Co-parenting between split parents, or a mother and father
who never had a relationship besides parenting, has been fraught with its own
responsibilities these past pandemic months. Governments have recognized the
need to move kids between households during these times. But there are still
concerns that can be alleviated with planning and care.
Nell Frizzell of British Vogue noted that reopenings may
be making things harder rather than easier for many co-parenting situations.
“There is still enough gray area to create friction
amongst even the most harmonious of parenting teams,” she writes as she
examines several case studies, and checks in with specialists. “What is the
legal standing for co-parents during the pandemic, now that lockdown is
lifting?”
Legal standing is less an issue, she adds, than the ways
in which two parents can agree on what they can and should do in the best
interests of their shared child, as well as their individual households. The
key is communication between the parents and a sensible approach to everybody’s
health, experts tell her. A solution that one parent may think is right and
proper may, for entirely understandable reasons, worry another parent.
“Each family needs to make safe, practical, sensible
arrangements taking into account their personal circumstances,” Frizzell quotes
a leading attorney in the field. “If you do decide to change your child
arrangements orders then I advise that you have that written down, even just in
an email or a text message – any form of written communication, as a point of
record.”
It’s further noted that, if for any reason, the child is
not seeing one parent, the expectation is that there needs to be some sort of
continued contact, perhaps through Zoom or WhatsApp.
Frizzell notes that clinical psychologist Dr. Katie
Adolphus is keen to point out that the way we’re all experiencing the pandemic
will be different. In processing what is going on we will all probably go
through various different stages: denial (telling ourselves it’s just the flu),
defending (it’s okay, it won’t happen to me), despair (feeling that everything
is hopeless), and deciding (making a practical plan for the areas of life we
still can control). “But as co-parents, living in different places, you may be
at different stages of this process to each other,” she says. “There is also a
primal urge, during times of stress and danger, to want to keep your child
close. That is understandable.”
Of course, everyone agrees that, as Frizzell puts it,
“there may be moments of considerable tension, irritation and disagreement
along the way.”
Talk about the ways in which the pandemic has disrupted
everything!