“I take a practical view of raising children. I put a sign in their rooms—checkout time is eighteen years.”
—Erma Bombeck
When Ryan and Lisa married, love had nothing to do with it. It’s not that the two San Francisco Bay Area residents in their early thirties weren’t in love—they were. But the reason they stood before friends and family and said, “I do,” was because, after living together for seven years, they decided they wanted to have children.
No one at the wedding reception knew that, nor did anyone know why the couple hadn’t vowed to be together “until death do us part.” That’s because they’d privately agreed to stay together until their last child was off to college, some eighteen to twenty years from now. They may still be together after that, Ryan says, but neither he nor his new bride is promising that to the other.
On the surface, Ryan and Lisa’s marriage looks like any other young couple’s, a traditional marriage. Except it is not; they are bending the institution to fit what they want from marriage—which is to co-parent. Sadly, they are unable to express that openly for fear of judgment.
Ryan and Lisa have taken a different approach than many couples. Instead of marrying with the expectation that they will put each other first, they tied the knot knowing that they are putting their future children first. This runs counter to what some marital experts advise, which is that you need to romance and date your spouse because, once the kids go off to college, it will be just the two of you again. If you haven’t been keeping the marital flames alive, you may be disconnected and likely headed for divorce. But here’s a secret few people know unless they’ve been in a long-term marriage with children—very few couples actually continually romance and date each other. Most parents put their kids first, not their spouse. Or, a spouse gets displaced in favor of the kids. Either way, it becomes a huge source of bad feelings between spouses. If this is what the majority of parents are doing anyway, shouldn’t you marry someone who will be the best possible parent, not necessarily the best romantic or lifelong partner?
That’s where the Parenting Marriage comes in. A Parenting Marriage unites two people who want to have children and who commit to stay together until they launch the last child to adulthood. The goal is to provide a stable and loving home for children to thrive. As most couples will readily admit, once you throw kids into the mix, everything changes. Because this marital model is less about love for your mate and more about commitment to raising a child or children, it has the most requirements and prerequisites, giving new meaning to the phrase “planned parenthood.”
WHAT’S LOVE GOT TO DO WITH PARENTING?
Before we explain to you the intricacies of such a marriage, you may be wondering, what about love? Don’t kids need their parents to love each other? How else will they learn about what makes for a successful marriage? Those are good and important questions.
Parents do not need to be married to successfully co-parent and raise healthy, happy kids. Prior to states legalizing same-sex marriage, gay and lesbian parents had long been raising children together successfully. And parents don’t necessarily need to love each other either—just look at the many divorced couples that have managed to be better co-parents to their children than husbands or wives to each other.
And there are studies that back this up. Penn State sociologist Paul Amato researched whether married parents provided more to their children than unmarried parents. What he found was hardly surprising; children do best cognitively, emotionally, and socially in childhood through adulthood when they have two parents who get along, are involved in their kids’ lives, and live under the same roof. Children also do well when their parents have an amicable relationship but live apart, either because they are separated, divorced, or never married, as long as they can maintain regular contact with both parents.
Kids do the worst when their parents live apart, have a contentious relationship, and when one parent—often the father—doesn’t participate in their lives. But here’s where the case for marriage falls apart: If children live with married parents who have a high-conflict relationship, they have almost as many problems as kids whose parents are divorced and fighting. What kids need, Amato says, is a “good enough marriage”—a relationship in which the parents get along for the most part and work as a team to provide enough of the things kids need in order to function well.
Sociologist Kathleen Gerson found similar results while researching her 2010 book, The Unfinished Revolution: How a Generation Is Reshaping Family, Work, and Gender in America. While some kids who grew up in a single-parent home told her they wished their divorced parents had stayed together, four out of ten thought their life might have been better if their parents had split. That’s a lot of kids who were aware of their parents’ unhappiness.
Here’s the humbling truth: Children don’t care all that much if their parents are fulfilled in their marriage. They don’t care if their parents are married, and, for the most part, they don’t care who stays home with them, Dad or Mom. What kids want and need more than anything is stability, consistency, and a close relationship with their parents. When they have that, they do well regardless of whether they have one, two, or four parents, and whether those parents are straight or gay, married or unmarried, biological, adoptive, or stepparents. Many years of research have proved that the way a child adjusts to life’s many challenges can be helped or impeded by the quality of a marriage and co-parenting relationships.
Given how fundamental kids’ needs for stability and closeness are, it should be easy to accommodate them, right? Healthy relationships do that easily. But, when a relationship goes south—or when it isn’t good from the get-go—a child might feel like he or she is living in a combat zone in a war that never ends. Emotional chaos and relational destruction are just some of the fallout of these unhealthy dynamics.
