Nesting or Latch Key Parenting

I read an interesting post on the New York Times web site recently.

How Divorce Lost It's Groove

For the purposes of this conversation I just want to focus on one idea mentioned. It is the title of today's blog. 

Nesting or Latch Key Parenting

It stands for parents moving around back and forth, while enabling the children of divorce and relationship break up to stay in their respected homes. 

Now it might seem a little creepy to have another couple...using your bed when you are not home. Especially if that couple is your x and their new love. Other wise if things are peaceful I think the idea has a lot of merit.

Being from a broken home is hard on a child. Going from one house to another is stressful. School is stressful. Life is stressful. Some stress is good for us. Most of it will not kill us. Still it has an effect and should be taken into account when looking at behavior and attitudes, especially in children.

Children need both biological parents. Biological parents fill a role no one else can ever fill in our children's lives. They need to see and be involved with us regularly. 

Many children also really appreciate routine and the comfort of home and school. In an ideal situation children have friends in the neighborhoods they live in.

Having parents understand of all these things and make the sacrifice of being a little uncomfortable for the sake of the children when relationships fall apart sounds divine.

The thing I have always loved about being a grown up is the opportunity to craft my own amazing life. I told my x once he started coming around that there really was no normal standard we had to try and emulate. 

Caring for our daughter would take whatever form we could agree upon. We were never in a position to want to house swap. We did however think that living in the same area of neighborhood would be ideal for us. 

A few years ago that is just what happened. When I ended up living with the crazy meth addict it was 3 miles from my x with the Jr. high school our daughter went to right in between us.

It was like a yellow brick road opened up. I said to him it looked like we finally had an opportunity to fully share custody. 

Before this we were living on opposite sides of town. Even with our daughter not being in school this meant he usually only saw her on weekends.

 
When we lived within walking distance of her school she could walk home to his house with her step siblings or I could pick her up and bring her home with me as was our custom. 

It really grew their relationship and blessed his life. We did things like every other three days or whatever she wanted. 

There is freedom in being able to communicate, compromise and share.