The Default Parent

There is an unrecognized cost of being the default parent. The parent who covers the multitude of hurts. When I divorced, I knew that he knew that I was the default parent. It was obvious in the way that he didn't even know how to hold our 2 year old. It was obvious in the way that he didn't know what their favorite foods were. It was obvious in the way that he only interacted with them in public under the watchful eyes of those whose opinions he cared about.

There is a never acknowledged cost of holding the rage when you are the default parent and you watch the non default parent hurt your child. When you see their eyes, face and entire posture change when they realize a promise has been broken or when an unnecessary disappointment is sprung on them. The carefully chosen words and the carefully modulated voice when they bring up their other parent putting other people first ahead of the relationship between parent and child. Watching my 6 year old also act like a full grown adult trying to process having been deprioritized in such a vital relationship.

My ex was never the overt and grand gestures type. So it's not the grand gestures that my children were missing and therefore commenting on, it was the small jabs that hurt them the most. And that is what made me so indignant. How dare he. He who did not even know their birthdates off the top of his head. He who did not know their teacher's names, their favorite friends, their dentist or doctor by name. How dare he additionally hurt them with small jabs and casually uttered put downs.

For us, for years, custody and placement were 50/50. Variable expenses were also supposed to be 50/50. But who bought all of their clothes when they were constantly growing out of their current ones? Who bought snow pants and boots and mittens and coats and hats and gloves and extras of each because inevitably something would be lost by December?

One of the things I have hated the most about family court in my experience is this blind insistence on 50/50 parenting. I have yet to meet a single family that is 50/50. Every family I have met has a default parent and then a distant secondary parent. Every family has that default parent who is the catch all. Who is the taker of temperatures, the dispenser of Tylenol, the answerer of the random questions like "when is my field trip and where is my form, is it signed yet?"

But the pressure of being the default parent, and doing 90 percent of the work but getting 50 percent of the credit is awful. It is heavy. Everywhere you go people will assign 50 percent of the credit for a good outcome (happy kids, fully clothed, well fed, well rounded with activities and education) to each parent. But even the briefest glance will show you that there is a default parent. When the child trips and falls who do they scream for? When the teen is scared or feeling lost and alone, who do they turn to? When the adult calls home, who do they ask for? Most of the time it is the moms, sometimes it isn't, and when the default parent is a dad I firmly believe they should also have the bulk of the credit. To me, it's not about the sex or gender of the default parent, it is the fact that there is always always a default parent.