Ok, look out, rant ahead. At work today, after a meeting with two coworkers (both women, neither has children) I was chit chatting about some of the recent goings-on around the office. TCW had been having her eldest daughter working in our warehouse on an off for the past year since she dropped out of high school. Today TCW is not in; apparently, she’d call the boss and said this same daughter had been throwing up for 3 days and was in the hospital with her. My XH texted me randomly this morning to say he’d spotted TCW and the daughter in his Principles Office (XH is a teacher at the school she dropped out from). Ok, there ya go, TCW was trying to get her daughter back into school because apparently, we fired her from her really lax warehouse job earlier this week. Yes, the three-year long train wreck of a life for TCW (and family) continues.
When I was chatting with my other two coworkers, the subject of my XH and my kids came up. Apparently, TCW likes to point out that I’m “lucky” to have such a good co-parenting relationship with XH and my kids are only good because they’re little, and were so young when we split.
DAFUQ?!?!?!?!??!
First off, luck has NOTHING to do with it. My relationship with my XH could have gone to hell during the divorce, but it took a lot of hard work (on both parts) to constantly put the kids above all else. We didn’t bother with each other’s personal lives, outside of inquiries as to the health of each other’s families. We only really discussed the kids and acted in their best interests. This created a healthy co-parenting relationship. I won’t say we’re friends, we never really were friends, but we both do what we can to help the other out and keep the kids happy, healthy and safe.
Secondly, my kids were traumatized by the divorce too, but that doesn’t give ANYONE carte blanche to rebel and derail HARD. TCW’s oldest dropped out of high school in her last year. She started hanging around with kids who did some serious drugs, even her boyfriend robbed TCW’s house blind. She told TCW that the school pushed her out, but (having an EX at THAT school) I found out she’d withdrawn (dropped out). So she’s been working here for the past year on and off, but was always on her phone, wandering away from her job and basically being paid to sleep in her mother’s office. Whenever she’d go off the rails hard (drugs, theft, etc) I’d ask TCW what were the repercussions of her actions? Take her phone! She said “then I wouldn’t be able to get a hold of her” … so, she just kept yelling at her. Ya, obviously that works … NOT. The daughter has had mom hand her everything, and now that she’s 18 she has absolutely no coping skills or mechanisms other than drugs. Lovely. She swears she doesn’t need counselling, she doesn’t implement any real rules at home, so why would the daughter straighten up?
She’s gotten the other coworkers thinking I’m just born under a lucky star, and they have NO CLUE how hard it is. You make rules, you enforce them, and you provide repercussions for breaking the rules. You stay consistent with that. You have your kids learn from a young age that life isn’t handed to you on a silver platter. You earn your keep. You’re a contributing and important member of the family.
That’s not luck, that’s hard work.
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