Co-Parenting: Not for me, not for us

First of all, I just wanted to say hello again! I'm going to start writing regularly because it's the new year and I have sorted out the few things that made it difficult to blog.

From now on though, I will be blogging about various aspects of my life and not exclusively on parenting. My life has always been so multifaceted, and I don't think I've ever been able to capture the full essence of my life in this blog because it's only ever been about parenting. As many people would expect based on their own personal experiences, every part of my life coexists with the other, so writing about being a mom and having a little boy wouldn't be possible without including my personal relationships with people, my career successes (and-god forbid-failures), my family, my education, my hobbies and pastimes, my dreams, and other random tidbits spackled throughout the blog here and there and everywhere.

So to start my blog this year, I wanted to talk about co-parenting.

To me, co-parenting is a phenomenon. My son's father and I are not together, and we haven't been since my son was conceived. It's always just been assumed that under these conditions, we must, then, co-parent my son.

However, that's not the case. I have always been the sole provider and caregiver with the responsibility of parenting my son - with the help of my loved ones, of course - and that's been the bulk of it. 

So, what if I had to wait on someone else's opinions or choices before acting on something that would ultimately affect my son's future?

I suppose you could say that I have the luxury of not only deciding how I want my son to be raised, but also the luxury of actually raising him that exact way without being told otherwise or challenged by another decision maker in his life.

What is co-parenting? Well, by definition, it means that two people are parenting their shared child, under the conditions that the two people are neither married, in a romantic relation, nor do they cohabit.

In many cases, this is the best method of parenting for a child - given the situations of the parents' relationships with each other and with others. Sometimes it's not the best method, but it may be the only one that works. And hell, sometimes it is neither the best, nor does it work, but the judge said you have no other choice. And then you have anomalies like me. I am the single, sole parent of my son and there is no registered father or second parent to challenge my authority in raising my son. Sometimes this can be because one of the parents is deceased, sometimes one of the parents has simply "left", and in some other cases, sometimes one of the parents has been "taken away".
Now, to clarify, for those of you who met me after my son was born and know nothing of the parent situation, I am the only parent of my son and that is why my son holds my family name.

So, co-parenting...

It requires a specific and minimum level of maturity from both parties in order to work. And if it wasn't already obvious, it does require both parents to acknowledge their role as a parent.
Okay, well before I actually get into this, I just wanted to say that I have no credibility whatsoever to tell you about co-parenting. It's never worked for me. I'm the only one with guardianship over my son. The only time I've ever attempted to co-parent was an odd some 2-3 years ago and that failed miserably. It lasted about a month.

I know exactly why it failed and why it would fail again if I ever had to parent my children with someone that I couldn't trust with my life. Being a sole-parent at the age of 17 was really challenging, but it was (and still is) a blessing in disguise.

I'm not a control freak, but just imagine having to depend on someone who had a racy past and indulged in drugs, and was notorious for promiscuity and petty crime to share their input on the decisions that would ultimately define your son's life and future. I know it was a disaster to even try and it would have been full blown chaos if I was crazy enough to keep it going.

Before having a baby, you have to plan a lot of things with the other parent that require a level of consensus or agreement because to make a decision without the other parent's say would be downright blasphemous against the order and nature of all things good in this world. 

Something as little as what shampoo you should be buying could start a riot and don't even get me started on what could happen when two parents are on the debate of what kind of a diet they should be implementing for their children. It extends to the sports and extracurriculars you want your children to enroll in, and of course, what kind of shows on the telly or movies they should be allowed to watch. These things could make or break the relationship that good parenting should be built on, which is why it is imperative that two people not only get along, but agree to most things before having children. It's really hard to just settle your differences when the decisions involve your children. 

I remember before Matheson was born, there was the whole debate of circumcision. For me, there were more factors weighing in on this decision than just "what I preferred". The province in the Philippines where my parents are from consider circumcision as part of the culture and that was all I knew. As far as I was concerned, Matheson was going to be circumcised and there wasn't a question about it. But then there was a debate brought up by concerned friends and other members of the family and after doing my own personal research, I made a decision.

When I stopped breast-feeding, people always had their opinions about the formula Matheson should be drinking, or the brand of baby foods he should be eating. Should he be eating jarred baby food or should I puree his food myself? He wasn't even a year old yet, and I would be conflicted by opinions all because the brand of lotion he should be using or even keeping baby powder in the house were of subject matters linked to controversy one way or another. And the fucked up thing about society is that these items of infinitesimal importance will either make you look like a bad mother or a good one. And then of course you have situations where one parent doesn't give a damn and the other parent gives too many damns and suddenly it's a bloody war zone because baby's onesie has too low a neck line for grandma's approval. I didn't have another parent to argue with and somehow I still had to deal with the issue of whether or not he should be eating from a whole organic diet and whether he should be wearing certain colours because they didn't flatter him as well as others - courtesy of my mother. 

For me, all these things tend to work themselves out because ultimately it's my decision in the end. I either get too fed up to argue and let the naysayers win or I put my foot down and tell them that he's my son and this is the way I want it. Well, let me tell you, if my actions had to be based on the shared opinion of a person I hated, my son would have gone through far worse than he already has just putting up with his dad.

Seriously, those of you who don't have kids yet, let me just tell you that you have two realistic choices in raising a child the way you want them to be raised.
Option 1: You make babies with a person who is your soul mate in every aspect and who will not dispute or challenge your method of parenting because they share the same values and virtues and methods of living as you believe to be best.
Option 2: You have a kid by yourself where NO ONE can dispute or challenge your method of parenting because no one else has the authority to.
Any other option generally results in fighting and arguing because obviously if you can't agree then you disagree and when you disagree, you argue. Which is why co-parenting would never work for me. If I had to make a decision and "negotiate" what I believed was right for my kids just for the sake of maintaining civility with the other parent, I would lose my marbles. You have to want to agree and truly agree with the other parent. And odds are likely, if you're in a situation where you're co-parenting, it's likely that the reason why you're not married, in a romantic relationship, or cohabit is because you don't want to agree with them nor do you ever agree with them. But parents aren't made to always agree. "Soulmates" only exist that way because they're made to challenge you and you them without disrespect from the challenged or the challenger.
If you challenge their methods or vice versa, you both have to trust and respect each other enough to believe that those challenges are out of genuine concern. You have to cooperate with them as equally as you expect them to cooperate with you - and if you can't do that, well then, you're on your way to a miserable life together.

Challenge is good, and challenge inhibits development and growth. But sometimes challenge - when taken the wrong way - could leave scars and result in detrimental effects to your children. 

Before you have a child, you need to understand that everything from discipline, the books they read, the movies they watch, the time they go to bed, the food they eat for breakfast - it's all influenced by the world around that child's parents and how that world affects their parents' decisions. But conflicting decisions between parents begets arguments and disagreement and conflict. When two parents can peacefully reach an adequate resolve of those conflicts, it can (and more than likely will) promote growth and loving environments.

There are a handful of co-parenting success stories that I've heard of before, but those relationships are not for the weak (or psychotic). Both parents need to be mature and cooperative, afterall, you are setting an example for your children.

Co-parenting is not for me. If/when I decide to have more kids, it will be with the person I trust and respect the most, or it won't be with anyone at all. I mean, let's get real here, there's no one I trust and respect more than myself, so knowing that my soulmate just so happens to be exactly like me, I know that I can give them the due trust and respect I intend to share in raising my children.

Yupp, co-parenting didn't work the first time, and that's all I needed to know before deciding that I would never attempt it again. My son's life is way too important for me to go messing it up with bullshit parenting experiments and that's all there is to it.