I took my Parents Forever course today. It’s not a thing I would have signed up for if it hadn’t been mandatory. (Live in MN? Have a kid? Getting a divorce? You’ll be putting in eight hours to make sure you have a basic level of skills.)
It was a good program. I picked it because it was virtual and created by the University of Minnesota, and they seem like smart folks. I think I could have passed the quizzes without the course, but it only took a fraction of the eight hour allotment, and I learned a few things I hadn’t had names for.
I’m thankful that, as much as I hated that my parents divorced, they set a good example for how to be neutral, and if not warm to each other, never unkind. There was no yelling, no using me or my sisters as pawns or sources of information, no bitching about the other (though there’s no way they didn’t have those thoughts). So it doesn’t seem hard to do that-or-better in my own divorce. It didn’t feel hard to know what answers were obviously the right (healthy) ones.
And it still took something to do this easy, short, virtual course while sitting on my deck in my pajamas. Maybe loosening that grief, not imparting the parenting tips, was the whole point.
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