As we pointed out yesterday, in contrast to what the critics of recently-separated parents Christina and Ant Anstead seem to think, divorce does not automatically spell doom and gloom for the kids involved. In fact, another recently split celeb, Kristin Cavallari, says she’s grateful her own parents got divorced — and that her experience with their breakup during her childhood is helping her raise and co-parent her own kids with ex Jay Cutler.
Cavallari told People this week that she’s ultimately glad her parents split up when she was a kid; after all, kids absolutely do not benefit from having unhappy, conflict-ridden parents. “I understand what they’re going through,” Cavallari said of her own kids during her divorce from Cutler, “because I’ve been through it and I can take what I appreciated from both of my parents or the stuff that maybe didn’t sit well with me and I can apply it to my kids. I’m actually thankful now that I went through all of that and that my parents are not still together, to be honest.”
It’s fantastic that Cavallari is able to approach the split and her new journey into co-parenting from the perspective of a child of divorce. Counselor Denise Knowles previously told SheKnows that for divorcing parents, empathy for the kids’ perspective is key: “Trying to understand children’s needs will make them feel secure and loved during this difficult time.”
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So how can parents take that understanding into action? “Parents can involve their children by providing age-appropriate and relevant information about the divorce or separation and what it means for them,” Knowles continued.
Jo Edwards of family law organization Resolution also told SheKnows that “most children would sooner have their parents divorce rather than remain in an unhappy relationship. Being exposed to conflict and uncertainty about the future are what’s most damaging for children, not the fact of divorce itself.”
And it sounds like Cavallari is on the exact same page.
“I just think that everyone deserves to be happy. It’s not worth waking up every day being unhappy,” she told People this week. “I want my kids to see me really happy, and I want to be the best mom that I can be for them. And if no one’s happy, how are you going to be a great parent? You can’t be.”
Here’s to putting our family’s needs and true happiness first — well above any idealized, picture-perfect illusion of what that’s supposed to look like.
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