Clinical Faculty Member
Harvard Medical School
On a gorgeous spring day, a friend and I walked my dog down Newbury Street in Boston. We passed by a sidewalk café where a young girl sat with her father, eating sundaes, which were what first caught our attention. Two empty chairs were full of shopping bags.
“Divorced father,” my friend said as matter-of-factly as if he’d identified a Dalmatian dog or a vintage ’65 Mustang. Who knows if my friend was right? If I had to bet, though, I’d go with his hunch.
I suspect the majority of divorced fathers do not take their daughters out for lunch and fancy shopping sprees every weekend. But many of the divorced fathers I’ve worked with try to make their time with their children fun. It is often at the father’s place that kids seem to watch movies that aren’t allowed with their moms, eat foods that aren’t allowed at home, and stay up later than they should. You get the picture.
And, of course–I can hear the thunderous protests–political correctness and reality require my proviso that sometimes it’s the other way around, meaning stricter fathers and more indulgent mothers.
When children spend less time at your home and with you, there is a tendency to make the most of it. This fosters an unnatural and unhealthy disequilibrium where the primary home is left to discipline, set limits, establish structure, hold expectations, and perform the harder necessities of family life. The “visitation” home becomes the place for everything else. Divorce can make the “removed” parent feel less central, critical, and essential to the children’s daily life and caring. Not always, of course, but sometimes.
The child, however, needs their parents to be parents and do the important parenting stuff just as much as ever, probably more now. The child needs that parent to be there for all of the things that the same parent might do in an intact home and marriage. Both parents need to nurture, feed, care, support, inspire, and discipline. The out-of-the-primary home parent must be careful that, even when they have limited visitation, they build in room and space for the essentials of everyday life, whether it’s toothbrushing or getting the math problems done or doing that ten minutes of reading or, just as necessary sometimes, to be in conflict that needs resolving. In some ways, a child’s not getting that stuff is tantamount to losing that parent.
If overindulgence is an issue, it’s an issue, divorce notwithstanding.
Spouses who are divorced can have a wide range of difficulty negotiating and communicating around family life (the same difficulty they had while married). Strive to get over it, or at least, create enough space to discuss, problem-solve, and implement parenting plans in collaboration. Children do not need their parents to be in perfect synchrony. The goal is not for two parents to live and parent as one.
Do your utmost to uphold your end of the parenting equation, even if you dislike your ex. If, for example, your ex confronts you about having no bedtimes for your elementary-school-aged children, try looking in the mirror and being candid with yourself before going into a rant about what you judge to be your ex’s uptight and critical view of parenting. Even if the two of you couldn’t get along, could your ex maybe be right that you have difficulty getting the kids to bed at a reasonable time? Even if, in your opinion, your ex fails to do so much else, can you possibly note and say Good job for the way they managed some situation with your child?
Strive to do what’s needed, regardless of what your ex does. Children know the score, and at the end of the day (more like in adulthood), they will acknowledge the good parenting that came their way. Resist battling via the children. Avoid competing for their love with lenience or indulgence. This is sure to cause your children harm, sometimes big harm, and instill all the wrong messages about love, relationships, and life. Divorce itself shakes a child’s world.
Children who undergo divorce want to know that their relationships with both parents are strong and secure and not susceptible to bribery. Love me enough, to not just buy me things, but to deal with the real (parenting) stuff I need to grow well.
In my experience, I have seen several fortunate sets of divorcing and divorced parents who’ve taken their life transition as a challenge to their parenting, specifically their indulging of their children. These parents took the divorce as an opportunity not just to separate from their spouse, but to reassess their parenting. They each recognised that the guilt, pain, and distraction of divorce can lead to more lenient, aimless, and indulgent parenting, especially as the hurt of a divorce makes husband and wife, father and mother, needier for their children’s love and attention. Instead of surrendering to those untoward forces, these parents committed to a joint enterprise of guarding against their competition for the child’s affection and approval.
If there’s one single Golden Rule for divorced parents, it is to try one’s best to respect and honour the child’s love for the other parent. Nothing can make a child feel more loved by and devoted to one parent than that parent’s allowing the child to love the other parent.
I realise that this expects a lot, maybe too much of people who have experienced a lot of hurt. But what else is there to do?
About Richard Bromfield
Richard Bromfield is a clinical faculty member of Harvard Medical School, he is author of Playing for Real: Exploring Child Therapy and the Inner Worlds of Children and How to Unspoil Your Child Fast (2025).