During our 2019 stay, the schools here on Patmos were closed for summer break. While the elementary school was just down the hill from our house and we passed it everyday, it was quiet except on Election Day. In the early evenings, some local children played in the town square – largely off to the sides in small groups. Parents let their kids roam free and the community watched them – everyone knowing every child and every parent. Sennen and Ailyn tried joining these kids on occasion with mixed results. It turned out some could speak English but fitting in with the group required more than language skills and Ailyn not surprisingly did better than Sennen.
Patmos also had foreign children like ours. Not in droves because there are more couples and adult travelers than families. But still, a fair number of children – some of which Sennen and Ailyn would try to befriend on the beaches – or at least work out a loose arrangement over sand toys when there was a language barrier, which there often was. Sennen in particular was very intent on his sand work and swimming so unless a child – whatever language they spoke – was willing to get onboard, they were of minimal interest to him beyond figuring out what their language and national origin might be.
This time, I see children everywhere and they are all local. I don't know if they largely go away for the summer or are just more hidden when the island has a larger population, but these children are now out in force. Little ones, big ones, medium size ones, infants, high schoolers, in school, coming out of school, not in school at all for unknown reasons…. There is even a noticeable number of pregnant women – which is a big difference over neighboring Turkey where Emily noted on several occasions that we have never seen ONE obviously pregnant woman, a mystery yet to solve.
Children in Patmos have freedom. They walk, ride bikes, move in packs and herds going all kinds of places and sometimes nowhere in particular. They seem to have a fairly relaxed, unscheduled existence and parents also seem relaxed – because well, if you aren't trying to watch them or hustle them around to various activities, the job is a bit easier. Given there's only one way on or off the island – by ferry – and at this time of year in particular, only a few of those per day – and the officials and workers at the port know everyone – kidnapping is a minimal threat. Pretty much everyone else on the island knows every family – so in essence, every adult is a set of eyes that can protect or help a child.
Along our travels, I have often wondered what life is like for children in different places. Childhood is such an important phase of life, and also a very flexible one where children form around the world they're presented – which I assume is easier given the plasticity of their brains.
In America – at least in the slice of it I inhabit – children are seen as more breakable. Parents worry about how their choices and parenting styles will impact their children. We develop and curate our kids. For the social classes who went to college – particularly good schools whose names may have impacted their financial trajectory and standing in life – and want to ensure their children get the same, the stakes can feel high. So making sure their children have all the right things to perform well and fit in – tutoring, sports, gymnastics, music, dance, swim lessons, art – becomes an occupation. Even if we could magically make the world as safe as Patmos, would our children then have the opportunity to wander and enjoy freedom?
My children are no different. They have more after-school activities than I would like. Lately, I have felt like their sports – particularly Sennen's baseball – rules our lives. I would prefer they have the afternoons to play and ideally see friends organically. Although, given how many families keep their kids busy after school, spontaneous play doesn't come as easily as it did when I was a kid. There are of course competing views on what's best for kids. While I'm in the Patmian and Balinese camp in believing that unstructured time with reasonable freedom make for the healthiest kids, one of my heroes, Lee Kuan Yew of Singapore, believed that childhood is the time when we have the most energy and creativity – and children and teens should make use of it. Singaporean kids often stay at school long after classes end – engaging in extracurriculars and sports until dinner time.
How to raise kids best is on my mind because the way I have done it could well change for good. Instead of co-existing with my kids all of the time, I may well get only half the time. Until now, when Emily and I have differed in our parenting perspectives, we have worked out either a consensus or at worst, a suitable compromise. We have had every incentive to collaborate on the best strategies for our kids and then worked together to create those outcomes.
But what if we no longer have either the incentives or requirements to agree and cooperate? What was a strength of being able to talk earnestly about what one thought the other might be missing becomes another criticism or scratch in the wound best left alone. The best outcome becomes staying out of the other's business and letting each other parent to their best – even when it may mean biting one's tongue.
Right now I'm concerned with how much junk the kids report eating. I can see a little more weight on Sennen despite all the exercise he gets. My perception is that perhaps Emily is compensating for how she feels about what the kids are going through by giving them more treats. I can't actually know and moreover, I'm 7000 miles away and she's in charge. So the best thing is to let Emily manage Emily's watch. If the situation were reversed, I would want the same.
