Yeah, it’s a bit of a cultural shift I think. Or I just had an aberrant public school history. As a GenX kid there was no graduation ceremony with parents that I can recall prior to High School. Class pictures and stuff, yes. But not an elaborate public, come-on-stage-to-get-your-diploma-type thing. Now, that I can recall might be the salient quote as my memories of childhood are definitely fading away. I should ask my father if he remembers any.
Still, it definitely isn’t ringing any bells. So either it didn’t happen or it wasn’t memorable enough for me to recall decades later.
My kids didn’t have a pre K graduation, even though they both went to preK. For that matter, I didn’t go to my Master’s graduation either. Wouldn’t judge the person either way.
Of course true neglect is Bad. Our kids deserve to experience unconditional love from us. And as parents we should celebrate our children in the ways compatible with our own values.
But yeah a near singular focus on our children is I believe harmful for us and for the children.
If I had been a single parent of a young child there is no question that I would be dating. That would be a vital part of my taking care of myself. My own psychological and even physical health as I belief that a secure romantic relationship brings many long term health benefits. I would be a better father for having taken care of my own well being. My kids would be better off than having me obsess over them and become interdependent in unhealthy ways.
And this deserved highlight:
My children never needed and would never have benefited from being the obsessive focus of my emotional bandwidth, and my sacrificing my own well being (don’t worry about me I’ll just sit here in the dark) would not create a healthy relationship between us.
I’d pick the pre-K graduation any day of the week and twice on Sundays. These things last an hour (my son didn’t do pre-K, but his daycare had a ceremony and there was only 17 kids, we knew them all), have a lot of adorable and silly kid moments, and probably cake.
My son will graduate elementary school next year, his graduating class will be ~38 kids. (We know most).
High school will be 100+, and university even more. Just endless boring droning on of names of people we don’t know and have no connection to.
No thank you.
A Master’s is earned when the thesis is done, the exams are finished, the papers are submitted. Not weeks or months later when they give you a piece of paper onstage. It’s just as meaningless a ceremony as the kid ones.
Go out to dinner, buy champagne, celebrate the milestones during the process.
And cry your eyes out at the farewell photo montage in pre-K.
Oh. FWIW, the TikTok debate is almost assuredly a fictional scenario.
Masters and other university graduations are almost always on a Sunday. Pre K “graduation” ceremonies are generally during the last scheduled day of the program. It’s the class activity of the day. Maybe a special evening event. I’ve at least never heard of one being on a Sunday.
& if said pre-K graduation ceremony had included caps & gowns my child would not have attended. Although I’ve never been to one, I have seen pictures of 'em, on the news &/or intertubez. IMHO it cheapens the real ones. Graduating HS is a milestone, & the end of formal education for many/most people whereas pre-K is leaving day care & entering the school system.
Nope! Of the 5 of family members that I know graduation dates for one was a Sunday, two were Sat, & two were weekdays.
I think there’s a happy medium here. Obsessive focus on one’s kids and helicopter parenting are bad for both parents and children. But I do believe parents sometimes engage in wishful thinking that them being happier with a new partner will be better for their kids, too. Step parents rarely have the same kind of care for and relationship with kids that the children’s own parents did. Fairly often they simply don’t get on, and then the kids have to spend the rest of their childhood living with and under the power of someone they dislike and who dislikes them. Not the recipe for a happy childhood.
It’s different to adoption, because adoptive parents actively wanted a child, and chose to adopt. Step parents rarely wanted to have step kids: the kids are something they are obliged to accept to be with the person they love, and attitudes to them vary widely.
Reasons for ending the original relationship also vary widely, from “it was actively abusive” to “argued all the time and everyone was unhappy” to “felt ignored or unfulfilled” to “met someone I liked better”. Some of these are a lot more justifiable than others. I think if you have kids, you ought to care about their happiness at least as much as about your own.
I’m not going to judge other people on this because everyone is different, but I wouldn’t be trying to date if I was single and had a very young child. It just wouldn’t be a priority, and I’d want time to recover from whatever ended the original relationship. That doesn’t mean starting a new relationship would be impossible, though, because it’s still pretty common for people to become close to someone they met at work or via a hobby and get together that way, even if they weren’t actively looking. And custody arrangements must make a big difference here. Fathers often have the kids for less of the time, so they’d have more time for dating. It depends on who is the primary parent.
Woah. Slow it down. I was just talking about dating! Give me some space!
And very seriously in this hypothetical I am not trying to replace a dead mother or add replacement mother figure to a divorced circumstance. My goal is more basic: an unhappier and possibly less healthy me is a less competent father. Sacrificing a major aspect of my adult … fullness … so that all my bandwidth can be devoted obsessively on my child or children, is bad for me and bad for them. And note that “fullness” may include having sex but it includes much more than that for pretty much everyone. Exceptions noted.