Anthropologist Sarah Blaffer Hrdy goes a step further in busting the two-parent model when she points out that there may even be other family configurations that are just as beneficial to a child’s welfare, such as alloparenting, which is when adults help care for someone else’s child. “To say that a married mother with children is actually better off than a single mother with just one person taking care of the kids, well, duh, that’s obvious. But we don’t know, for example, that those children are better off than they would be if they were in a family with a mother and a father and a grandmother and nieces and nephews in the family, or if they were better off with a grandmother, an aunt, and a mother,” she notes. “We really don’t know because those aren’t the kinds of studies we’ve done. The studies have all looked at married versus unmarried or nuclear family versus single mother.”
In some ways, parents who place their children in the hands of daycare centers, baby-sitting co-ops, grandparents, preschools, and nannies are creating mini-alloparenting arrangements. So, too, are the many same-sex couples that create complex extended families in their desire to become parents, as Judith Stacey details in her book Unhitched: Love, Marriage, and Family Values from West Hollywood to Western China.
According to Stacey, gay men who have children together are the most stable families of all she’s encountered in her many years of studying alternative families. “For men to become parents without women is very difficult,” she observes. “Only a small percentage are willing and able to make the commitment.” That commitment and determination to become a parent may be essential to raise children with the stability they need. If, as she says, some gay men can “willingly unhitch their sexual and romantic desires from their domestic ones in order to become parents,” perhaps it’s time that hetero couples follow their lead.
NOT NEW, BUT GROWING
In some ways, heteros already have started to choose parenting over romantic love. Along with the gazillion dating sites based on mutual interests, there now are a number of co-parenting sites where singles can “shop” for a co-parent—not necessarily The One, not even one who is “good enough,” but one that will just be an equal parenting partner, no wedding vows required. And despite the fact that this new trend doesn’t require marriage (although some co-parents choose to marry), it’s a great example of how people are unapologetically creating families outside the traditional norms.
Modamily.com was the first such site in the United States when it launched in 2012. Other sites such as Coparenting.com, Coparentingmatch.com, and Pollentree.com have also popped up around the globe. Rather than go to an adoption agency or sperm bank, unmarried people, gay or straight, who want a child can find a co-parenting partner based on such things as shared values and interests. Often the co-parents live in the same home and run the household together as if they were married, but not always. The arrangements, according to Modamily founder and chief executive officer Ivan Fatovic, require legal assistance for a co-parenting agreement, which includes who pays for what; custody arrangements, etc.; and background checks.
While it may be hard to wrap your head around such an odd arrangement, just consider how people meet potential mates nowadays. Many turn to online dating sites and some fall in love, marry, and have a baby or two with someone they met online. How many singles run a background check on a potential mate? We don’t know of any. In this respect, Modamily has it right.
The poster mom for parenting partnerships is undoubtedly Rachel Hope. A real estate developer and freelance writer in Los Angeles, forty-one-year-old Hope is the mother of two children, ages twenty-three and five. In 1990, when Hope was just eighteen, she made a mature decision (although others may say she was too young): “I didn’t want to waste time searching for the ‘elusive soul mate.’ So when my best friend Glenn and I started talking one day about our respective desire for a child, we looked at each other and said, ‘Why don’t we make a baby together and not marry?’”
Their son Jesse was born a year later, and they have been involved parents ever since, sharing living space most of that time. Hope eagerly described for us how, before she got pregnant, they came to a mutual agreement on everything—from who would pay for what, what kind of education their child should get, and how to handle it if one of them became romantically involved and wanted to bring someone else into the mix.
You can imagine the criticism friends and family had for them. “There’s something wrong with you,” and, “You just can’t commit,” were two common themes. Their situation was so far out of the box that it really made people squirm. It’s hard to argue with success, however. The two were well matched as co-parents, and Hope says Jesse turned out to be a well-adjusted young man who has never doubted that both of his parents cherish him. And as one TV talk show host joked as she described her odd-but-conflict-free partnership, “Wow, an added benefit. Because you’re not married, you don’t hate each other.”
And that was true. The first birth was so successful that Hope decided to do it again, this time with another platonic friend—Jesse’s godfather, Paul. Together, they had Grace. Hope believes that this type of childrearing is about as close to tribal living as you can get in the modern world, and she strongly believes that it is the ideal model for childrearing. She hopes her story and her book, Family By Choice: Platonic Partnered Parenting, will give others who have the same desire to be a parent but who don’t have a partner, permission to make their dream a reality as well.
She is now on her third quest for a baby-daddy, with no need to have a romantic connection with him, just like with the previous two fathers. She says that she’s seeking a man who lives near her, is healthy and fit, and “has his financial stuff together.”
Is it a positive or negative trend? It’s probably too soon to know, but there are many other cultures around the world that have made raising children their number one purpose in life, and they do just fine. And while many in Western cultures say they value raising children, marriages based on love and romance often don’t fare as well, as you’re about to see. In any event, the thought and planning that goes into these kinds of co-parenting arrangements should be an inspiration and a model that all couples that want to have kids should follow.
THE PROBLEM WITH LOVE-BASED PARENTING
See if this sounds familiar: Two people date, fall madly in love, maybe move in together, agree to wed, and then vow before family and friends to be together “until death do us part.” Often, the couple has talked about having children—how many, when to start a family, what religion the child will be raised in, who will stay home, etc., all essential discussions.