And that may well be what happens. As previously mentioned, if we're divorced, I will probably favor long blocks of time – three months at a time in my current thinking. I wouldn't want Emily playing backseat driver or registering her criticisms during my shift. And I need to do the same for her. Our kids will likely get a more disjointed parenting experience with two sets of rules and two sets of examples at different times.
Sometimes that sounds hard and confusing. Sometimes I worry that the cohesive structure they have enjoyed until now – and which I think has truly been so good for them – will be gone for good. What will the world feel like then? Will it be more confusing? Will it feel less supportive? Will the messages be contradictory? Will it be unnecessarily hard?
On the other hand, Emily and I each have things we uniquely offer our children. That part is no different than it ever has been. Emily and I are not the same person and while we may have come together on a common set of values and rules, we have always had different gifts to share and different approaches to our parenting. Emily likes to create fun activities to do with the kids. I prefer to spend time with them doing everyday things like grocery shopping or going to the car wash. Neither is right or wrong – they both have value and create memories. Emily believes special moments make outstanding memories. I believe that time together is time together – and that learning how to navigate the everyday, but essential things has real, practical value for being a successful and responsible adult. Neither is wrong – or perhaps better said, both are right.
On the other side of things, we might find very different ways of dealing with our kids adjustments to change. Maybe mommy apologizes with treats and daddy apologizes with extra freedom or with trips to far-flung places? Who knows?
I try to remember that children know the difference in the rules and how things work between their homes and grandparents' houses. My mom lets my kids do ridiculous things and showers them with toys and treats. They kids never come home expecting Bubbee's rules to apply just as I knew that my own Bubbee and Grandpa's house was a totally separate world from home. There were no M&M's while watching TV in bed at my house, nor did I ever think there should have been.
Nor did different rules affect what I learned from each person. My parents set important examples that shaped me as did my grandparents. Each one of them presented their values and gifts – and I absorbed them all. Even though rules and examples were different, most of them weren't mutually exclusive or confusing. Among those things that were incongruous, I was presented with choices which with observation over time I was able to evaluate and come to my own conclusions. Is pumpkin pie better made with both brown and white sugar – or solely white sugar? Brown. Is smoking a good idea? No. Is it important to wear slacks everyday? No – almost never. Are there very finite men's vs women's roles? No. Do coins need to be washed? No. Butter or margarine? Butter. Is free-pouring pancake batter into shapes the best way to make breakfast? ABSOLUTELY
Perhaps in a divorce scenario, that's what it will come down to for my kids. They will be presented with two sets of rules and examples, some of which will overlap and some of which they will sort through and come to conclusions in their own time. I suppose some of this happens even when parents are together – because of the inherent differences between parents as human beings. I also suppose that this process is what our teens and 20's are for anyway – we try things on. We reject our parents' values and examples and then maybe try on some of them, or this and not that – or something Grandpa did, or something from a movie, or what a cool friend did or a favorite college professor. I have no doubt that when the chaos of ages 18 to 28 settles, my kids will be able to pick out what matters. I think for most of us, we come back to the best values we saw growing up and perhaps knew were right in the first place.
Talking to my kids everyday – usually twice a day – I can see they are okay. Sure, Ailyn complains regularly at how long it feels for us to be apart and how she wishes I would just come home. But she is also smiley, happy and sweet. At school, the younger grades use a "mood meter" – a chart that teaches them about their emotions. In the morning, the kids in Ailyn's class all put their magnets on their current moods and can change them throughout the day. Yesterday Ailyn told everyone that while she had a hard time working through her blue (the low pleasantness, low energy quadrant where things like sad and depressed are found) feelings when she first learned I was going away for so long, but she feels much better now and spends most of her days in yellow (the high pleasantness, high energy quadrant where things like happy are found).
Emily and her parents were sure the kids would feel like I was abandoning them. I was told I was leaving them at the time they most need me. Those were hard words to take. I bet against those words – because I didn't believe they were correct. My feeling has been just the opposite – that going away for a defined, temporary period was something they could more easily make sense of than their parents swapping in and out of their home every few days (Emily's plan – and I assume her parents' too). Certainly, there's no way to have a separation that doesn't hurt them. But from our conversations, Emily's reporting and now Ailyn's teacher's texts about the mood meter – I'm relieved and feeling validated.
