What Divorced Dads Really Owe Their Kids on Mothers Day

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What Divorced Dads Owe Their Kids on Mothers Day

If you had asked me in the weeks after I filed what I was going to do for my ex on Mothers Day, I know exactly what I would have told you.

And so do you.

Because if you have been through this, you said the same thing. Maybe out loud. Maybe just in your head at two in the morning when everything feels like a fight you didn’t start and can’t finish. But the thought was there.

I don’t want to do anything for her. Not right now. Not after everything I am dealing with.

That feeling made complete sense at the time. It was honest. It was exactly where I was. I am not going to sit here and tell you it was wrong to feel it, because I don’t believe that. What you feel in those early weeks is what you feel. You are not required to be graceful when you are bleeding.

But here is where I landed, and it took me longer than I would like to admit to get here.

I started thinking about my kids. Not in the abstract, the way you tell yourself you are always thinking about your kids. I mean a specific thought that stopped me cold.

One of my three kids might end up exactly where I am right now.

Separated. Two homes. Trying to figure out how to show up as a parent when the structure that held everything together is gone. Navigating something that nobody prepares you for and nobody warns you about until you are already inside it.

And when that day comes for them, the only playbook they will have is the one I wrote. Not with anything I said. With how I handled this.

That thought changed things for me.

Not overnight. Not cleanly. But it changed them.

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So in the days before last Sunday I asked each of my kids to send me some pictures from their iPads. Photos of them with their mom. Candid ones, real ones, the kind that actually look like their life together.

I took those pictures and I did what I have done before for Mother’s Day and her birthday. I went on the Walgreens website and I built cards. One for each kid. I left the insides blank.

I picked them up, sat the kids down, and had them write their own words inside. Their handwriting. Their thoughts. Not mine.

Then I picked up flowers.

That evening after we had dinner at my parents’ house, we made one more stop. Her favorite ice cream, enough for her and the kids, packaged to go so they could bring it with them when I dropped them off.

They walked to her door with cards they had written themselves, flowers, and her favorite ice cream.

I did not do that to be recognized for it. I am telling you about it now because I want you to understand that the principle I am describing is not theoretical. It is a decision that gets made in the Walgreens parking lot at 11am on a Tuesday when you would rather be anywhere else.

It is not a grand gesture. It is just a choice about what your kids are going to remember about how their father handled one of the hardest things he ever went through.

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When I posted about this, the comments were predictable. And I say that with zero judgment because I understood every single one of them.

“She never does that for me.“

I saw it over and over. And I get it. I genuinely do. Because that thought is the most natural thought in the world when you are in the middle of this.

But here is what that thought is actually doing.

It is making your kids’ relationship with their mother conditional on what you are getting in return. It is turning something that belongs entirely to them into a transaction between two adults who are hurt.

Your kids did not file for divorce. They did not choose two homes. They did not ask for any of this.

What they deserve is a father who shows up for the people they love, regardless of whether anyone is showing up for him the same way.

That is not weakness. What I have found is that for many Divorced Dads that is the hardest kind of leadership there is.

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Here is what I keep coming back to.

If I model anger, that is what they absorb. If I model bitterness, that is what they carry into their own relationships. If I make their mother feel invisible on the one day that belongs to her, they file that away somewhere they do not even know they filed it. It forced me to be mindful of what my kids are actually storing from this period.

But if I show them that even when a marriage ends, you can still lead with grace. That the people they love deserve to feel honored. That the way you exit something and the way you co-parent through it does not have to look like conflict.

Then maybe, if one of them ever finds themselves where I found myself, they will already know what to do.

They will have watched their father do it first.

I am not asking you to be perfect at this. I was not. I am not. There are days this is harder than I make it sound and I am not going to pretend otherwise.

But I am asking you to think about that specific thought. The one about your kids. The one about what they are watching you build or burn right now.

Because what you model today is what they will reach for when they need it most.

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If you are looking for a place to start, The Playbook is where I would send you.

That is the standard.

#IllCarryIt

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