Then baby arrives. More often than not, one of the parents has a closer connection to the baby, usually the mom in hetero marriages, and the less-involved parent begins to feel marginalized, unappreciated, and neglected. All the attention is now being diverted somewhere else; the special moments the couple used to share now revolve around the baby—the latest cute thing she did or he said—and a once-active sex life fades into the background (except, perhaps, for the purposes of creating more little beings who will also interfere with the marriage). It’s not everyone’s experience, but, according to relationship expert John Gottman, marital satisfaction plummets in the first year or so after the birth of a baby for about 67 percent of new parents.
Now, the couple takes on a new level of relating—or unrelating, as the case may be. Raising children can be challenging; living 24/7 with a spouse can be challenging; doing both is most definitely challenging. Dashed expectations, exhaustion, infrequent sex, and a general “What about me?” feeling more often than not become the foundation of the marriage—at least until the kids are older and on their own.
The product of a couple’s mutual love becomes the cause of their mutual discord. Many couples find it impossible to reconnect as husband and wife after kids come on the scene. For some, the sense of disconnect can even happen before the kids arrive if they’re struggling with fertility issues. While some eventually end up divorced, a certain percentage stays—and often suffers—“for the kids.” Despite their best efforts to lead happy fulfilled lives while providing a sturdy foundation for children, they seem to have gotten the opposite result.
The problem isn’t whether or not couples have the best intentions when they tie the knot—don’t most of us have the best intentions when we’re committing to be with someone? But if people really want to provide the stability that children need to thrive, a vow—which is really a vague promise—to make it forever just isn’t enough. You need to pick a partner who will be the best person to co-parent with you—not the “love of your life” or your soul mate—and thoroughly detail and agree to how your child will be raised. We go into more depth in our prenup section, but among the details we urge would-be co-parents to consider are the following:
• Infertility issues (Are you prepared, emotionally and financially, for IVF? How many treatments? Would you adopt?)
• How and where do you plan to raise your child?
• How many children would you like to have, and how far apart in age?
• Do you want your kids to be circumcised (if appropriate)?
• Will you vaccinate your kids?
• What if you have a special-needs child?
• Do you want your kids to go to public schools or private schools?
• Who will stay home with the kids, if anyone?
• How will you handle differences in parenting styles? (i.e., How will you discipline? Will you raise your kids with a certain religion?)
• Who else will be involved in childcare?
• How will childcare duties be split?
• How much do you plan to save for college?
It’s exhausting just to think about that, and we haven’t even covered all the nuances of parenting and co-parenting. So why not just agree to have kids and make up the rules as you go along, the way your parents did and their parents did? As tempting—and seemingly easier—as that may be, please know that if you end up divorcing, you will be forced to figure this out anyway, plus you’ll most likely be paying attorneys and mediators a lot of money if you can’t agree to a co-parenting plan yourselves. And even if you don’t divorce, these are the issues that many couples consistently argue about, leading to all sorts of stress, frustrations, resentments, and disappointments. In other words, there’s no way to get around facing the realities of parenting; doesn’t it make more sense to talk about it—and prepare as best you can—before you become pregnant or adopt?
We think so.
Of course, you are not going to be able to anticipate each and every possible situation because people lose or change jobs, relocate, decide to go back to school for advanced degrees, become sick or disabled, or even die. Life is not a straight and narrow path. But it’s so much easier to make those changes when you have a strong foundation in place for creating a family as you’ve envisioned it.
THERE’S A BENEFIT TO BEING KID-CENTRIC
Just as marriage has changed throughout history, so, too, has the treatment of children within marriage. In early Rome, babies could be left for dead by parents—without penalty or social stigma—for many reasons, including the presence of physical deformities, family poverty, parental conflict, or just for being one of too many children. A lucky son or daughter might be passed along to friends, but, more often than not, he or she was abandoned.
Sometimes, children became young slaves, meaning that others treated them as pets and “kept [them] around the house for play purposes. Some of these children were genuinely loved and educated . . . but more often than not, they were simply for jester-like entertainment or pedophilic gratification.” In the Middle Ages, some parents indentured their children to domestic service, exchanging them “for four to six sheep, and twelve livres in cash.” One year in 1900s New York, the local chapter of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children took in about 15,000 children, “in many cases cruelty on the part of their own parents, in others on the part of those in whose custody the children have been left by parents unwilling or incompetent to take care of them.”
Obviously, most countries have come a long way since then, and children now have many more rights and protections. Still, millions of children are abused and neglected yearly—overwhelmingly at the hands of their biological parents. However, fewer children experience either if they live with their married biological parents.
In fact, children who grow up in families with both their biological parents in a low-conflict marriage are better off in a number of ways than children who grow up in single-, step-, or cohabiting-parent households, according to research by the Center for Law and Social Policy. As Sara McLanahan of Princeton University, one of the world’s leading scholars on how family form impacts child well-being, says, if society were to design a system from scratch to ensure that a child’s basic needs would be met, it would look remarkably similar to the two-parent family. In theory, it would offer children access to the time and financial resources of two adults and provide “a system of checks and balances that promote quality parenting.”
