Whappin' people upside the head with the other shoe

.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
..
.
.
.
.
.
.
A local lady, her name is not important, continue to impress me with her common sense, simple wisdom. Wisdom, I find, is often in the simple things. We make it complicated.

But this lady has children, adults now. One of her children is divorced with one child in school and the other moved out and an adult in his own right.

This lady said she never speaks a harsh or unkind word about her former son-in-law. Never.

"He will always be the father of my grandchildren," she said.

Lemme tell you, that shut my mouth in a hurry. I felt about knee high to a microbe.

Now if you knew this grand lady's former son-in-law you would marvel even more at her self-restraint.

Simply put, and even by his own admission, her former SIL is an idiot. Yep. He admits this. He also admits he doesn't know what to do about it.

An extreme case, yes and I am likewise sure there are worse cases out there.

That is not going to change reality.

Reality is:

Two people cared about each other enough to spend enough time together to have children.

Nuf said.

Or it should be. Unfortunately since the world is peopled with ADOLTS instead of Adults, I must interject some Dose O' Baker into this.

RAH once opined in one of his books the purpose behind a marriage is that the two people so agreeing to the union agree to raise to maturity any and all children produced by that union.

Somewhere, we have lost sight of this.

If you are a single parent, by choice, what do you say about your ex? What do you say about your ex in places where your children can hear, see and even read it?

What do you think the kids are thinking? I'll give you a hint (and I speak from personal experience here 'cause my parents divorced):

Here is one of the two people they care most about in the entire world tearing the other person to pieces. Yeah. Way to be supportive Mom/Dad! Can you use a bigger knife next time?

Hrm.

I love Google Image search.

Lemme whap some people upside the head with the other shoe.

What does your ex say about you to your children? What do you think the kids think about that?

Do you care?

Do you think your kids are perceptive enough to make up their own minds about their parents, you and the other person?

What good does it to do to tear down the other person?

What's it doing to your child?

Do you care?

Chances are you do care, at least a little bit. If not you need to surrender your parental rights to someone who does care. I ain't saying this is your ex, but your kids deserve a better parent than you.

But you also don't bother to think about what you are doing. That's pretty familiar territory, isn't it?

Kids are hurt most in a divorce. Parents who continue to feud and tear each other down make it worse.

Come on.

Thumper got it right.

The kids are hurt enough. if you can't say something nice don't say anything at all.

One final thing and I'll leave you.

If the truth hurts, you ain't living right.