Anyway, so we’re in this meeting and it’s me, my son’s Mom, her new fiancée (who only showed up in her life a year ago) and the counselor. She’s explaining to us how G- is doing well and on just about every front growing and maturing.

Great!

Except there are a few issues, and we can deal with them. He is the youngest boy in his class and that puts him rather a bit behind the proverbial 8-ball with peer pressure and being able to measure up physically to the other boys, but nothing dramatic. Finally.

I should add here that another part of my philosophy of raising boys is that they’re going to spend a lot of time measuring themselves against others, both peers and everyone else. So let them. Create an environment where they can excel in something, like free throws in basketball or running the fastest or hitting a ball the furthest, then let them all do the same things and realize that some of ‘em are better at specific things than others. And for goodness sake, let them lose at some things too. Life’s about positive and negative experiences, about your boss saying “you’re not doing well, we need to figure something out” and your significant other saying those terrifying four words “we need to talk” just as much as it’s about winning a trophy, having the highest test score and being celebrated. If we can’t raise boys — and girls! — to be resilient enough to handle both, we’re doing them a huge, huge disservice.

So we’re in this meeting and in a misguided attempt to be inclusive of the new adult in the room, the counselor says “and now that he’ll have two dads in his life…”, looking at Matt.

What the $#@* are you talking about? the voice in my head swears, even as I sit and passively observe.

“I don’t think that’s quite accurate” he says, to his credit. She realizes her blunder and quickly apologizes, saying that I’ll “always be dad and nothing can replace that” and that she meant that he has two men in his life.

By that point I was done. I was ready to walk out of the meeting. Stupid $#@$#. Very upsetting.

But being a good parent and a good cog in the machine, I didn’t say anything else, and the meeting proceeded.

Still, even days later, I’m upset about this. Is “man in a child’s life” and “dad” interchangable? Are we active, devoted fathers no more important than any other man who would be in our children’s lives?

I’m upset because it’s also my perception that the counselor would never have said “now that he has two moms…” if my girlfriend would have been present, even if we were engaged, even if she lived with me, but being a dad? yeah, that’s a role that’s apparently quite easily replaced. Just add a penis and you’re good to go.

I accept that it’s a very sensitive issue for me — in case you haven’t figured that out by reading my blog — so I posted on a Dads group on Facebook for a reality check. I described the situation briefly and here’s what my fellow Dads had to say:

RJ – Very familiar with this situation, Dave. What’s worse is when your High School Senior sends the graduation invitations announcing the graduation from the Ex’s house and her boyfriend is named on the invitation… Ouch! What happened to the other 17 years??? He gets the credit, I pay the bill.

DF – You’re ranting, but rightfully so. It’s hard to come to grips with a stepfather in your kids’ life, especially when he is so abruptly (and wrongly) elevated to peer status with you. I’m glad she recanted, but it was still an insensitive thing to say.

JA – Agreed. You are ranting, but I think awareness must be raised: In most cases there is only one dad. I wonder the best way to handle this in a face to face setting. I picture raised eyebrows and a “Really?” look.

So yeah, maybe I am more than a bit upset about this situation, but I still can’t quite get over the fact that I devote fifteen years of my life to being the best Dad I can be, change my life, my career, my values, my way of speaking, my car, my state of residence to make their lives the best possible and this other dude just shows up out of the blue and within twelve months has been elevated to “Dad” to my children, even if just for a moment?

I’ll just have to keep on this path and trust that my kids are plenty smart enough to know the difference between someone who has been their rock, the structure and foundation of their lives since before they were even born and the new guy.

What dya think? Am I out on a limb here, or do I have reason to be upset? What would you have done if you were in this meeting?

Before I do, though, be aware that I have historically used a regular old toothbrush, “soft” bristle, and that I have zero brand loyalty, buying whatever brush is on sale at the supermarket. My belief is that they’re all basically made by the same two or three factories anyway, so if I don’t want to pay for the logo or the design (really? design? it’s a toothbrush) that the bristles and basic design work just fine. Serendipitously, however, the toothbrush I have now is an Oral B.

I’ve also taught my kids to clean their teeth – twice daily – using a regular toothbrush and toothpaste. They do a good job and generally have positive experiences at the dentist, though they continually lobby for powered or automatic toothbrushes. I’m skeptical, but now with this new Oral-B unit, we’ll have to see…

What Braun sent me is, ready for this? An Oral-B ProfessionalCare SmartSeries 5000 with SmartGuide. I can already feel my teeth getting smarter!

