I have discovered it. I considered writing a tell all, best-seller. Perhaps touring the world with a carnival side show - a red velvet curtain that people pay to enter and learn this profound secret. Then I thought about putting the secret inside a soap wrapper and getting into the soap business. Imagine the millions I would make as scores of divorced parents scrambled to learn the secret of a well adjusted child.

Instead, I have decided to just post my formula online. Open Source parenting, if you will. Feel free to adjust to your needs and improve. Just, please, make sure that you credit the owner and provide the improved version as well.

Well adjusted Child from Divorced Parents = Shared Parenting (as near equal as possible) + Interest in Child + Quality Time + (Common Sense x 1,000) - (Bitchiness and Vindictiveness) + Love and Support

Please keep in mind that this formula can still work very well with the Bitchiness and Vindictiveness as long as the child does not see or sense it. However, the formula actually creates bitterness, depression, and insecurity if the Shared Parenting element is missing.

Why the long ramble? Here’s why. I was “congratulated” by my Son’s 2nd Grade teacher recently on how well behaved, mannered, and adjusted my son is. According to his teacher, she has never met a child from divorce that is so confident and well-adjusted. I don’t know what you’re doing, she said, but kudos to you. It’s called luck - I’m lucky that my ex-wife set a precedent during our separation that equated to me receiving custody of my son 45% of the week. Thank goodness for small miracles.

She does not tell you social scientist support shared parenting and the children of divorce by a 70 percent margin did not like the time they lost from the non-custodial parent they were kept from.

Preach on, man. I hear ya.  Shared parenting works. It’s crucial to the formula.

Valerie King, an associate professor of sociology, demography, and human development and family studies at Penn State, recently published her findings that not only do children need their fathers for healthy development, but that Step-parents play an integral role as well. Even more surprising to me was King’s acknowledgment of the unpopular belief that sometimes children are better off if their parents divorce.

Another contradiction to prior research, which believed a child with two parents in his or her life is better off than one, may not necessarily be true. Obviously a happy marriage between two parents is best for children. However, King said if there is constant turmoil between the parents, their child might be better off with just one parent in his or her life and less turbulence.

My parents divorced when I was very young. While it was difficult at different times throughout my life, there is no doubt that my siblings and I were better off. Staying together for the children in an extremely miserable or dangerous situation is neither healthy nor practical.

Kudos to Valerie King, for pointing out what so many divorced fathers and step-parents know.

According to a study in the Canadian Medical Association Journal, children of divorce are twice as likely to be prescribed methylphenidate (Ritalin). The study explored the possibility of genetics as well as need, but it also had one conclusion that was particularly interesting:

A second possible explanation is that, although clinicians are advised to distinguish between the symptoms of attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder and the effects of stressors such as parental divorce on child behaviour,³⁰ a prescription for methylphenidate may result simply from increased contact with the health care system in the period following divorce or the heightened sensitivity of parents and clinicians to problematic child behaviour in the presence of stressors. This explanation suggests that methylphenidate is prescribed inappropriately to children whose parents have recently divorced. Unfortunately, there are no questions in the National Longitudinal Survey of Children and Youth that allow for testing of these causal pathways. Therefore, the findings of my study cannot reveal whether methylphenidate is inappropriately prescribed to children of divorce.

Essentially, it’s possible that parents and physicians are hyper-sensitive to a child going through divorce. They believe that the child should be suffering from behavior problems, and are looking perhaps a little too hard for signs and symptoms. Essentially, a mass delusion. This doesn’t really surprise me, and probably accounts for more cases of ADHD than we’d like to admit.

Don’t get me wrong. I believe that ADHD is very real. One of my best friends suffers from Adult ADHD. It’s obvious to him, his physician, and his friends that medication significantly improves his ability to concentrate. However, I also think there are a lot of children running around popping Ritalin that simply don’t need it. It appears that there are a lot parents and physicians ready and waiting to dole out Ritalin to a hyper children, when many of their issues might be attributed to:

1. A poor diet
2. Too many video games and not enough exercise
3. Boredom with their school work
4. Little or no time in nature

And the list could go on. I was an extremely hyper child. And had I been born 20 years later, I would easily have been a prime candidate for Ritalin. Thank goodness my family simply put up with it, because I eventually grew out of it and developed ways to help myself calm down.