That is indeed the theory behind the mom-dad-kids model. In reality, however, raising children in an environment of disappointments, resentments, conflict, power struggles, dashed dreams, unmet needs, boredom, and unrealistic expectations—and who hasn’t seen at least some of those behaviors in a marriage?—may not be the healthiest model.
What if you take away the romantic aspect of the parent’s relationship—or at least make it less important? What if instead of romance, you have a good working relationship with your mate but make raising happy, healthy kids your main focus? We have not read or heard of one study that indicated that parents must be in love with each other to parent successfully, and we’ve seen plenty of evidence that couples either divorce or stay miserably in a marriage “for the kids’ sake” when they are no longer in love with each other. That is why we are proposing the Parenting Marriage. There is too much at stake to let love alone guide quality parenting.
TAKING MARRIAGE DOWN FROM THE PEDESTAL
A Parenting Marriage sounds good on paper, but what can you really expect from this kind of nuptial arrangement? As a relatively new concept, there are some unanswered questions, yet it’s clear that a Parenting Marriage addresses some of the major flaws of other family lifestyle options. Ryan and Lisa, the Bay Area couple that recently embarked on a Parenting Marriage, are, like any other couple, finding their way as they go along.
One thing they share with others in a Parenting Marriage or partnership is the feeling that they are doing something taboo; they are wary to talk about their choices openly for fear of being looked down on or judged. That wasn’t a problem for fifty-one-year-old Los Angeles therapist Rami Aizic, although his parents couldn’t understand why he was planning to have a baby with a woman he’d met through a mutual friend. They weren’t married, they were never going to get married, they weren’t living together nor would they, and they weren’t even in love. Aizic is gay, and he always wanted a child. He was going to adopt until he took an adoption counselor’s words to heart—rather than convince himself that he wanted a child so much that he’d take any child, such as one with disabilities or a different ethnicity, he should be honest about what he truly wanted. That sealed his decision. “I wanted something that really came from me.”
He and his co-parenting partner, who is straight, spent months getting to know each other and their parenting philosophies. They also went to a couples therapist and a family therapist. Aizic believed he’d met the perfect woman to be the mother of his child. “She was definitely someone that I trusted and I liked. I liked her sensibility, I liked her sensitivity, I liked her style, I liked her demeanor. In terms of parenting, I knew from early on that she would be a very good mother,” he says.
They didn’t write down a formal agreement defining who would be responsible for what, but they agreed to share expenses and time fifty-fifty with their daughter, Bailey, until she was old enough to have her own ideas. Bailey, now fifteen, was tired of bouncing back and forth between houses and lives full time with her mom. But Aizic is as hands-on as ever. Because their daughter never knew any other arrangement, her parents’ unusual arrangement feels natural. They used age-appropriate language to explain why they didn’t live together.
Now, Bailey embraces it. “Her personality is very much an activist, as she likes to call herself. She loves that she’s got this non-mainstream configuration of a family,” Aizic says with a laugh. They are open about their situation—living in a progressive and diverse area helps—and have generally found a welcoming community, although Aizic doesn’t doubt that Bailey has experienced some reactions that may have been difficult for her.
And as much as they are good co-parents, there are some negatives to their arrangement. Like most couples, when there are disagreements in a parenting style, someone usually gives in. Aizic admits he has often been the one to do that in recognition of the mother-daughter relationship. Beyond that, because they live separately, “there isn’t the ability necessarily to show Bailey how two people work through conflict.”
Plus, Aizic has some sadness around not being the parent who’s around 24/7. “I think if I had a full-time child, I would feel like she has a much stronger connection to me.” Despite that, he has no regrets. They are a family.
Jeannie’s entry into co-parenting was radically different than Aizic’s. “I married my first husband for love, and it was a nightmare,” the middle-aged woman from Canada told us. Her husband was depressed and increasingly became physically and emotionally abusive toward their two girls. Although she didn’t want to divorce and didn’t believe in it, she felt she had no choice after her husband sent their older daughter to the hospital. She left when they were six months old and two years old, swearing she’d never marry again.
But life was much harder in some ways after the split. The pressure of having to support two young kids and provide them with the care and supervision they needed was next to impossible. She began dating a coworker. “I didn’t love him, or even have very strong feelings for him, but I knew we shared similar goals and values, and he also loved my girls.” They married and, despite having some rough times between them, they were good co-parents, and the girls were happy. “I was determined to stay because I was looking out for my children’s best interest, not my own.”
Twenty-five years later, Jeannie says she’s “madly in love” with her husband and thinks he is one of the most amazing men on the planet. They have five grandchildren, and Jeannie is happy she gave her girls the gift of a loving stepdad.