I wanted to take a picture of the toothbrush assembly still in the box but my kids got there first. In fact, that’s a general problem with being a Dad: You don’t get to open up your own packages any more. Kind of awkward if you get things that >cough< aren’t really child-appropriate >cough< but that’s another story!

Instead, here are all the basic elements, laid out on my bathroom counter:

Notice the wireless timer on the lower right. That’s the “SmartGuide” and it’s ironic that they ship it in “demo” mode: since it’s been triggered but the toothbrush isn’t powered on yet, I’m seeing an unhappy face.

Hmm… maybe they shouldn’t have that particular display in demo mode?

Not sure how to hook all this up?

The SmartSeries 5000 comes with easy-to-read instructions:

Remember, it’s a toothbrush we’re talking about, not a new navigational computer for your private plane. Sheesh.

Fortunately I’m well trained to ignore instructions, so I just proceeded to assemble the toothbrush as seemed logical and it’s ready to use:

Again, the monitor is merrily timing something or the other, but at least I have a smiley face this time, so that’s good.

After letting the toothbrush itself sit on its charging stand for a while, I put some toothpaste on the brush, put the brush in my mouth, then pushed the power on button…

And ya know what? It’s a great toothbrush, powerful, comfortable and really left me feeling like I’d gotten a dentist-level cleaning, even with all the complexity of setting things up.

The timer’s also useful to gauge how long you’ve been cleaning your teeth and the four quadrants of the circle time 30 second intervals, so it’s great at ensuring you don’t skimp on one “segment” of your mouth because it’s less comfortable or more awkward.

I’ll give it a month and see how it works, but so far, I’m very impressed.

The SmartSeries 5000 has a street price of about $110, but Oral-B is offering a $10 mail-in rebate on select power toothbrushes through June 16, 2012. Please visit OralB.com for more information.

On Saturdays we go to league games and that takes us all over the state of Colorado. Previous weeks we’ve been lucky that they’ve been 20 minutes or so from home, but last weekend we ended up driving 90 minutes each way to Parker, basically southeast of Denver, and found ourselves in a very different community, more rural and (seemingly) conservative than the liberal bastion of Boulder and its adjacent towns. Which was fine, it’s fun to explore the state, except for the parents who were complete jerks from the sidelines.

One Dad who was sitting about 20 feet from us really should have been the team coach because he was a bloody expert on everything lacrosse, constantly hollering at his son Wyatt to do this, do that, watch for this, don’t do that, pay attention, he’s behind you, he’s behind you, shoot! shoot! take it all the way! as the rest of us had to suffer through his ego-stroking, child-spirit-crushing sideline coaching.

Lacrosse has a five minute half-time during games and when that time came around, this same jerk of a Dad stood up and went onto the field with his own LAX stick and gloves, and impressed himself showing off how well he could flip/scoop up the ball off the grass.

“Ahh,” I thought, “he’s a former player. No wonder he’s so convinced he knows the game better than the coach…”

And, before someone posts that this is yet another problem us men have, I’ll observe that this is not limited to dads. Indeed, there was a mom sitting on the other side of us also constantly coaching her son at maximum volume, even adding some belittling comments about players on our team like “get 92! get 92! you can take him!”

Now there’s nothing wrong with yelling “great play!” “good defense!” and clapping on a play well done, or even yelling something like “way to go, joey!” on a goal, but I’m not complaining here about supportive parents on the sidelines, I’m talking about annoying sideline coach parents who just don’t get that they aren’t the coach, they’re the parent.

A part of me wants to just go and tell them to shut the f- up!  but it’s quite apparent in that moment why parents get into fights at their children’s sporting events: they’re pumped up to see their child succeed, which clearly won’t happen unless they keep coaching them from the sidelines and woe be anyone who gets in their way.

Instead, what I think about is the jerk parent’s child. I’ve seen this in volleyball, basketball and now lacrosse competitions, and there seems to always be one parent who is so caught up in winning that they forget that it’s horrible for a child to experience this public humiliation. There isn’t a kid in the world who in the heat of a sporting event needs their parents yelling at them across the court or field!

I see this in our own school sports community too: there are a couple of parents who are really critical, really have extraordinarily high expectations of their children, and whose kids do well but afterwards beat themselves up for not being perfect. Yes, they made 18 points for the team, but that one shot that they tried at the end missed, and they knew it all along, they’re losers, they suck.

