are quite a few things that would give me cause to pause with a man, but a great relationship with his ex wife and mother of his child is not one of them.

I have some high school buddies who recently celebrated their 10^th anniversary and they have a great relationship with the wife’s ex husband.  It took some work, but they are finally there.  The ex attends quite a few family functions.  If you didn’t know any better, you’d swear he was family.  Well to be honest, he actually is.  Another friend expressed that he would have a serious problem with this situation.  He stated that he would not want anyone his wife was once intimate with to be that close to either of them—even if children were involved.  He would prefer the honk the car horn to let us know you’re outside when you pick up the kids method.  Now maybe I’m just different, but I find that so odd.  I really don’t get the problem with

Certainly everyone is entitled to his or her own opinion, and I’m not bashing it.  I’m just confused as to why people feel this way.  While it’s not a necessarily accurate view, I tend to look at a person’s relationship with their ex as a good indication of how they’ll probably be with me should things come to an end.  So I feel that if he’s on good terms with her and still has a lot of love and respect for her; he’ll probably have the same for me if things end.  In my opinion, it is the mark of two individuals who are choosing to be mature and respectful of the fact that they weren’t meant to be together.  And that is ok.  I’d much rather prefer to deal with someone who has an excellent relationship and friendship with their ex (I’m really referring to unions involving children), than one who is at war with his ex.  Now of course, this presumption is operating under the premise that there is an either/or circumstance, meaning that either the relationship is great or it’s terrible.  I understand that everything is not black or white and there are actually more than a few shades of shades of gray in life.  I myself have a rather meh relationship with my ex husband.  We’re not at all friends.  We’re also not mortal enemies.  However, in saying that, I can admit that we barely speak and we certainly haven’t mastered this co-parenting thing.  I would actually like things to progress toward a friendship, but I don’t think it will ever be.  And I’ve made my peace with that.  So I do get that not everyone will have the idealized Dwayne Johnson/ex  Dany Garcia relationship.  But I don’t get why the former would be more desirable for my future mate than the latter.   I think people give ex’s way too much power.  Unless the ex is extremely disrespectful and oblivious to proper boundaries or your mate still wants his or her ex, I see no reason to be that concerned with the ex.  I think it would be beneficial for all parties to be friendly.  And again, I’m really speaking more from the point of view of one who shares a child with an ex.  I think when children are involved (and I don’t mean grown children), I think it is much more healthy for everyone to be friendly.  I do get that sometimes that just isn’t possible, but I would still think that would be more ideal for a newcomer than to walk into the middle of the “baby momma/daddy drama”.  But like I said, I might just be different.   So what say you?  What are your thoughts on the sich-e-a-shun?

Sharing in Shared Parenting

So I was wasting time that I should have been using writing enlightening myself with current urban culture and whatnot, when I came across a link to a picture of Erykah Badu’s beautiful little girl Mars.  Her father, rapper/DJ Jay Electronica, took a picture and posted it via Instagram.  Apparently, Ms. E was not too pleased with this, as it is her desire to keep her children out of the public domain because she believes that children need peace--or so I read.  So like any rational human being, she used social media and took to Twitter to tell him how she felt.  This was her exact tweet

 

Now normally, I mind my own business and don’t bother reading the dumb ass rantings of the public, but I dismissed common sense and read on through the comments.  There were people actually applauding Erykah because as the mother she has the right to tell him what to do because 1) she’s the mother 2) she’s kind enough to allow him to see his child and 3) since he’s only the father he apparently has no rights to do what he pleases with his child.  There were even people saying she was in the right because this was an issue of public safety for the child since Erykah is apparently such a huge celebrity that people would want to harm her.  Now I’m not saying that there aren’t some strange folks out there, there are tons of celebrities with way more star power than both of these parents whose children have graced the covers and inside pages of People, US Weekly, and the like and seem to manage to remain in tact and far from danger. And I'm not saying I agree or disagree with Erykah Badu.  But what I am saying is that when it comes to co-parenting, there are just some things that are not worth a battle.

