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    “Birdnesting” and More on Divorce

    Filed Under from the heart, heteropatriarchy, life changes, love, photos, sadness 

    Birdnesting is one of the terms for the kids-stay-in-the-home-after-divorce model I mentioned recently in “What’s Best for the Children of Divorce?” Here is a link to a 2003 Washington Post article that gives more information on birdnesting. No registration needed.

    As David pointed out, if a couple could collaborate to make such an arrangement work long term one wonders if they could have worked things out in their marriage. I think it’s important to recognize that people divorce for different reasons, just as they marry for different reasons. Sometimes the divorce has to do with an inability to communicate or create solutions together - which doesn’t help during the process of divorce itself (witness nasty custody battles). But sometimes the divorce has to do with simply falling out of love or realizing you made a hasty decision, as Jess alludes to.

    Me as a very well-fed infantI think divorce can be pretty awful for kids. My mom did as much as she could to protect me from the drama of breaking up with her first husband, my biological father. She didn’t want to get divorced, but she also didn’t want to be married to an unreliable drug user or be a “co-wife.” I was fortunate in that she remarried a man who has been a great father to me and my brother, and a good husband to her.

    Perhaps because of this I don’t see divorce as the cause of “broken” children and broken families. I think widespread divorce is a symptom of isolation and consumerism. An exacerbating symptom, but a symptom nonetheless.

    What hurt me was my bio-dad’s decision to stop seeing me when I was little, and still refusing to have anything to do with me now, twenty five years later. He reneged on his commitment to his children. He was doing that before the divorce.

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    4 Responses to ““Birdnesting” and More on Divorce”

    1. David on July 15th, 2007 6:21 am

      Let me quote Elizabeth Marquardt here. She blogs over at FamilyScholars.

      “Bird nesting” also does not resolve one of the major losses of divorce: being with one parent always means not being with the other. In “bird nesting,” Dad arrives, but Mom disappears, and vice versa. If you need Mom for something, well, you have to wait until Thursday. Bird nesting, like all “good divorce” arrangements, puts the children’s needs on an adult timeline, while in a married, intact family the family functions much more often on the children’s timeline.

      …the term “bird nesting” is unlikely to come into widespread use because it describes a practice that is unlikely to become popular. Yet the choice of words is telling. The phrase sounds so cute and cuddly, conjuring up a picture of mommy and daddy birds alternately huddling with their babies in a warm nest.

      Little could be further from the truth, which points to the dangerous temptation of most forms of divorce happy talk. It is unlikely that any parent in a stressed marriage would find their stress reduced by such a logistically complicated living situation. And despite the euphemistic language, the primary burden still falls on the kids to study and try to make sense of their parents’ worlds.

    2. hafidha sofia on July 15th, 2007 11:34 am

      Does Marquardt advocate fewer marriages, fewer children, or fewer divorces? (Or all of the above?).

      Certainly, marriage should be worked at, in much the same way you may have to struggle to stay in relation with any other family member; and it helps to have support structures in place in your life and out in the larger society to strengthen the relationship.

      I’m curious to know - if a divorce must happen, what is best for the children?

    3. Jess on July 15th, 2007 4:36 pm

      I won’t even get started on Marquardt.

      But from my personal experience, what was best for me was that my parents made it absolutely clear that their relationships with me were not part of the troubles in their marriage. I was 2 and a half when they split, but my whole life they made a point of keeping their disagreements and squabbles completely away from me, never undercutting the other’s relationship with me, and always making sure that I knew that I was loved by both of my families.

      I don’t think there is a universal “best for the children,” except for open communication and unconditional love. Every family dynamic is so very different, that for some children it might be best to never see one parent again, or to have completely equal time between them, or to have one “main” home and one where they visit, or to “bird nest” (though this, I think, is more unusual). And it all depends on the abilities of the parents to keep their relationship with the children separate from whatever troubles they’re having with the other parent, which I find to be paramount from my own experience.

    4. Jess on July 15th, 2007 4:37 pm

      And Hafidha - that is the cutest picture. Baby cheeks are the best. :-)

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