Although Jeannie’s husband didn’t have children of his own when they tied the knot, blended families are increasingly common nowadays. Despite that, many still buy into the stereotypes of the evil stepparent. Sadly, some stepparents are indeed evil, giving rise to the concept of the Cinderella Effect—that people who are biologically unrelated to the children in their care will be less loving to them. Studies appear to confirm that theory; children suffer more abuse from stepparents, typically stepdads, than anyone else.
What Jeannie was able to do for her daughters was to focus on her potential mate’s parenting values—not whether he was going to fulfill her sexual and emotional needs. Of course, the majority of stepparents aren’t evil; most mean well and try hard. Still, melding a new person into a family, perhaps with kids of his or her own, is often fraught with complications and drama. That is why a Parenting Marriage is an ideal marital model for single parents looking to marry again. You will know that the person you are asking to love your children, care for your children, pay attention to your children, and embrace your children as their own really wants to do that—and, more important, knows how to do it.
CHANGING YOUR JOB DESCRIPTION
What if you are already married? In her work, Susan has helped dozens of close-to-divorcing couples transform their relationship from one faltering from arguments, resentments, and a sense of hopelessness to something much more workable for both spouses—a Parenting Marriage.
Take Lanie and Monica, two lesbians in their forties who fell in love and got married in 2005. After they adopted their daughter Mia in 2007, their relationship subsequently went downhill to the point where they could barely tolerate each other’s presence. Tensions were high, but neither woman wanted to be the one to leave. They were concerned that Mia, then seven years old, would feel abandoned, and neither wanted that to happen. So they stayed together and suffered.
Then Lanie met Kelly, and it seemed like a natural time to step out of the marriage. But she couldn’t go. “There are two reasons I couldn’t leave: The first was that I was afraid I’d scar my daughter for life and she’d never forgive me, and the second was, I didn’t want to miss out on tucking Mia in each night.” Not only that, but the financial reality was something they couldn’t escape, after losing their home in the Great Recession.
Monica knew that Lanie had started dating Kelly, but she didn’t care. As far as she was concerned, their marriage was dead and had been for a long time—long enough for her to grieve its loss. She was relieved to have Lanie out of the house more and was in a better mood when she was home. Kelly knew about Monica and was fine with the setup, too. Lanie and Monica were able to give their marriage a new purpose instead of breaking up the family unit. They changed their focus from a love relationship to one where they focused on co-mothering Mia.
In the beginning, Lanie felt self-conscious and she didn’t want anyone to know—especially Mia. Part of her reluctance to be more open about it was she wasn’t sure her new relationship would last, and she was terrified to share the truth. But this made her feel like she was being hypocritical and living a lie. Eventually, she realized that her seven-year-old daughter would view it as acceptable if she did, too. She also began embracing the idea that she didn’t need to apologize or justify her choices to anyone outside the family.
When the two moms eventually shared with Mia that they were not an in-love-couple anymore and that Lanie had a new special person who might come over sometimes, Mia’s biggest concern was that they wouldn’t all stay together. They assured her that she wouldn’t have to move and that they’d all still be a family, just with a new member. As they hoped for, Mia was fine with that.
Another middle-aged couple from Northern California that came to the brink of divorce was Greg and Kathy. Both had been married before, but they believed being older and presumably wiser they’d have the marriage thing figured out this time.
Kathy had two kids from her previous marriage; Greg had none, which immediately made him feel like a bit of an outsider. They had a son together fairly soon after their wedding, and Kathy hoped that would help Greg feel more included. It helped, but it wasn’t enough: the complications brought on by the two older children having a different dad and having a closer relationship with Kathy than with him continually made him feel pushed out of the inner circle. Life was tolerable until their son turned seven and the resentments that had been building couldn’t be contained anymore. One day, they had a huge blowup, and Greg moved out. Divorce seemed inevitable.
After eighteen months of living apart, Greg realized that, although he had felt like an outsider before the split, living apart made him feel much more isolated. His loneliness was far worse after he left, even though he got to see the kids fairly often. Greg realized that Kathy had been the social connection for him when they were married, and, without that, he had virtually no contact with friends. He swallowed his pride and called his estranged wife one day, asking if he could move back in—not as her husband, but more as a roommate and co-parent. Given how hard Kathy found it to make ends meet financially, she welcomed him back.
Both knew it was important to have written agreements in place to delineate things like how to handle parenting responsibilities, finances, and caring for the household. They also talked about how to handle this change with their kids and with friends and extended family. They decided that the inner workings of their relationship wasn’t anyone’s business, so they agreed that they would keep their unusual arrangement under wraps except with their closest friends. That was five years ago.
Kathy believes it works well. “We stay out of each other’s way, we respect one another and don’t have heaps of unresolved anger toward each other. We’ve learned to deal with conflicts as they arise and not let things fester. That helps immensely.”
While neither dates, they are free to do so with certain parameters, including not bringing a paramour into their house. Both believe life is so much easier now than when they lived on their own, but, as Kathy says, “I’m sure this arrangement would not have worked if we had not had the year and a half apart.” The time gave them the perspective they needed to move back in together in a different way. They don’t know what the future holds, especially when their son goes off to college in eight years, but they aren’t worried. They know they will figure out the next move as the time gets closer, just as they figured out the other challenges they faced along the way.
