Truth is a great value, but it is not the only value by which we live. When it comes to kids, their health and well-being trumps everything else. Especially when dealing with children and divorce.
We bring them into the world fresh and innocent. If you’re going through a divorce, your children were probably born into an intact family. This is what they know – a solid, caring team who loves them.
Much will change with a divorce.
A child is no longer able to be with both of their parents at the same time, under the same roof. Their sense of security can be lessened and they must adapt to a new way of life.
Do you really want to tell them the truth? Should they know that their father had an affair and left their mother (and them)? Do you want them to know about their mother’s alcoholism, or that Mom and Dad haven’t had sex for the last ten years? I’m not so sure.
There is a lot in life that’s private. Kids need to have their innocence. This means that they need not know everything – explicit details are better left unsaid. In my mind, their mental health trumps truth.
This opinion is not always embraced by parents, particularly a parent who feels wronged or defamed.
That parent wants the child to carry the same opinion about the other parent that they carry. Here’s something to remember, your children are not you. They are entitled to their own opinions.
So what about the truth? In most cases, it’s best to keep the full truth to yourself because it’s safe to say that the truth hurts. Obviously, if a parent is violent, disturbed, or grossly mismanaging a child, their access needs to be limited. That’s what the courts are for.
Children will ultimately come to their own conclusion about their parents. If a parent is a selfish narcissist who is always unavailable, the child will get it. It’s their call whether they have negative opinions about their mother or father, not yours.
At the end of the day, it’s their relationship. And that, my friends, is the truth.
“If a parent is a selfish narcissist who is always unavailable, the child will get it.”
This is not true, unfortunately.
As Pressman-Donaldson and others have pointed out, therapists frequently treat the adult children of narcissists and adult children in narcissistic family systems — adult children who are struggling with self-blame because they could never hit the moving target that was a narcissist’s affection.
That is because not all narcissists are obviously disinterested. The child is a good source of supply. That is incredibly confusing to children, because they want their parents to be credible (the very point that you are making in this article) and tend to internalize a feeling of inadequacy that stays with them long-term — even if they rebel externally. Parental narcissism is linked to a higher incidence of personality disorder in the children as well.
None of that changes your central point — it’s not cool to badmouth your ex. I guess I’m not understanding the veiled defense of narcissism at the end. That seems like a tone-deaf conclusion, frankly. It minimizes what is a serious problem that many divorced women have to deal with every day — most of whom have probably not defamed their exes in the first place.