As to the issue you raise, the comparison is not to a two biological or adoptive parent household, but to me as dad trying to pull it off alone in my household.
Mileage varies. I have definitely seen many families in which it works very well and some not. A step parent is best off being very deferential and supportive in parenting choices. They are a member of the team but not a captain. “Rarely” does not describe what I observe.
Being around kids means making an exhausting number of judgment calls, many of which don’t have easy answers. Do I correct these manners this time, or let them slide? Is this purchase something that should come from allowance, or from family budget? Is a sleepover this Friday a good idea? Do I make an alternative dinner when my kid doesn’t like the thing I’m cooking, or let them fix themselves a bowl of cereal, or tell them “take it or leave it”? Is this new show okay for them to watch? Have they had too much screen time today? Is the very slightly mean thing they said worth addressing? At what point is there a consequence for their behavior? and so on and so on, hundreds of these decisions every day, with (at least for me) tons of second-guessing whether I made the right call. Exhausting.
I know that when I’m well-rested, well-fed, and in a good mood, I make better judgment calls than when I’m tired, hungry, or unhappy. My kids benefit from my own well-being. If I decide I’m going to de-prioritize my well-being, it’s going to hurt them.
And for me, having a partner is a huge part of my well-being. Someone that I can confide in, talk about adult things with, send and receive silly and tender texts with, snuggle – and yes, have sex with – makes me a happier person. Which makes me a better parent.
The idea that a person who’s single must stay single for years because it’s better for their kid? No way. If that works for them, great–but I’m sure there are many, many people like me who are better parents when they have a partner.
(shrug) Was going to reply, but family time interfered and anyway, LHoD and DSeid pretty much said what I was going to, only more eloquently. Anyway, I appreciate the clarification.
Two points:
With respect to the specific scenario described in the OP, I’d likely also be inclined to attend the pre-K event, although I can say for a fact that neither of my kids (claim to) remember anything about theirs, and as a GenX parent, the whole thing struck me as faintly ridiculous. On the other hand, the scenario as described is pretty light on detail, which is why I suspect several of us have taken the discussion into more general terms.
I think the term “dating” is doing a lot of heavy lifting in this discussion, given that it could apply to anything from “playing the field at the local singles bar” to “regular get-togethers with a specific other person you’re hoping will become a permanent partner”, so I don’t feel that I can make a categorical statement about what is or isn’t appropriate without knowing specifics. YMMV.
Just wanted to emphasize this part. Having emotional support was critical for me during my kids’ younger years. I’m very lucky to have a wonderful and supportive spouse and I think we’re a pretty strong team. I don’t know what I would have done without her emotional support; it’s sure as shit not something one can (or should) seek from one’s children, so I can’t fault anyone in that situation for wanting to seek a partner.
Being single doesn’t mean you have to have an obsessive focus on your kids. Plenty of people, including parents, are single because they can’t find a good partner. Some have given up on looking because it’s not worth the effort. It doesn’t mean they aren’t good parents. Romantic relationships are just one part of life: you still have friends, hobbies etc. It’s not the end of the world to put this aspect of life on the back burner for a while.
It’s very convenient to conclude that what makes us happier will also make our children happier. It’s what we want to believe in order to avoid having to make difficult decisions, and I think it’s worth being a bit skeptical for that reason. Even if you are a better parent when you have a partner, that may not outweigh the downsides for your kids. And even if you would choose someone who cares about the children and treats them well, not everyone has such good judgement. Here’s a study showing kids in step-parent families had the highest rate of victimisation and greatest risk from family perpetrators:
Not what I said, but, ironically, a convenient misparaphrase for you.
(Edit: since I’m happily married and not in this situation at all, there wouldn’t even be anything “convenient” about it for me if it WERE accurate. Come on.)
Nor I. I don’t have the experience with famlies with little kids that a pediatrician has, but I have a lot of friends and family who have split up and found new partners while rearing children. And while it obviously varies, most of the step-parents and long-term SOs of parents that I know have been an asset to the kids. And all of them knew that they were dating a person with kids, and that the kids were part of the package.
Bad paraphrases aside, I asked my wife last night. Her answer, from the perspective of the hypothetical girlfriend and having graduated with a master’s degree:
Go to the pre-K graduation. THE NEXT NIGHT, take the girlfriend out for a ridiculously fancy dinner with a fantastic bottle of champagne.
and anyway, LHoD and DSeid pretty much said what I was going to, only more eloquently. Anyway, I appreciate the clarification.