YOU CAN MARRY, DIVORCE, AND REMARRY—FOR THE KIDS
Claire and Jorge, a Connecticut couple, divorced not long after their son was diagnosed with autism. Both were in their thirties at the time, and their children were young.
Both worked full time, Claire as a sales rep for an insurance company and Jorge as a law professor at a local college, but guess who had the bulk of the childcare responsibilities? Claire, as is often the case in dual-income couples. “This was challenging enough to our marriage, but having a special-needs child made everything exponentially harder,” Claire says. “Not only wasn’t [Jorge] helping, he was one more person who needed me to take care of them, and I just couldn’t do it.” No matter how many times she asked Jorge to help, he always had the same excuse: “I have to work late.” Her anger began to fester and grow until she told Jorge he needed to leave. Then she filed for divorce.
Not realizing what he had until Claire threatened him with the “D” word—and not wanting to lose the life he had built with Claire—Jorge begged her to go to counseling with him, promising that he would turn his behavior around. Claire pursued the divorce and reluctantly agreed to go talk to someone, although now she harbored additional resentment over the fact that he had ignored her for so long and it took getting to this point before he was willing to change.
Because of their son’s disability, as well as his increased involvement in caring for the kids, Jorge never actually moved out of the family house, even after their dissolution was finalized. Rather than getting worse, things between them actually improved. Jorge stepped up his paternal responsibilities, and Claire saw that they made a really good co-parenting team. Two years passed, and their coordinated efforts of raising their five-year-old daughter and three-year-old autistic son together continued to work well. On what would have been their ninth wedding anniversary, they decided to get remarried.
That was fifteen years ago. Their marriage is actually stronger today than ever before, and both kids are happy, healthy, and well adjusted. Their children have genuinely benefited from their parents coming back together in this new way.
An important lesson that all these couples learned is that how they feel about their partner is much less important than how they act toward the other.
Whether you believe divorce is the worst thing in the world for kids or that divorce can help kids become resilient, one thing is for certain—divorce (and living separately) changes kids’ lives in significant ways. Children may lose or have inconsistent or unwanted contact with a parent, they may have to move, they may experience a decrease in financial security, and they may become part of new families with stepparents and half siblings.
Some kids do much better after divorce, while others develop problems that continue throughout their lives.
Divorce isn’t bad or good per se; how kids manage post-divorce depends on a lot of variables, not the least of which is whether the parents are fighting. It’s the screaming and tension between the parents that does the most harm to children.
Generally speaking, the children who fare better after divorce are the ones who are relieved to be away from the animosity; children who fare worse, in most cases, didn’t see their parents fighting, so they didn’t know there was anything wrong. These are the children who resist their new reality most and who have the hardest time with their parents’ split. Still, divorce seems to have long-lasting effects if it occurs when children are five years old and younger, which speaks even more to our reasoning to have parents commit to staying together until their kids are older.
No matter where you stand on divorce, we believe it’s best to create a healthy, stable, child-focused marriage so kids won’t have to go through a divorce. That’s one of the goals of a Parenting Marriage, as traditional marriage doesn’t quite seem up to the task.
MAKING A PARENTING MARRIAGE WORK
You’ve already seen how couples in existing marriages were able to rethink their roles—or “job descriptions”—for the sake of their children, but without being miserable about it. If you’re thinking about getting married because you are unequivocal in your desire to have kids, you will have to readjust your expectations of marriage and your mate. For one, you would need to think more like the gay men mentioned earlier—you’d want to unhitch your sexual and romantic desires from your domestic ones. Rather than find a forever soul mate who fulfilled your every need (and those are tough to find, anyway), you’d look for a mate who would be a good co-parent. Rather than fiery love being the foundation of your union, you’d place a higher priority on finding a good mother or a good father—someone you could trust, respect, and cooperate and collaborate with, who shared goals and interests as it pertained to children and parenting. Fewer demands would be put on each other for affection and attention, but caring for one another and a sense of having each other’s back would be no less a priority.
All this may sound boring and highly unromantic when compared with the hype and focus given to marriage nowadays, although entering into a Parenting Marriage doesn’t mean you couldn’t have the wedding you’ve always dreamed of. Rather than fret about whether you’ll find The One while your or your partner’s biological clock ticks away, or settling for someone because you’re afraid you won’t find someone in time, you might want to ask yourself if it would be satisfying and fulfilling to marry for the main purpose of raising well-adjusted children in a stable and consistent environment.
Millennials (those born between 1980 and 2000, give or take a few years) already believe that being a good parent matters more than having a successful marriage. We think they—and you—can have both, as long as you change your definition of what a successful marriage is. We believe a successful marriage for couples that want to be parents is a Parenting Marriage. Once you have done that, you are free to go separate ways feeling good about how you’ve just spent the last twenty or so years. Of course, you could also renegotiate your contract into any of the other models in the book and stay together. But if you didn’t, you still will have had a successful marriage by your definition of success, ending in a natural dissolution without any of the drama or expense of a divorce. More important, you will have modeled for your children a kind, caring, respectful, and present relationship that gave them what they needed.
