Reply to Don't stay together "for the kids"

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Reply to "Don't stay together "for the kids""

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]This is one area of life that defies most generalizations.  Shitty parents are shitty parents whether divorced or together.  Kids will be adversely affected by a bad environment whether the parents are married or divorced.

Most people would agree that a healthy two parent household is the best environment for kids.  But that isn't always the case and sometimes divorce has to be considered or is the only option.

Parents that can manage a civil divorce and work together to create a parenting plan that keeps the needs of the kids first and foremost will have a better chance at raising healthy kids.  The adverse effects of a divorce will be minimized for these kids.

The impact of divorce on children is dependent on so many factors, it is impossible to say whether staying married or divorcing is the right answer for everyone.  In reality, we are discussing not just divorce, but the overall impact of bad parenting.  Bad parents can be married and living together, living apart or divorced.[/quote]

I'm OP, and while I completely agree with you that bad parenting is bad parenting, I am very very specifically sending this post out to the people struggling with whether to leave a clearly toxic relationship and who feel obligated to stay because they think it will traumatize their kids to separate more than to go.  A lot of the time, even though this is the reason put out, the real reason is more the fear of the unknown on the parent's part, worry that they won't be able to make it, basically understandable concerns.  But since the conversation is often about "staying together for the kids", and it comes up in some gnarly nasty relationships that it's hard to understand how the person is considering staying, it is important to point out that it's better to figure out what is going to find you the most happiness, stability, and wellbeing.  Modeling sanity and health and leaving toxicity and pursuing stability are also undeniably healthy, whether that leads to staying together or divorce.  It's a complex balance of course, but the main point is that it's a fallacy that staying in a toxic relationship is better for kids.  That is always a fallacy.

How parents handle the separation of course matters too, and that leads more to your point: the parents who would manage it by trying to turn the kids against each other or threats or violence or whatever, are still clearly traumatizing their kids.  But the parents who are acrimonious together and healthier apart... that split is the right thing.[/quote]

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