Co-parenting My Child

People have asked us how we work out parenting, including co-parenting a child from a previous marriage.  

Julie: Decisions can be harder when it’s “my family” or “your family”.  When we dated, Rick said he admired my parenting skills. I was parented with little to no punishment for wrong doing or bad decisions.  I expected I would raise my family the same way.  This was far from what my new husband had expected. 

My son couldn’t wait for us to get married so he could call Rick “Dad”.  As soon as the honeymoon was over though, so it seemed was the admiration for my parenting style.  We added 3 more children in the next 6 years. We fought our biggest fights on how to set boundaries and expectations for our oldest.  When we joined in marriage, the 3 of us joined, but it was hard for me to not be overprotective.  I judged that our oldest had it tougher than our other kids because his biological dad was pretty much absent since our separation when he was 4 months old.  

Rick: I was in love with Julie and her son.  I was nervous, but excited to be a parent to him.  I wasn’t exactly sure how to be one, picking up 7 years in.  Julie was a good mom.  I had confidence that we would be good parents and looked forward to growing our family.  

My upbringing was a bit strict.  Punishments included long days of detailing vehicles, washing windows and manual labor.  It was very structured and predictable.  Based on how I was raised, I assumed that my decisions and actions were the right ones.  Julie was a bit unpredictable, more spontaneous and social than I. We had many arguments and I wasn’t going to just “give in” every time. 

One night I yelled at our oldest son and told him he was grounded for a month.  Julie believed this was too harsh and immediately disagreed with me.  I thought that she made me look weak and that I had no authority to discipline.  The argument got so heated that she told me she couldn’t live this way.  This argument scared us enough that we agreed to have a deeper conversation that really opened my eyes to why Julie felt so protective and what was most important to each of us in disciplining our children. This led to more united co-parenting.

Julie: I needed to learn to trust Rick and take time to listen to his perspective.   I now know that a combination of my compassion and empathy and Rick’s firmness and accountability is much better for our children and our marriage.  Co-parenting was, and still can be, challenging.  Discussing discipline is key to implementing it.  

Rick: When Julie and I make decisions together, I can speak freely, and we discuss each other’s opinions.  It wasn’t easy getting to this point, and still takes effort to keep us all on the same page.  We agree, love is a decision every day.