We are aware that this model may be upsetting to some people, especially those who cannot or do not want to remove love from the marital equation. They forget that many divorced couples—couples that no longer are in love with each other—are wonderful co-parents when they put their children’s needs first. They forget that gays and lesbians, who for so many years were unable to marry and who often had complex family arrangements with surrogate moms and sperm-donor dads, have been wonderful co-parents regardless. In case you haven’t noticed, over-the-top weddings, gold wedding bands, and marriage certificates do not bind a couple; having children together does.
WHAT DO YOU TELL THE KIDS?
Some of you may be wondering how to explain what you’re doing to the kids. This question assumes that your kids will think something is wrong with what you’re doing because you’re different than other families. Actually, what usually happens is this: kids take their cues on how to view something from you. If you are embarrassed or feel guilt or shame about your parenting arrangement, your children will learn that it is something to keep hidden or be ashamed of (even if you never say anything about it). If, however, you treat your lifestyle in a very matter-of-fact way, your children will hold it as no big deal.
Rachel Hope was actually pleasantly surprised when her son went to a public school and fit in seamlessly with his peers. She had homeschooled him for years, fearing that Jesse might be teased and ostracized. Ironically, the exact opposite happened. Because Rachel and Glenn were comfortable with their choice to be co-parents, Jesse was, too. When he talked about his family to his new high school pals, they were actually jealous!
Adults, however, may not be jealous, or even generous in their assessment of a Parenting Marriage. But divorced people who are successfully co-parenting don’t feel any shame; they actually feel pretty good about giving their kids what they need—two parents who love them even if they no longer love each other. You should feel that way, too. Remember, you are agreeing (in exhausting and exacting detail) to give your children a stable, respectful, close, and intact family. If you’re as serious as we are about removing any stigma around what are basically private decisions—how and why you choose to marry—then you need to embrace your decision. And guess what—your children will thank you for it.
WHAT’S GOOD ABOUT A PARENTING MARRIAGE
• You will provide a stable environment for children.
• Most of the complicated tasks of parenting will be thought out and planned for before the child is born.
• You will avoid the decrease in marital happiness that occurs for new parents, as your expectations for the marriage will be different.
• You will be free of the pressure to “work” on the marriage.
• A purpose-driven marriage is less precarious than one that’s emotion-based.
• By choosing a co-parent carefully, you will be confident in his or her parenting values and styles, and abilities.
• You will feel confident that your partner is as committed to your children as you are.
• Raising children with someone else relieves many of the financial burdens and time constraints of single parenting.
• Having a time limit allows a natural ending to the marriage without the expense and drama of a divorce.
• Since the marriage is not based on love, co-parents may have the freedom to have their sexual and emotional needs fulfilled elsewhere.
• Co-parents can live apart or together as long as both stick to their agreement on time with the children.
• You will be less likely to “spouse bash.”
• There will be less conflict about parenting decisions.
• A marriage based on respect and mutual goals, not love, is less volatile.
• Your marital expectations will be grounded, not unrealistic.
• Each spouse will be freer to pursue his or her goals, passions, activities, friendships, and hobbies separately.
• A Parenting Marriage is more egalitarian, with clearly defined tasks.
• There is a greater sense that each spouse is willing to sacrifice for the benefit of the bigger goal, their children.
• Focusing on a potential mate’s parenting values and style makes blending families easier and more successful.
• You will model for your kids a partnership based on shared values, affection, kindness, generosity, and friendship.
• If co-parents agree to have their sexual needs filled elsewhere, they will not experience infidelity.
• Your children will be much less likely to worry about you and your spouse.
• Your children will likely grow up without a lot of parental conflict.
• Your children will likely experience a home without criticism, sarcasm, defensiveness, or passive-aggressive behavior.
WHAT’S NOT SO GOOD ABOUT A PARENTING MARRIAGE
• You will likely face judgment and misunderstanding from society at large as well as family, friends, and coworkers.
• Your kids might be teased because their family arrangement is outside the norm.
• The true impact on children of a partnership not based on love is not fully known.
• Having outside lovers may complicate the relationship dynamics.
• Taking romantic love out of the equation doesn’t prevent the possibility that you still may grow apart.
• You may feel like your relationship is less “we” and “us” focused because that strong romantic love bond isn’t there.
• You may have mixed emotions about missing out on a passionate marriage.
• You may feel jealous of what you perceive as other people’s “happy” marriages.
• You may feel your marriage is “less than” others.
• You may feel that you settled.
• You may still be disappointed, frustrated, or unhappy about your co-parenting partner.
• You may not be able to fight the feeling that it is not the fairytale marriage you might have hoped for.
• You may have a hard time finding others to fulfill your sexual and emotional needs.
• You may miss the feeling of being loved and loving someone back.
• You may feel that you’ve sacrificed too much for your children.
• You or your partner might change your mind about the situation.