That’s what these sideline coach parents are doing to their children. Not making them better players or more excited about the sport, but self-critical, depressed, pissed off little people who are caught in a vicious cycle of trying to excel at a sport to gain parental approval, just to find that they aren’t good enough.

It breaks my heart.

And Wyatt, wherever you are, good luck to you. Don’t take your dad too seriously. When he’s yelling at you, it’s his own stuff he’s working out…

Then we get to school and my teen A- informs me that she forgot her new American Eagle shirt and since tomorrow’s picture day at school, could I possibly drop it off?

“Sorry, I can’t. I’m not heading back to my house today. You’re with Matt tonight, ask him to swing by my place so you can get it on the way home from school.”

Casting note: Matt is Linda’s new fiancée and has already moved into their house.

“He won’t.”

At this point I’m caught in a bit of a dilemma. Well, to be more accurate, my daughter is caught in a bit of a dilemma. She forgot her shirt and I am not going to go back to my place to get it. But she’s a teen girl and the idea of having her photo taken for posterity makes her want to look her very best, including the cute purple top that she bought just for this occasion.

Then again, it’s not my responsibility to shuttle back and forth taking care of things they’ve forgotten in one house or the other, especially when their new place is an hour roundtrip from my house.

But….

But the kids didn’t vote for us to get a divorce, they didn’t ask us to split up into two households, and it is a big hassle for them to live in two houses, not just one. I wouldn’t like it, and I’m a very organized person. As a 15yo or 12yo? I just know I’d inevitably have things at one house when I was at the other, a never ending low-level frustration about the permanence of stuff and the fluidity of my life.

So is the MIA purple shirt a natural consequence of my teen being unable to think 24 hours in advance, or is it an unreasonable consequence of the nightmare logistics of living in two houses, a course of events that she certainly didn’t want to have happen in the first place?

Worse, if I did surprise her and get the shirt, taking 30 minutes out of my busy day for driving back and forth, am I solving this specific problem (which isn’t really that big a deal in my eyes) or am I facilitating, teaching her that it’s okay not to plan ahead because I’ll fill in the cracks, make sure everything works, even at the cost of my own time and schedule?

This time, I’m going to pass. To punt. And hopefully I can help them learn how to think a bit further into the future so that they don’t have this situation arise again. But it will. Que sera, sera.

With all of that, however, one place has emerged as our favorite for its combination of shows and cute animals: SeaWorld. It’s not that my kids don’t love the rides at Disneyland, but there’s something about seeing something they’re familiar with in a new light that seems to really spark their imagination.

This time we were lucky enough to have our tickets comp’d by SeaWorld, who also arranged for us to have a very special dolphin interaction that was unquestionably the highlight of the entire visit to San Diego.

The day to depart arrived and we were quite a mob: my girlfriend Jolene, the three kids (A-, 15, K-, 8, and G-, 12) and I in one rental car, and my sister Judi and her daughter Tara and family (Corey and their 2yo Z-) in the other rental car.

Departing from Irvine, California, it was an easy hour into San Diego, including a drive past the Marine training facility Camp Pendelton, where we were lucky enough to see some sort of maneuvers, including some pretty cool looking boats kicking up a huge wake. My son G- is particularly enamored of the military right now, so next trip I want to contact the public affairs team at the Camp and see if we can get an invite to tour the base. Got a contact? Let me know!

Sandwiched between two days of rain in early April, we were lucky and had a beautiful sunny day with some patchy clouds, a perfect day for an amusement park where you’re inevitably stuck sitting and waiting for things to happen, waiting in lines, regardless of the weather. The next day rained and we heard through the grapevine that Disneyland was empty and half the rides were closed. We did much, much better with our San Diego visit.

We Get To The Park

The first thing we did was check the schedule of different shows. For reasons that escape me, the shows are scheduled such that you cannot actually make it to everything, so you really need to pick your favorites then work around those times. Then again, if there was an obvious path from one show to another throughout the day, that’s what most people would do and it’d be a permanent mob scene.

The show that the kids love the most is unquestionably Pets Rule, a quite hilarious “pet trick” show where the stars are all regular domesticated animals: dogs, cats, birds, ducks, pigs, parrots, etc. Alright, so I don’t know anyone who has a duck in their living room, but certainly in their yards…

As you can see in the pic, it’s a bright, colorful stage and the animals are really well trained but it’s always fun that one critter or another always seems to do something off-script. The previous time we’d seen the show one of the parrots ended up flying into a tree outside of the performing area and trainers had to try and coax him down. This time there was a cat that instead of efficiently zipping from one side of the stage to the other got sidetracked and wandered aimlessly for a few minutes before remembering what he was supposed to be doing. I really like these off-script glitches because they’re often more funny than the canned jokes and visual puns that are all over this particular show.

