Sol (00:01)
Hello and welcome back to Co-parenting Beyond Conflict. I'm your host, Sol. I'm Louise, Sol's partner. And we're here today to, first of all, wish all you fathers out there a happy Father's Day. And ⁓ today I'd like to talk to you about ⁓ special days, like Father's Day, Mother's Day, really any holidays, your own birthday.

and how these days, especially if you're dealing with a narcissistic co-parent or you're in a high conflict relationship with your co-parent, these special days can be sources of engagement and conflict. And so we'd like to talk to you about ways to reduce that conflict ⁓ so that these days remain conflict-free and peaceful.

me to say something? don't know. Let's see.

How can conflict develop on days like Mother's Day and Father's Day? What have you seen with your coaching clients? man, there's so much creativity in how a narcissistic co-parent can make your day difficult. a lot of co-parenting plans, or parenting plans, they talk about, they have carve-outs for custody. let's say your father,

and you might have a four-hour carve out for Father's Day even if it's not your custodial day. So what you do is you show up to pick up the kids. Well, maybe they're showing up and they're not wearing shoes or they didn't get a lot of sleep last night because they had a sleepover. They're basically showing up not prepared for this special moment. And so from the very beginning, you're feeling ⁓ challenged by the situation.

As well, something that I've heard about is that an antagonistic co-parent will send a happy Mother's Day or happy Father's Day message with add-ons like, even though you're a failure as a person, I still hope you have a happy Mother's Day. I saw some of that in some of the co-parenting communities around Mother's Day that people were getting very antagonistic messages and there's really nothing that they can do about it.

but besides receive abusive communication and have it really put a damper on the day with their kids. Yeah. And it's, really too bad that this is the case, but if you're listening to this podcast, you probably are in a situation where your co-parent uses every opportunity to engage with you. And I think one of the primary ways that you can unhook from this is reconsider

how you find a special day, how you create that special day. Because at the end of the day, when your kids are young, especially, the actual day doesn't matter. They don't know if it's Father's Day or Mother's Day on a Sunday, right? You just tell them, hey, we're gonna celebrate Father's Day today, right? And it could be the Monday following on your normal custodial day. And by doing that, by letting go of this definition of

this particular day is special to me, you're actually taking back your own power. You're reducing the amount of engagement with your co-parent and you're preventing them from being able to ruin your special day. Yeah, I think what I'm hearing you say as well is that people, when they have an attachment to celebrating things on the actual date, it puts them at a disadvantage if they are in a high conflict situation because that

allows for that particular date to be

ruined or to be ⁓ impacted negatively because they are set on it going well or going in the way that they would like. But if they're not attached to celebrating something on the actual date, then there is more opportunity for ⁓

making the day, making whatever day they decide to celebrate special where they have more control. You can make sure that your kids had a good night's sleep before taking them out for a father's day or a mother's day celebration. You don't have to worry about your co-parent showing up late. You don't have to worry about last minute changes because of, ⁓ you know.

and a changed interpretation of the way that the parenting plan outlines how Mother's Day and Father's Day is going to go. and if you work with or engage with narcissists in any way, the first thing you know about them is they try to ruin holidays and special days. know, their birthdays are fine and they're celebrated, but anyone else's birthdays, there's some sort of drama that comes up. So really, you're just allowing yourself that peace and freedom

By not informing them of what day is special, you're taking that power back. And as well, kids up to a certain age, if they're not on social media, if they're not seeing their friends posting, ⁓ we celebrated Father's Day, we celebrated Mother's Day, ⁓ they're really not going to know what day it is. And it's not actually going to matter to them. Kids.

often aren't tracking dates very well. mean, your kids say all the time, what day is it? Is it a weekend? When do we have school next? So they're not really paying attention. So there's the opportunity to say, ⁓ father's day is this week and we're gonna celebrate on Monday and this is what I wanna do and have that conversation directly with your kids rather than trying to coordinate with a challenging co-parent so that...

They are in agreement or that so that they are cooperating to make your plans happen as you would like them to happen Yeah, kids are super flexible this kind of stuff. If you just explain it to them, they're not gonna care They don't have the attachment like we do as adults This also just brings to mind this issue around attachment to holidays I know that for a lot of families they want to celebrate Christmas on the 25th of December they

They are not flexible around celebrating on the 24th or the 26th. And sometimes as a co-parent, you're out of position. You don't have the option because you are sharing custody with another person. So loosening your grip on things going a certain way in general can be very helpful to restore your internal peace and how easy your co-parenting experience is.

What else do want to say?

as well as an aside, if you really think about what Father's Day and Mother's Day is and what it symbolizes, I don't know about you, but I've always felt a little strange about these holidays. know, in a way, especially if our kids are young, we're basically telling them, hey, this is a day where you get to celebrate me and you get to make a card for me. Oh, here's the paper and the pen, right?

If you're dealing with older kids, you know, maybe they get it and it comes from a more authentic place But I've always felt like it's not a very authentic holiday when it comes to super young kids I think it's more something to be celebrated by a partner and if you are divorced or no longer with your Co-parent with your kids parents that ship has sailed so

Time to loosen the grip a little bit on everybody making a special day for you if you want to celebrate Father's Day And honor yourself and honor all the work that it takes to be a father or on Mother's Day If you want to acknowledge yourself in some special way, I know a lot of mothers who say I'm taking the day off. See you. See you later totally and go to the spa or have a

have a girl's brunch and that's their way of celebrating Mother's Day. And I don't see anything wrong with that either if that's how you want to celebrate yourself and your identity as a mom or a dad. Totally. Yeah.

So hope that's helpful for some of you who are dealing with Mother's Day or Father's Day anxiety or a holiday that was ruined by challenging coordination for exchanges with your kids if you have shared custody or who feel sad because maybe you have very limited custody and didn't get to celebrate on the actual day. You can still celebrate yourself and you can...

detach from ⁓ needing other people to show up in the way that would make you happy, especially an antagonistic co-parent, which they're very unlikely to do if history is any indication. Totally. All right, we'll make it a good one. And thanks for listening. Till next time.