HOW TO MAKE A PARENTING MARRIAGE WORK
Of all the marriages we’ve outlined in this book, this is the marriage that requires the most conscious commitment to having a good co-parenting relationship. Your job description in this marriage is to be the best parent you can be to your child or children.
This marriage may be right for you if:
• You both have a strong desire to have and raise a child.
• You both understand what it means to raise a child.
• You place your children’s mental, physical, and emotional welfare first wherever possible.
• You know and trust your co-parent.
• You have common goals and agreeable parenting styles.
• You have a mutually agreed upon Co-Parenting Agreement outlining who takes care of what, and a plan of action that includes such things as custody and financial responsibilities, discipline, dietary and health issues, schooling, religion, extracurricular activities, etc.
• You agree to revisit and adjust the Co-Parenting Agreement regularly and to communicate frequently as issues arise.
• You and your co-parent each have a will, a living trust, or both.
• You are flexible, compassionate, open-minded, patient, dedicated, and respectful.
• You are able to communicate clearly and non-defensively.
• You’re a good listener.
• You have good problem-solving skills.
• You are good at resolving conflict with compassion and respect.
• You can be supportive of your partner even if you don’t agree.
• You know how to be part of a team and value that over individual needs.
• You do everything you can to have a healthy environment in the home.
• If you do not plan to live with your co-parent, you each agree to keep the rules and expectations the same in both homes.
• You are mature and can handle your own delayed gratification.
• You will make sure there is a realistic and adequate spending plan in place for each of your children’s future.
• You agree to seek help from experts in the event that you run into parenting or co-parenting challenges.
• You will maintain your own health and wellness regime.
• You will do everything you can to model healthy adult behaviors in your relationship.
IS A PARENTING MARRIAGE RIGHT FOR ME?
Wondering if you’re cut out for a Parenting Marriage? Here are a few questions you might want to ask yourself (some may not be applicable if you are already married and are seeking to renegotiate your marriage):
• How important is it for me to have children?
• Why do I want to have a child?
• What are my most treasured childhood memories?
• What are my worst childhood memories?
• In what way would I want to parent like my parents did?
• In what way would I not want to parent like my parents did?
• What about co-parenting with a mate excites me?
• What scares me?
• What would I gain from this kind of marriage?
• What would I miss?
• What qualities should a good parent have?
• Why would I make a good parent?
• What other qualities would I want in a co-parenting spouse besides shared values and beliefs about children?
• How important is it for me to be in love with my spouse?
• How important to me is it to be loved back?
• Do I believe love can last a lifetime?
• Do I believe a marriage must have love?
• How important is independence and freedom to me?
• What are my top five non-negotiable parenting values?
• Why would a Parenting Marriage be a better option for me than a traditional lifelong commitment?
• Why would a Parenting Marriage be a better option for me than being a single parent by choice?
• Would I prefer to live with my co-parenting spouse or not?
• How hands-on do I want my co-parenting spouse to be?
• How important is it to have my co-parenting spouse be monogamous?
• Do I want to get my sexual and emotional needs met elsewhere?
• Would I be able to get my sexual and emotional needs met elsewhere?
• Would I really be able to put my needs behind those of my children?
• How easy or hard would it be for me to commit to eighteen years or more with a person I may not love?
• What do I think about divorce?
• How would I feel knowing that the marriage has a term limit?
Curious about how to make this marital model work? Here are some books to read for insight and guidance:
• Family by Choice: Platonic Partnered Parenting by Rachel Hope (Word Birth Publishing, 2014).
• Family by Design: The Complete Guide to Successfully Finding a Parenting Partner and Navigating the Co-Parenting Process by Darren R. Spedale (Self, 2014).
• Gay Marriage: For Better or for Worse?: What We’ve Learned from the Evidence by William N. Eskridge Jr. and Darren R. Spedale (Oxford University Press, 2006).
• Parent-Child Relations: An Introduction to Parenting (ninth edition) by Jerry J. Bigner and Clara J. Gerhardt (Pearson, 2013).
• Partnership Parenting: How Men and Women Parent Differently—Why It Helps Your Kids and Can Strengthen Your Marriage by Kyle Pruett, MD, and Marsha Pruett, PhD, (Da Capo Lifelong Books, 2009).
• The Single Girl’s Guide to Marrying a Man, His Kids, and His Ex-Wife: Becoming a Stepmother with Humor and Grace by Sally Bjornsen (NAL Trade, 2005).
• A Parenting Marriage is “kid-centric,” meaning the main purpose of this marriage is to raise a child or children.
• It’s the epitome of “planned parenthood.”
• Those who enter into a Parenting Marriage commit to stay together until the kids are independent.
• A Parenting Marriage requires you to unhitch your romantic and sexual desires from your domestic responsibilities.
• The threat of divorce is greatly minimized.
• Couples are better prepared for the tremendous task of being a parent.
• It is an ideal way to satisfy the biological clock if you haven’t met The One.
• Kids need a peaceful, respectful environment in order to thrive, not parents who love each other.