Who is thinking of the kids?

I heard 3 separate divorce stories today that made me mad. Why you ask did they make me mad? Well I will tell you. They made me mad because not one of the parents involved gave an ounce of thought to their children. They only thought of what they wanted and decided to fight the other parent for the right to be right.

In once case, a divorced father who left his wife and children for another family (and ignored his own children for more than 2 years)tried to convince the 2 sons to come and live with him instead of their mother. He attempted to pass it off as the whole "boys need to be raised by men" thing but the dumb ass accidentally let it slip that the child support was killing him.

There have been times, well and truly where my hubby and I have gone off the rails with our children's other parents because they have decided to do or say something stupid. I am also very sure that they have at times felt exactly the same about us. I also won't lie and say that in the beginning, that we all didn't fight for control over our children to prove our love to them and to deal with our fear of potentially losing them. I can however say that in all cases, my hubby and I either bit our lips nearly off, tackled each other to keep one of us from killing an ex and sometimes just plain walked away. We didn't always do things right but I can tell you, that we always....and I do mean always.....put the needs of our children first. I also believe that our ex's also tried.

Make no mistake, it's hard. It's hard to put your faith in a 4 year old to love you even when you are the one who makes him go to bed on time when another parent lets him stay up and party. It's hard to watch your child be in love with someone who hurt you so much and it's even harder to believe that that person is even capable of loving them back.

But for the love of God these feelings that we all have running around inside us in the early days of divorce have nothing to do with our children. They have everything to do with us. Our children just need to feel safe and loved.

So today I am mad. I am mad at those parents who can't put their own agendas aside to think about what is best for their kids. I am mad because I know how many kids have been hurt by this kind of fear and anger driven selfishness. I am also mad because I am sure that at some point, I was no better.

Isn't it time that we all start thinking of the kids?