Should your boyfriend sleep over?
“So, are you and Sean getting together tonight?” Mia asked me as she, Sara and I trudged up the Matt Davis trail.
“Nah, The Kid’s with me tonight.”
“So?” Sara asked.
“So, he doesn’t sleep over when Trent’s with me. You know that.”
Sara stopped abruptly. “Still? Are you kidding me?”
“No, why?”
“Haven’t you guys been together for, like, years?” Mia asked.
“Yeah, about three or four, I guess.”
“So why can’t he sleep over?”
“Well, he could but he doesn’t
feel comfortable with it, and
I want to respect that.” 
“Kat, that’s crazy!” Sara insisted. “You guys are in a committed, monogamous relationship. You know Trent knows you guys are having sex! Why not be out in the open about it?”
I have no problem being open about a lot about sex with The Kid — just not about my personal sex life.
And, really, what kid even wants to think about his
or her parents having sex?
It’s just one big eww!! Most kids think they’re parents stopped having sex when the last kid was born, and they didn’t enjoy it anyway. So if I were still married, my sex life most likely even be an issue.
But when you’re a divorced parent and dating, it’s hard to hide what’s going on, beyond just the noisy sex thing. Having a man who’s not quite our dad, but more than a family friend shuffling over to the breakfast table in his jammies, bed-hair and morning woody — or that look on a guy’s face that only comes from having taken care of that — feels a little too in your face. And there’s always the chance that a kid’s going to accidentally see a boyfriend or girlfriend naked.
Of course, Trent knows what’s going on. But, I don’t feel like I have to fill in the details for him
- Is it OK for a boyfriend/girlfriend to sleep over when you have kids?
- Does it matter how long you’ve been together or how old the kids are?
- If one of your parents did that while you were young, how did you feel about it?
Photo © Angelika Bentin – Fotolia.com
It’s not what I expected
I was late, standing in line during my lunch hour to return a shirt The Kid spent about a half-second glancing at before making the most horribly disgusted look I’d ever see on his face, when the 6-year-old in front of me starting acting up.
“Please, Mommy. Please!” she cried as she waved a pink-boxed doll in her mother’s direction.
“Not today.”
“I WANT IT!” she screamed, and then took the box and smashed it into her mom’s leg.
Mom looked pretty horrified.
Of course, I can remember when Trent pulled similar antics on me. What parent — well, modern-day parent — hasn’t experienced that?
But that little scenario never crossed my mind when I was imagining what having a baby would be like. I thought about carefree days at the beach making sandcastles; baking chocolate chip cookies together; biking and hiking and exploring the wonders
of nature. I thought about the fun times. 
I never once imagined having a kid would involve meltdowns in the checkout line at
Target or sleepless nights holding a croupy
child in a steamy-hot bathroom or moments of sheer panic when he disappeared at the park
or how many times Rob and I were exhausted, pissed off, fought or were resentful over something related to The Kid.
And if I saw that happening to others, I thought, “It will be different for me.”
Yeah, right!
“Children may provide unrivaled moments
of joy. But they also provide unrivaled moments of frustration, tedium, anxiety, heartbreak,” writes Jennifer Senior in “All Joy and No Fun: Why Parents Hate Parenting.” “Loving one’s children and loving the act of parenting are not the same thing.”
But, isn’t that the same for just about
everything?
When I met Rob, it was magical — we laughed,
we talked, we dreamed, we had great sex, we played so well together. “Oh, so that’s what we look like as a couple,” I thought.
Then we got married.
And a new couple emerged. It’s not what I expected. Resentment, frustration, anger, obliviousness — where did these things come from?
Then we had Trent. Again, a new couple, emerged, and a new me — me as Mom.
It’s not what I expected.
Then I got divorced.
During the confusing, painful months before and after our marriage busted up, I didn’t know what to expect — and that, oddly enough, made me open to the possibilities of what was, not what I thought it would be.
I had no expectations of what my future would be like; I had no friggin’ idea. It wasn’t part of the plan — you know, fall in love, get married, have kids, white-picket fenced house … I had never been a 40-something divorced mom of a kid in suburbia. And so I never felt like something was wrong (well, despite my grieving over my marriage, which was fast becoming my past) or right. There was no road map to follow, no blueprint of what being a 40-something divorced mom of a kid in suburbia looked like.
