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| Two teens walk on a city sidewalk. One is carrying a guitar and both are carrying backpacks. |
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Right before COVID hit and we all locked down, I attended a birthday party for a dog. Yep, complete with birthday hats and doggy ice cream. In addition to me, four other women were at the party, and as we tried to coax our dogs into sitting at the birthday table to eat their pet-friendly cupcakes, the conversation turned to our kids who ranged in ages from elementary school to high school. And I realized I had forgotten about what is probably the largest population of people who split their living situations: kids of divorced parents.
We were trying to organize a kids' swim afternoon at the community pool and the kids were all on conflicting schedules for coming and going. I cannot stop thinking about these kids. For them, living in two places is absolutely normal.
I try to imagine packing up homework, athletic gear, musical instrument, retainer, science project that is one jostle from implosion, phone/laptop/smart watch, their charging cables, and the shoe you have been missing for a month. I try to imagine doing this every single Tuesday or Thursday or Saturday so that I can leave home to go home. It feels exhausing.
You have to remember your school ID, your wallet, your extremely expensive prescription acne cream or Epi-pen or cologne and other items that are too expensive to have versions for each house. You have to remember which outfits you might need for upcoming events. I know the goal would be to pack light, but I couldn't do it. I would need a steamer trunk to get from here to there.
While I found a lot of information online about co-parenting, I couldn't find anything online about this type of split living. I couldn't find any advice for the kids who have two homes, two rooms, two sets of expectations, and anywhere from two to four parental types to negotiate with.
I finally asked a close friend who is a step-parent how all this back-and-fourth works. She was quite honest with me because, it turns out, her step-daughter is fairly open with her. Let's call her step-daughter Hazel.
Hazel is a senior in high school, drives herself to each parent's house, and her parents co-parent well enough that Hazel sometimes stays at one house or the other, even if the custody agreement says it's the other parent's day.
Hazel's parents have remarried, so she has four parental types she must get along with. Each of these marriages also produced two babies. The oldest half-sibling is five years old, so she now has four siblings who are 10 or more years younger than she is.
Hazel likes having two houses because if one parent seems annoyed with her, she just goes to the other house. My friend worries that this means she's not learning to work out her problems; she just escapes them.
Hazel says she sometimes gets conflicting advice from parents. For instance, her mother purchased a dress for her to wear to a school dance that hugged her curves tightly. The night of the dance, she was at her father's house and there, her step-mother (my friend) just about lost her mind when she saw just how revealing the dress was. She said the neckline plunged much too deeply for her taste.
When I asked what my friend said to Hazel, she said, "Nothing. I'm the step-mom. I told her she looked beautiful because she did. I just trusted that she would remember her values and all the talks we've had over the years."
When Hazel turned 15, she was offered a part-time summer job, and my friend thought it would be a great opportunity for Hazel, but Hazel's mom preferred that she be allowed to "spend the summer with friends and things." It turned out that "and things" meant that Hazel could babysit her younger siblings for free.
I don't know how Hazel and all the kids who have two houses are affected as they finish growing and start their own families. I don't know if these kids will be master negotiators and communicators after keeping all the parents in the loop or whether they'll be tired of negotiating and just want to simplify their own life down to one apartment, one toothbrush, one bed.
But kids of divorced parents may be the ultimate road warriors, and I have a lot of respect for the lives they manage while growing up. I would love to hear about your experience as a parent or as the child or teen who lived in two homes while growing up.