What’s most impressive about Pets Rule is that almost all of the performers are actually rescue animals that SeaWorld has adopted from local animal shelters and trained for the show. How do I know? They tell us, and that’s cool too. It’s amazing that people buy dogs and cats from breeders when there are millions needing to be adopted, most the result of irresponsible pet owners who don’t have their animals neutered. Oops. Off my soapbox.

Next up was the One Ocean show, featuring everyone’s favorite big mammal: Shamu!

This is the most well produced show in the park, in my experience, and it’s a complex multi-media production with massive screens, surround sound, and a tightly managed script of activities. There’s much information about the ocean and ecological balance — hence the show name One Ocean — but really, the highlight of the show is having multi-ton whales push massive amounts of water over the sides of the tank and absolutely soak audience members in the first 10-15 rows. We’ve never actually sat in the “soak zone”, but one day, one day we’ll do it. We’ll just have to make sure we have all our gear covered up. I can only imagine that every single performance there are a half-dozen people who after the fact realize that water + smartphone or water + fancy camera does not leave you with fond memories of your day in San Diego.

After the show we grabbed lunch — surprisingly good sandwiches, as I’ve been conditioned to expect poor quality overpriced food — and took a slight break for the Bayside Skyride…

Look closely at this view from the Skyride and all that blue railing is actually the new Manta rollercoaster that might be open by the time you read this article. It was almost done. Then again, I’m a rollercoaster wimp so I wouldn’t go on it anyway. My kids, however, love ‘em and were all fired up about the ride concept and conceptual artwork around the park. We’ll have to go back so they can experience the Manta, no question!

I think the reason I like the Skyride so much, however, isn’t so much the view of the park it affords you, along with a lovely view of Mission Bay and the surrounding areas in San Diego, but because it reminds me of the now-closed Skyway to Tomorrowland at Disneyland. I grew up in Southern California, so from about the age of 12-18 I went to Disneyland at least twenty times and got to know the park really well. The Skyway and the People Mover were two of my favorite (ridiculously tame) rides…

A bit more wandering around and finding everyone in our party (we’d split up for a bit. Thank goodness for cellphones) we went over to the Dolphin Interaction to check in for our afternoon experience, as kindly organized by the SeaWorld PR team. They had no idea what we were talking about, however, and when I learned that the “Interaction” included putting on a wetsuit and swimming with the dolphins, well, that sounds amazingly awesome, but not too realistic for a 2yo!

A bit of discussion revealed that we were confused and what we were scheduled for was the Dolphin Encounter, a considerably tamer experience where you stand by the dolphin training pool and interact with the dolphins without every actually getting your swimsuit on.

We walked over, met the trainer who showed us the ropes, and got to have a very personal interaction with the dolphins, as you can see in this photo:

It was really fun and exciting. We were all grinning and laughing as we learned the different hand gestures that had the dolphins spinning, swimming towards us, waving a fin and even splashing us from just inches away. And being able to stroke the dolphin? Alright, it was pretty darn cool. When I later asked my kids what they most liked about our visit to SeaWorld none of them hesitated: the dolphin encounter (alright, they called it the wrong thing, but for us landlubbers, being able to pet a dolphin seemed a lot more “encounter” than “interaction”). Indeed, weeks later, my niece emailed me to say that Z- is still going around telling everyone about how he played with dolphins in California.

Great experience, but now it was time for a snack…

I have to admit, I’m a bit of a wet blanket at amusement parks in terms of treats and candy and my standard approach is that they can have one special sweet during the day, but we have to go run around somewhere afterwards. No sitting in the bleachers or queueing in a line listening to cranky children for me! At SeaWorld they all gravitate towards these delicious frozen lemonade drinks that are kind of like a lemonade Slurpee. I think the SeaWorld staff has figured out that sweet drinks and running around are a live-saving combo for us parents, and sure enough, the concession stand was just outside of the Sesame Street playground area, where the younger kids climbed, ran, jumped and generally burned off their crazy sugar energy.

