The Parents are Fighting . . . How Did We Get Here?

[. . . the children come home to their parents out front on the grass in a full-blown physical fight, shouting and swinging . . .]

There was once love here. The energy of a new romance, the excitement of possibilities, the deep and thought out promises made to one another, signatures on a document that certified their love and commitment to each other, along with vows. But in his quest to make a perfect world for his family, Dad did imperfect things. He was a hard worker, but he was also hard on his family and sometimes he cheated others to provide for his own. Mom, not knowing his struggle to lead, judged him as mean. Their commitment to the original promises fell away.

The children watch as their parents are cold to one another, then snipe at one another, and then are spiteful to one another. For the sons and daughters, their world is not the safe and protected space they thought it was. And the younger this happens, the more unsettling it is, though it destroys their world no matter the age. Mommy and Daddy are the sentinels of their comfort and safety, answering the natural needs of child. But that has been disrupted by the seeking of power and ‘say’ in the relationship.

The child’s exposure to adult disagreement should be gradual, gentle, and humane. Mom and Dad are not going to always agree, most certainly, and some issues will be more passionate in responses than others.

To raise emotionally stable children, the parents must be of one accord, discussing disagreement separate from the children, and then emerging with a unified direction.

But how did this family get here? Was it infidelity or treason? The dismissal of the desires of the other parent and reverting to one’s own direction is treason to the relationship. If the decision is that there will be no television weeknights after 9pm, either parent granting full on suspension of this is betraying their partner and family goals. Of course there are exceptions, room for a momentary change: let’s say for situational necessity, one of the parents suspends bedtime, it should be singular (once) and for a justifiable reason (i.e. in the seventies we were up late to watch the first NASA Apollo program night launch). But that didn’t mean that now every night we were going to be up until 10pm, 11pm, even midnight, disrupting sleep patterns.

In context, bedtime may be a small issue, especially if done once or occasionally for good reason, not necessitating dramatic confrontation. But continual disregard for the other parent’s wishes may need a recentering by Mom and Dad, holding one another accountable and getting back on the same page. If the disregard for what was agreed upon continues, dissolution is inevitable.

Unresolved, the dismissal of family rules or deliberately going against the other parent worsens and invites confrontation and conflict:

“What are you doing?”

“No, what are YOU doing?”

“There are rules we agreed to . . .”

“I don’t like these rules”

Teenage dating? Drinking? College, Trade School, or Military? The Father and Mother may not agree, but the children should be unaware of this, the parents are supposed to come with a unified plan. The family fails if Mom sees no problem with a fifteen-year-old sleeping over at her “boyfriend’s” house, and Dad says, “hell no!”, but when he works late, she allows it against his wishes. Let him be hated for being the disciplinarian, that way the kids choose me. Dad sees no problem with his sixteen-year-old having a beer, Mom sees the window to a bigger problem later, but when she is away visiting her family, he passes his son a brew.

Now, there is frustration in the marriage that the children can see. They try to reconcile the contradictory guidance, but there is no longer right or wrong, all morality derives from whichever parent is present while the other is preoccupied. Then the day comes when disaster strikes, a son in a car accident when mom argued against him being allowed to drive alone; The teenage daughter who was allowed to have the neighbor’s son sleep over at their home gets pregnant when Dad forbade the practice.

The situation between mom & dad is now even more animated, more vocal, the words more cutting. The children are confused; the two people they love and depend on for guidance and safety and nourishment and shelter are creating unease in the family space. They stop speaking to one another, the home is uncomfortable, there is no more cohesive leadership.

It blows up one day while the children are at school and come home to see their parents out front on the grass in a full-blown physical fight, shouting and swinging, neighbors watching, trying to separate the two. The police arrive, and Mom cries to gain their sympathy and wants them to arrest dad. Dad tells the cops you know how ‘they’ are and that he is completely innocent. Because she cries better than him, and he has bruised her, they take him away.

The next day Mom’s lawyers serve papers, and she’s already bringing in outside help to get things done around the house, the house that Dad gave everything he had in him to raise his family in. He is broken spiritually, bitter at how she betrayed him and Dad wants her dead. Meanwhile inside the house, Mom attempts to convince the children that they are better without him: “He was oppressive . . . and mean . . . don’t you remember how he dictated all of our lives and his rules were so . . .very, so strict?”

The kids are caught in the middle, they love both their parents, imperfections and all. They tell Mom that these people you are hiring to get stuff done are nice, “. . . but they are not our dad. He’s in Dad’s space, using Dad’s stuff, where’s our dad?”

Walking to school, Dad surprises the kids, and they cry as they look at him and ask: “Why did you beat Mommy so bad? You hurt Mommy? Are you going to hurt us? Mom isn’t hard on us like you are, she’s more fun . . . you just want us to do stuff around the house . . . like . . . all the time . . . and you’re so serious. Can’t you be more like her?” The sad children go on to school while dad watches them walk away, crying inside because all he built is fading away. His name is on the mortgage, his blood and sweat in that property, “THAT’S MY HOME!”

Everything is destroyed: A violent end to a failed marriage, fatherly leadership is gone, motherly tenderness is damaged. Dad is despondent, Mom is bloodied and bruised, they couldn’t honor each other’s wishes. They both wanted it to be all their way, and deceitfully threw out the rules they didn’t like when the other parent wasn’t looking. Instead of Mommy telling the daughter no young men beyond the living room, she wanted to relive her own youth and get the quarterback of the football team that she missed, so she ignored Dad and let that horny boy from across the street up to the daughter’s bedroom; Daddy putting that teenaged boy behind a steering wheel because when he was young, he lost out on a girl he liked because he didn’t have a cool car to take her to the school dance: “I’ll let him drive, Mom doesn’t understand.”

The victims are the children. They now live a life of no rules because Mommy wants Daddy to look like the bad guy and lets the kids do whatever they want. “Let him be hated for being the disciplinarian, the rule setter . . . That way they will take my side.” And they do–except they’re now out of control. The son she didn’t want behind the wheel now drives because he stole a car. The daughter is un-coachable because there is no authority in the house, and she is now a mom herself (there is no one who knows more than a sixteen-year-old girl, they have everything figured out). She is out of control with a body tattoo and dancing nude for money.

The kids are emotionally harmed, and though they will one day recover, the pain may haunt their memories for life and taint future relationships. The most important building block of any stable community and functioning society, the family, has been shattered and left to the whims of outside forces.

So here we are. Why? When marrying, the partners agree to a covenant. In this example, the covenant has been broken several times over. Each time incurring more animosity, refusing to discuss, demanding compliance, engaging in underhanded moves that build more animosity.

The End

How did we get here? Some of you may be worried upon reading this, “OMG are there problems at home?” I assure you, things between Mrs Queen and I are fine. This isn’t about us. In fact, it isn’t even about what it started as, the people in our lives struggling in their marriages. No, it’s not even about them.

If you haven’t figured out by now, this is about America, a metaphor for our country. ‘Dad’ are conservatives, Liberal/Progressives are ‘Mom’.