What Parallel-Parenting Is and How To Make It Work

My Story

I feel like this post has been weighing on me for a while. For the majority of people reading this, you probably already know that Bruin’s father and I separated a few months ago and we’re now “co-parenting” Bruin. It’s been a traumatic experience and although I’m not ready to share all of it, I feel like I need to share some of it here. Out of respect for Bruin’s father’s privacy, I will not mention him much at all on this blog or any of my other social channels. I’m just sharing what it’s like for me, a first-time mama, dealing with a separation, and having to learn how to co-parent my baby when he was only 15 months old.

To the mamas going through a hard time in your parenting journey, or just a hard time at all, if you think what you’re going through is impossible, you are not alone! Chances are, someone else knows how you feel in some way, and chances are they feel alone too. Let me just share a few thoughts I have that run through my head daily…

I’m going crazy.

I’m living a nightmare and I’m not waking up from it.

The best times of my life are also being tainted with the worst times of my life.

I feel like a whole half of me has been ripped from my body.

Unfortunately, I can imagine there are many other mamas that have felt this exact same way before. Everyone’s situation is different and unique in some way, but I am certain that a few other mamas know this pain, and my hope is that they will feel comfortable enough to reach out to me or to just follow along my journey and know that they’re not alone. I have found immense love and support from women around the world that I have never met in person, and I’m telling you right now they are a huge part of how I’ve handled going through what I’ve gone through these past few months.

The difference between co-parenting and parallel-parenting

I am sure everyone reading this has heard of the term “co-parenting” although the definition of it may differ from person to person. To me co-parenting is when two people have a child together but never had or are no longer in a romantic relationship with each other, they work as a team to raise their child “together” but separately at the same time, two parents that are in a healthy relationship with each other. Bruin’s father and I are not actually co-parenting, we are doing what is known as “parallel-parenting”.

It wasn’t until I was going through this that I even heard of the term “parallel-parenting”, and I’m sure many of you haven’t either. Parallel-parenting is when two people who were in a romantic relationship and had a child together are unable to or do not work together as a team to raise their child, they do so as separately as possible, and often times need a mediator or a lawyer to get anything figured out for their children. Let me just list a few differences between the two here:

Co-parenting	Parallel-parenting
Can problem solve together	Cannot problem solve
Go to dr. appointments, birthdays, events, etc. together	Do everything completely separate
Share necessary information with eachother freely and then some	Share information minimally, often times in a business-like way through email, writing, or even monitored communication apps.
Talk on a continuous basis while child is with each parent	Parent that has child does not communicate with other parent unless there is a medical emergency
Raise their children as one, they share the same rules, same schedules, etc.	Raise their children completely opposite.

Of course, these vary widely depending on each situation, but for the most part, this is my parallel-parenting situation. To give an example of what it’s like for me, when Bruin goes to his father’s (we alternate 3-4-4-3), the only communication I have with Bruin is sometimes a FaceTime call and a picture or two. I don’t know when he wakes up or what time he goes to sleep. I don’t know what he’s eating. I don’t know who he’s around or where he is. I don’t know his safety. It is EXTREMELY hard to go from being with Bruin every minute since he was born to this. His father has also decided to put Bruin in pre-school, even though I wouldn’t normally agree at such a young age. But I have no say in the way he raises Bruin, so the vision I had of watching Bruin walk into his first “school” or “classroom” with the cute bookbag that looks 5x too big for him will not happen anymore. But that is the reality of what parallel-parenting looks like.

Bruin went from me putting him to sleep every night and being there when he wakes up every day to going three or four days a week without seeing me at all. My heart breaks thinking about what he’s thinking, and if he’s wondering why I’m not there all the time anymore. My mom took this picture below last week. Bruin wouldn’t let me put him down for a nap, he would cry whenever I put him in his crib. I sleep trained Bruin when he was 6 months old, so this was very out of the norm for him. Maybe it was an 18-month sleep regression. Or maybe, I thought, he just needed his mama because he’s confused. I thought maybe he just thinks that when I leave the room I won’t come back for days. So I just held him.

I understand not every mother can be there every day with their children. But I imagine, for instance, a mother that is a flight attendant and has to leave for days will receive updates every few hours, will know who their children are with the entire time they’re away, will be able to talk to them as much as they can, but that’s not what comes along with my parallel-parenting. When Bruin is with his father, I feel as though my role as a mother is completely gone for those days, and it is painful. It’s painful to go hours without knowing your child’s wellbeing, to hear them or to see their face, and having to go 50% of their life like that is not something I was prepared for, I don’t think I will ever be prepared for this. The picture I had in my head about becoming a mother and what my family would be like is nothing like what it actually is. What I’m learning to deal with now is being so happy and so sad at the same time. I’m happy I get to be with my son again, but I’m sad I don’t get to be with him all the time. I’m happy when he’s here, but I’m sad because I know the time is coming when I’ll have to hand him to his father, kiss his forehead, and not see him for days. Walking by his bedroom at night and seeing the door open puts a weird feeling in my stomach every time. Seeing his toys or his clothes when he’s gone makes me smile but it also makes me cry. It is just such an emotional rollercoaster that I can only hope and pray isn’t as hard on Bruin as it is on me. 