Everyone talks about how having unrealistic expectations messes things up — dating, marriage, parenting — but it’s hard not to have any expectations. Still, the fewer we have, the happier we seem to be.
So, I realized you can take what Jennifer says about kids and replace it with whatever you’re struggling with and it still makes sense:
- “Dating may provide moments of joy, but it also can provide moments of frustration, tedium, anxiety, heartbreak …”
- “Marriage may provide moments of joy, but it also can provide moments of frustration, tedium, anxiety, heartbreak …”
- “College may provide moments of joy, but it also can provide moments of frustration, tedium, anxiety, heartbreak …”
- “Work may provide moments of joy, but it also can provide moments of frustration, tedium, anxiety, heartbreak …”
Because we think we know what they “should” look like, and then we get disappointed when it differs from our expectations.
I had no expectations of divorced life, and, you know, it has moments of joy, frustration, anxiety, heartbreak. But, I am happier than I ever could have imagined. What do I make of that?
- What have you ever gotten yourself into that you think, “Hmm, it’s not what I expected …”?
- Have you ever gone into something with no expectations, and been happily surprised?
photo © Hotshoot – Fotolia.com
Want to understand men? Have a son
It was one of those rare occurrences in my life as a daughter; when I called home on Sunday, my dad didn’t immediately say, “Hold on, I’ll go get your mother.”
Of course, it was Father’s Day and not to diss my mom, but really, he was the main event. There’s only one other day of the year like that — my dad’s birthday.
Dads are a strange breed, or least the ones of my generation. They talk a lot but rarely about themselves. I’ve learned loads from my dad, but not a lot about him. Who knows what he really knows about me, if anything. So I was blown away by a comment he tossed out as we caught up.
“Well, honey, you made me
a b-tter man.” 
“What did you say, Dad?
The phone cut out.”
But by then he was off on
one of his rants, this time about the Gulf oil spill and the “idiots” running his condo association and the next
thing I knew my mom was
on the phone and he disappeared.
“My Dad said a weird thing
to me yesterday,” I told Sean the next day as we snuggled in his bed.
“Oh, so convoluted thinking runs in your family …”
“Hahaha. Well, he either
told me that I’ve made him a bitter man or a better one. The phone got all static-like, but I’m hoping for the latter.”
“I’m sure that’s what he said,” he said as he kissed the top of my head.
“Don’t patronize me!”
“I’m not. But, as a dad of a daughter, that’s what I say, too.”
“Why?”
“Because having a daughter has taught me so much more about women.”
Which is exactly how I feel, about men, that is. The beauty of having a son is that it’s a petri dish of manhood. I’ve watched — sometimes in bewilderment, sometimes paralyzed in fear, more often than not thinking, WTF?!? — how The Kid has transformed from the quintessential superhero-idolizing, truck-obsessed, gun-loving, nonstop macho Boy into a sensitive, kind, gentle Man.
Don’t get me wrong — there are still a lot of mysteries about him, mostly about his logic, or lack of it. He has a male brain, I have a female one and that is a huge difference right there.
But I’ve seen the vulnerabilities behind the “suck it up” facade, how he was just as devastated as any woman I’ve ever known by his first heartbreak, but didn’t have quite the same safe place to express it. How finding his place in the high school pecking order, how looking cool in the eyes of his peers and girls he might like to date, meant he had to have status — like wheels.
You just can’t have a child of the opposite gender and not see that gender — and the world — differently.
How could a father not want anything but the best for his daughter, whether in the workplace, the home or in men’s eyes?
And for moms of sons? It’s why I freak out when I read that men don’t count; that some gal might consider him nothing more than a sperm donor, thank you very much; that he might be fodder for a male-bashing gals’ night out.
Sorry, but not my kid!
I know that if I had a daughter, I’d feel just as passionately about things but with a different perspective. I’d know exactly what she’s feeling because I was that girl once. We’d be speaking the same language.
But I don’t have that language with men; I have to learn it. And that’s why I love having a son — I don’t know what it’s like to be a man, but I know for sure that there’s a lot more going on than what’s on the surface.
Studies indicate that fathers of daughters tend to be more supportive of women’s issues. That makes sense.
No such luck for moms of sons, however; seems all they do is mess up our health. See, men really do make us suffer!
- Has having a child of the opposite sex helped you understand that gender more?
- If you have children of both genders, which has been easier or harder to raise?
Photo © the saint – Fotolia.com
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