Kudos to CMAJ for at least opening the dialogue that maybe- just maybe- children are being over-prescribed ADHD medication.

MSNBC’s  story today- Stay-at-home mom’s work worth $138,095
Annual: amount she’d earn as a housekeeper, cook and psychologist- attempts to assign a value to parenting responsibilities. CNN posted a similar story.  Not only do they not mention fathers AT ALL, but the whole premise is ridiculous. I cook everyday for my family when I get home from work. I walk the dog, do laundry, clean the house, pay bills, help with homework, give baths, and dole out medicine on a regular basis. Do I need to start adding to my resume chef, professional dog walker, cleaning person, accountant, accounts payable, teacher, care-giver, and nurse’s assistant?

I have to agree with most of the comments left on MSNBC’s forum: not only is the study sexist, since it completely ignores the growing number of stay-at-home dads, but more importantly, it’s simply useless.

I have the utmost respect for ALL stay at home parents. My personal goal is to achieve stay-at-home dad status, but I don’t think I need Reuters assigning a monetary value to me every time I water a plant (there’s a new one to add: horticulturist). Bleh.

If you missed The Mommy Bias Round1, check it out. According to a prominent study: Child care was defined as regularly scheduled care by anyone other than the child’s mother, lasting at least 10 hours per week.

A study in the European Sociology Review concluded that custody arrangements are the primary contributor to lower contact frequency between divorced fathers and their adult children. According to the study:

To explain the lower contact frequency of fathers when compared with mothers, as well as the variation in contact frequency among divorced fathers, we use an investment perspective. We identify five investment factors: involvement in parenting during the marriage, the custody arrangement, pre- and post-divorce conflicts, alimony payments, and (not) starting a new family. About half of the effect of divorce on the contact frequency between fathers and adult children can be explained by the custody arrangement.

The sad thing? This study was conducted in 1998. I have to wonder exactly how many books have to be written, subjects studied, protests organized, and father’s devastated- even to the point of divorced fathers committing suicide- before we pass laws that promote a 50/50 custody presumption.

I ran into a friend of mine last night that has been an important role model for me over the years as a father. It just so happens that he’s an enormously talented poet as well. I know that fathers are often looking for a poem or post that they can relate to; that sums up how they feel. A poem that captures that, sometimes agonizing, love for their children. This is one of my favorite poems by Richard about his daughter. I hope you enjoy it, and make sure to visit his site and buy his book. Also check out my Alms for the Brilliant Lens.

From the book Borrowed Towns by Richard Newman

Mowing

Sitting quietly, doing nothing,
Spring comes, and the grass grows by itself.

—classic Zen poem from the Zenrin Kushu

I’m no Buddhist, but I know enough of lawns
to say the grass grows by itself even
when I’m not sitting quietly. Take now,
for example: I’m in a terrible mood, full
of so much desire and April cruelty
I could wash away the four noble truths,
and, almost as I mow, the new growth
pushes against my chloroplasted shoes.
Even as a child visiting Virginia,
I gazed down picnic-perfect battlefields
and guessed that before the last cannonballs
burst and the last dying soldiers cried
their mothers’ names into the air, the grass
was already swarming back up the bloody hills,
as it now goes about its green business
with entrepreneurial zeal, cracking sidewalks
and disheveling my brick patio.
And when my daughter swings in our back yard,
crying, “Watch me, Daddy! Look how high!”
I look up from the mower as she launches
into the leafy arms of the trees, the whole
swingset heaving, then swoops back down again,
her bare feet riffling over the blades,
grass I scattered with my own two fists,
and I know—sitting, standing, quiet or not—
that as she grows there’s nothing I can do.

(originally appeared in The Sun)