Good stuff. I wish we had a playground like this in my neighborhood, except I suppose it’d be a drag when it was permanently mobbed and I had to pay more taxes to maintain the structure. Bah, reality!

We were almost done with our day at the Park as it was coming up on 5:30pm and especially with younger children I’ve learned they can run on fumes for a long time but then things tend to unravel and I’d rather leave an amusement park a bit early on a good note, wishing we had more time than leave late with cranky, exhausted children and wish we’d left an hour earlier.

We also spent some money at the gift shop, though again, my approach is to give each kid cash and say “this is your budget. don’t ask me for more”. My teen bought a cute pair of logo shorts, my son bought himself a hat, and the little one got herself a pair of stuffed harp seals. I got myself a new keychain. Nothing too radically priced, though I suppose if you’d just spend $400 on admission for your family you might be thinking that there was a bit of an entrance surcharge to be factored in.

Had we have been staying in San Diego we might have stayed later, but instead we went to Old Town San Diego and had a distinctly lackluster meal at the Old Town Mexican Cafe. I won’t go back. I love the ambiance of the place, including the roaming mariachi band, but the food isn’t much of a step above Taco Bell, in all honesty. Still, it was a nice place to have a meal and we had happy, tired children in our cars as we took the hour drive back up to the hotel, and after a short evening swim in the hotel pool, the kids collapsed into bed and fell into a deep sleep, undoubtedly dreaming of dolphins and crazy dog and cat tricks.

In short, it was yet another great visit to SeaWorld San Diego. More than the other amusement parks I’ve visited, I really appreciate that SeaWorld is very environmentally aware and that much of their effort is directed to simultaneously education and entertain, with messages about ecology, the environment, and how we can help make the worlds oceans better places for animals and man alike.

It’s still a favorite place to visit.

Special thanks to the PR team at SeaWorld for covering our park admission and the cost associated with the dolphin interaction. Both were great fun. I took all the photos myself with my trust Canon S95 compact digital camera.

It’s certainly easier to ask modern 15yo’s to raise their hand if they’re not on Facebook than if they are, that’s for sure. Most of them also now have smartphones or at least surprisingly sophisticated cellphones that give them some limited Internet and Web access, and of course every single one of them is a texting fiend, often texting late into the night, all while us clueless ‘rents relax into our pillows, dreaming about what angels we have as children.

It ain’t so.

Still, it’s not all doom and gloom and as you’d expect if you thought about it, the biggest issue that I experience talking with these teens is that they’re clueless much more than looking for trouble. Simple observations like how your postings on Facebook can be easily shared with people you don’t know, and examples of how photos in front of houses where there’s a visible house number can in a short period be identified through Google Street View tend to make them very quiet as they rethink their usage.

And that’s good. That’s my goal. I am not a fearmonger and believe that the chance of any given child encountering a pedophile or being kidnapped or attacked because of their online usage is essentially nil. In fact, there’s a much higher risk from family members and other people that they already know from their social or academic life.

Every year, however, I also realize that there are new things that have come along that are worth discussing, particularly when I step beyond just Facebook and talk about the entire world of communication and technology.

Here’s my rough agenda for the 35 minutes I’ve been allocated:

* there’s no privacy on the Internet
* how many programs automatically add your location info (including pictures taken with smartphones)
* how tools like Google Streetview can make it easy for some creep to figure out where photos are taken
* texting and sexting (we’re debating whether to include this topic)
* some of the settings you can tweak on Facebook to make it more privacy and secure.

What am I missing? What risks and concerns do you have and what topics would you like to have raised with your own teen son or daughter in the interest of them learning how to be safe and smart as they go deeper and deeper into the online world?

Then again, where else are your children going to learn about sex than from you? And it’s not just sex, of course, because there’s a lot more to it than what Monty Python would call” the old in-out”: there’s everything to do with your values, ethics and morals surrounding relationships and intimacy too. And those transcend something as daft as just saying “our family’s all about abstinence. end of story.” because even if your children do marry having never been physically intimate it’s a sure bet they’ll have been emotionally intimate with one or more people along their journey to adulthood.

As a single dad, it’s even more complex because my ex and I can’t sit down and have a civil conversation about something as important as how our children approach their own relationships either, so do I just assume that she’ll tell my 15yo daughter all about sex and relationships? And, for that matter, do she and I as co-parents actually view relationships, commitment, and trust the same? Our life paths demonstrate that we do not view these similarly. ‘nuf said on that topic.