So, what are the positives?

• You get time to yourself. I admit that the minute I got pregnant my entire world changed to being all about Bruin. Bruin’s father was gone a lot, so it was just me and Bruin 24/7, I rarely had time to focus on me as a separate entity from Bruin. If I did have time, I was doing housework. “Co-parenting”, with all its time apart from Bruin and all the emotions I have felt, has forced me to look deep into who I am as a person and who I want to be. It has forced me to find happiness with myself, outside of being a mother.
• It gives your child(ren) time with both parents. Our situation has given Bruin more time with his father. 
• You get out of a relationship that wasn’t meant for you, you give yourself another chance at being happy. I remember wondering if it was better to stay in the relationship for Bruin, or better to get out of it for Bruin. It was a decision that ultimately I didn’t have to make because it just happened, and for that I am thankful.
• The time away makes you appreciate the time you have even more. The way Bruin’s face lights up when he sees me for the first time in days is a feeling I can’t really put into words. Again, it makes me sad but it makes me so happy to see him so happy.
• It makes you live in the present, it makes you notice the “in-betweens” not just the “firsts”. They always say you notice the firsts of your children, their first smile, the first time they crawl, walk, eat, etc. but you never notice the lasts when they happen, the last time they crawl, the last time they sit in their highchair, the last time they get rocked to sleep. Co-parenting has made me notice every moment. When I put Bruin to sleep the night before he goes to his father’s, I take in it, I think to myself, this is the last time I’ll put him to sleep before he goes to his father’s. Most of the time moments like this make me cry, but it also makes me FEEL them. I’m living in every moment and feeling through the hurt and the emotions and I’m being present. I hold him a little tighter. I rock him a little longer. And as much as I’ll be missing out on his life, I’m making up for it when I have him, and I’m thankful for that.

What has helped so far

• I quit drinking. The time when his father and I were still living together right before we separated, I was drinking a lot. I wasn’t facing my emotions, I wasn’t prepared to deal with what I knew was about to happen, so I numbed it all. I haven’t drank since the night I left that house and that relationship, and I’m dealing with the hurt and pain by FEELING it. I don’t know how I’m doing it, but I know numbing it will only make it worse.
• I set goals for myself. I knew I needed to be productive, I needed to make sure I was BUSY when Bruin was gone. I usually go on a crazy cleaning spree as soon as he leaves. Then for the next few days, I have something to focus on and feel good about. I get done what I need to get done while I have the time.
• I made sure I knew who that one person was that I’d be able to call no matter what, that person I can call and say the most out of the world things or to just scream or breakdown and cry. I have a person that I can call that doesn’t tell me what I don’t need or want to hear in those moments. And I think we all need that.
• A co-parenting app. This is new for me, but I know it will help. I did a lot of reading on different apps and believe me THERE ARE A LOT. I set one up and wrote in all the schedules and holidays. There’s a place for notes, a place for pictures, a place for important documents, and even a place to communicate that can be monitored by a mediator or an attorney. My plan is to have myself and Bruin’s father keep note of Bruin’s day-to-day schedule so we can try to keep it as consistent as possible.

If I had to give advice, it would be this…

First of all, I would not change a thing in the world about Bruin. Or anything leading up to him because then I wouldn’t have him. I do want to say though, if I could go back in time (and still have Bruin) I would have made sure I did these things.

Talk to the person you are planning on having a baby with, ask them what being a parent looks like and what it means to them, what they value in life, know if they truly love you, and more importantly if they love themselves, that you have that feeling deep down, the “you just know” feeling, that you and him would be together forever, because let me tell you, having to raise my baby separately, knowing 50% of Bruin’s life I won’t be in, is HEARTBREAKING. Never would I ever had imagined that when I felt my baby kick for the first time, preparing everything to become a parent, going to all the dr appointments, going through labor, and delivering my baby, never did I ever imagine for a second this would be my motherhood.

However, not everything goes as we plan, so doing all of that isn’t always an option for everyone. If you didn’t plan to have a baby but did, then that’s what was meant for you. My situation obviously wouldn’t happen with everyone, and some people do end up working out and that’s great, and sometimes even ending up in my situation may be a good thing for people. Maybe you had issues with your significant other before having a baby but you guys got through it and are stronger than ever now, AMAZING. No matter what happens, if you have the family of your dreams or you end up going through something similar to what I’m going through, know that WHATEVER YOUR SITUATION IS, it IS for a reason.

In the end, after all is said and done, I know that this will lead to exactly where Bruin and I need to be. I may not see it now, but as time passes I know it has to get better. I’ll be sharing a lot more on co-parenting, parallel-parenting, and just parenting in general. So reach out to me and connect or SUBSCRIBE so you don’t miss my next post. I love each and every one of you!

Xo, Emily