Now while I understand that it is her desire to keep her children out of the public eye, if he does not share that same sentiment, she can’t exactly stop him from doing so unless she took him to court and had the courts order him to stop.  And in my opinion, that would just be a waste of time, dollars, and energy on something that could easily be solved by just putting egos aside.  Some argued that this is what happens when you have children with men who are not your husband and yeah I agree because well, as we all know, marriage is the cure for all disagreements and problems.  If you marry, you’re guaranteed a stress-free and agreeable existence with your chosen spouse.  You'll raise your children happily alongside one another with no disagreements whatsoever.  Sarcasm aside, this is an issue that could happen even if they were married.  People disagree all the time and parents disagree about their children.  However, the issue I took with this is who gets to say which parent has more right when they’re only expressing their opinion or desire as to what they believe is best? 

I get it.  It’s a sticky situation and as a woman who shares joint custody with my ex husband, I can tell you that it gets tricky when disagreements occur.  However, when it comes to something like this, I don’t believe that I have the right to tell my ex husband that he can’t show pictures of our daughter (I personally wasn’t feeling E. Badu's MY daughters reference) to whomever he pleases.  I may not like it, but again, she’s his daughter as well and he has the right to do as he pleases.  It’s similar to when we first went through our divorce.  I had girlfriends telling me I needed to dictate who he could have around Jasmine because “you don’t want him bringing all kinds of women around her”.  While I wholeheartedly agreed with this sentiment, I also knew I couldn’t dictate who he brought around our child.  I did just as Ms. Badu did and asked him not to do that.  But here’s the thing when you make a request; the person can respond with either yes or no.  Or they can do as my ex did and say yes then do the opposite when you’re not around. And again, that is totally their right.  I didn’t like it, and I wished things were different, but I thought it would have been silly to create an uproar and make things difficult simply because he wasn’t behaving as I wanted him to.  I recognized that if he continued to do that, Jasmine would decide for herself what kind of man he was and the consequences would be on him. I think far too often, we try to control things beyond our control, and we use titles like parent, boss, concerned friend, etc. to pacify ourselves and make believe that we’re only acting in the best interest of others. 

The other thing I noticed is that people really don’t have much respect for fathers.  It seems that all respect is given to the woman simply for being a mother.  The comments I read regarding E Badu highlighted this.  There were so many comments about how great of a mother Erykah is because the little girl is so cute and how Jay has no right to go against her wishes and post a picture because she’s the mother and she has custody.  So it’s like this.  We gripe and moan about the lack of fathers, yet we don’t want to give a man his due respect and allow him the absolute right he has as a father?  But let us find out he doesn’t pay child support and watch how he gets blasted.  A river doesn’t flow in two directions at the same time.  We either want men to be fathers or we don’t.  It’s really unfair.  And we women have to step back and trust the men we procreated with to be the fathers they are stepping up to be.  We have to remember that we are only parents to the child, not the father of our child.   Now it's an entirely different issue if you really believe he is endangering the child.  However, when it’s a simple matter of the two of you disagreeing on a topic, we women have to get over ourselves and stop giving the man a hard time about a child who is here in part due to him. 

And again, I get it.  Look I have a lot of strong opinions about my ex—some of which are not positive.  However, the one thing I am very aware of is that he is my daughter’s father.  That means, regardless of how I feel about him, what I think about him, what I wish, he is an important person to my daughter.  I have no right to interfere with his relationship with her.  I have no right to make him parent the way I want him to.  As long as he is not harming our daughter, I don't have a legitimate reason to create issues with him.  Again, I can have discussions with him regarding my desires for our child.  I can make requests, but he can also respond with no.  In which case, I have to get over myself and let it go.  And as I said, we don’t always agree.  As a matter of fact, we had a huge disagreement over what school she would attend this year.  I heard him out, gave him the opportunity to visit the schools I picked, yet we still disagreed.  In the end, it was my decision that he had to respect.  I chose to do what I felt was best for our daughter, but I did not go against him to spite him.  I did not tell him his opinion doesn't count because I am the mother and primary caregiver.  I think often times; parents forget that you both love the child and you’re both doing what you think is best. And when it comes to disagreeing, no one is "right" or "wrong".  There are only two differing views.  Compromise is a very crucial element when it comes to parenting and in the event that there can be no compromise, someone is going to have to be the bigger person and let it go.  I know that it’s hard and you may not like it, but really, in the end, is all the silliness worth it?  Of all the things they could bicker over, is one picture on Instagram really worth the amount of drama that could possibly ensue?  I don’t think so, but hey who the hell am I?

So what say you?  Are you in the middle of some crazy drama when it comes to co-parenting?  Do you think mothers sometimes go too far and try to parent both the kids and the father?  I’d love to hear your thoughts.