I don't like that my time with my kids is just 20 minutes here and 10 minutes there – or maybe an hour on weekends. It's hard not to be able to touch them and I'm sad for all the little moments I miss – the questions Sennen asks when I'm serving breakfast, the funny thing Ailyn says at dinner or the being surprised by what music they ask for in the car. I miss cuddles on the sofa and grabbing Sennen's head and kissing it while he nominally protests, but is really happy that I do.
And then I remind myself that if Emily and I get divorced, this is how it's going to be 50 percent of the time – wherever I live and whatever the custody schedule might be. This trial separation is part of experiencing that. Perhaps the ineffective aspect of this arrangement is that Emily doesn't experience it. But maybe for a variety of reasons that's for the best too.
Obviously, what I worry about more than anything is my kids. I want them to have everything and be as happy and fulfilled as possible in a world that throws sometimes cruel challenges everyone's way. I never want to be the source of their pain. I want to give them everything I can. At the moment, it's not clear to me how well I'm doing for them. I have fought for my marriage tooth and nail at times – largely (but not entirely) for them. Now faced with the strong possibility that their lives will change no matter what I do, I want to make the best possible decisions for them.
My parents both told me not to worry – the kids will be fine no matter what. I have spent so long fretting and even railing against that idea that I haven't given it its due. I suppose that as much as anything, the purpose of a trial separation is to find out which of our assumptions are true and which are not. Slowly, slowly, I'm starting to see that perhaps my kids are more adaptable than I thought. Maybe they aren't the fragile crystal that the American upper-middle class assumes they are – but are indeed more of the competent pack and herd moving creatures that Patmians and Balinese consider them.
Last week, Sennen looked at a photo of the two of us and told Emily angrily "this picture is wrecked!" The next night, in tears, Ailyn pointed to all the photos in Emily and my room and said "all of these pictures are wrecked!" Emily told them that no matter what, I'm always their dad and that will never change… and that our family is going through changes and that can be hard… and stuff along those lines.
Emily told me this story with a note of blame and suggested I address the issue with the kids.
Over the next couple of FaceTimes, I talked to each of them about it individually. I asked Ailyn what she meant by wrecked. Ailyn told me the photos were wrecked because I wasn't there. I asked if they would always be wrecked. She said no. I asked if I came back and was there, would they still be wrecked? No, then they would be okay. Sennen and I had an almost identical conversations. Whether that was a revision of their feelings to deliver a more palatable story to me or not, I can never know. But, if they are to be believed, it's possible that they didn't understand the permanent connotation of wrecked (they do try on words sometimes and stumble a little). I of course felt better knowing that coming home could un-wreck the photos.
When I reported this back to Emily, she was quite surprised. I asked her if she had asked them what they meant by wrecked. She hadn't. I think her immediate reaction was that perhaps the kids were being wrecked – in the permanent way that we understand it.
To me, the lesson is not to necessarily assume what my kids will feel, think or even what they mean sometimes. One thing I learned from my Grandma Adele who would sometimes tell fantastic stories with interesting leads like, "Did I ever tell you I owe Mel Brooks money?" and "Did I ever tell you about my dinner with Merv Griffin?" was to get in the habit of asking, "Why what do you mean, Grandma?" The truth was often a very small part of the story. (Spoiler alert: Mel Brooks gave her a dime for a parking meter once, although the full telling is far more enjoyable). The same principle applies to my children (and I assume any child). "What do you mean?" can unlock a lot and clear many misunderstandings.
Emily and her parents seem to think that the kids can adapt – but under a fairly formulaic, commonly trodden paradigm. If they pass back and forth between parents in a regular, short-cycle cadence, they will be okay. Anything else is destabilizing, abandoning and problematic. There are a lot of assumptions underpinning this view – many of them false, in my opinion. Abandonment is a big, permanent concept and given I have never broken their trust, I don't think my kids think they are losing their dad just because he's gone for ten weeks. Sure, it's not something they like – but it doesn't seem to be a crisis of abandonment.
But with Emily and her parents' view gnawing at me in the back of my mind, after Sennen explained that the photos would be un-wrecked when I return, I asked him, "Sennen, you know you and me, we're forever, right?" To which he said nonchalantly, "Daddy, why do you say that? I know that! Duh…."
And the possibility that things could be alright no matter what opened….