So it falls to me as Dad to talk about all of this with my children.

Okay. I can do this.

Fortunately, one resource I have is my friend Certified Sex Therapist Tara Galeano. Yup, that’s her real job. She offers monthly lunchtime talks on various topics, including talking with your teens about sex. So I went. And it was me, the lone parent, and a bunch of other local therapists. Hmm… do parents not talk about this stuff with their teens? Or do y’all think you’ve got it completely wired and don’t need advice or help?

I also got some books. I like books, and research just about everything before I jump into it, whether it’s as banal as getting started with iPhoto or as complex as teens and sexuality. I also got a review copy of The Sex-Wise Parent and it was awful, all doom and gloom about pedophiles and shockingly devoid of actual practical advice and tips on how to talk with your children about sexuality and relationships.

Well heck. No easy solutions.

Instead, I’ve just been talking with my daughter about my relationships, my background, what I think is important in a relationship, and her being completely confident knowing that I’ve always got her back if she has to suddenly split from a party or if something goes south with her and her boyfriend (or another person in her life), even at her Mom’s house. And sometimes we talk about sexuality, but I gotta say, I’m not comfortable with the topic. At least, not with her. She’s my little girl!

One thing that did jump out at me from the last talk that Tara gave, however, was how so many children learn about sex and sexuality from books and magazines that their parents leave around or hide insufficiently to truly keep them from curious little eyes. I remember as a young boy being astonished at a family friend who left his issues of Playboy on the coffee table (and his wife didn’t mind!). I liked visiting. I’d, um, read it for the articles, of course.

I asked Tara for some suggestions on books I could “accidentally” leave around that would be appropriate for my teen daughter and my rather precocious 12yo son to read and get some decent, accurate information about sexuality that was also consistent with my own beliefs and values. Turns out that the AASECT (American Association of Sex Counselors, Educators and Therapists) has a book list designed for us parents to leave laying around for our children to read on their own time and without us parents staring at ‘em.

I went through the list and here are a few that I’m most interested in:

• S.E.X.: The All-You-Need-To-Know Progressive Sexuality Guide to Get You through High School and College by Corinna, Heather.
• Beyond the Big Talk: A Parent’s Guide to Raising Sexually Healthy Teens, by Haffner, Debra W.
• Everything You Never Wanted Your Kids to Know About Sex (But Were Afraid They’d Ask): The Secrets to Surviving Your Child’s Sexual Development from Birth to the Teens, by Richardson & Shuster.

She also recommended teensource.org as a good resource, so I’ll check that out.

Now, dear readers, how are you talking about sex and sexuality with your children, what are your experiences, and have you found any books that are actually useful, interesting and something you’re comfortable knowing your teens are eagerly pouring over?

Last year, just before Mother’s Day, however, my own Mum passed away. And of course, for the last few years, I have not been motivated to help my children pull together cards and presents for my ex. If we had a smoother, less contentious ongoing relationship as co-parents, perhaps that’d be different, but as it is, my involvement in the process is one or two reminders “did you make a card for mama?” then the kids are on their own.

I didn’t have a great relationship with my own Mom, and have always been closer to my Dad. Still, for every Father’s Day press release I receive, I get a half-dozen or more related to how amazing mothers are, how they’re the heart of our culture and civilization, and how the earth would stop rotating if we didn’t celebrate them in fine style (and with a generous bankroll).

Yeah, I’m being sarcastic. If you’re reading this, though, you already know I’m passionate about father’s rights and about how our culture marginalizes fathers — and men in general — and how I think that’s a disaster, so it shouldn’t be too surprising when I react this way to a holiday that basically says “give birth = you’re a hero and an angel among mortals” while we continue to be bombarded by images of fathers as incompetent dorks who are happy to ignore the kids if they can just get another round of golf in or meet up with their buddies at the bar.

So Mother’s Day has always been a mixed bag for me, more so after my divorce and doubly so now that my own Mum’s passed away. It’s a holiday that I can’t really celebrate much at all.

I realize I might well be alone in this sentiment and it might mark me as a cranky curmudgeon but it’s a drag to receive a veritable river of mother’s day media releases this time of year without any mothers to celebrate in my own life. My kids have me. And they’re lucky at that.

Bah, humbug. I miss my Mom.

Let me set the scene: My kids get a two week spring break, so in the spirit of doing something fun and different, I rented a place on the beach in Southern California. Fun, and space for us to spread out, and we’ve even added some additional players: my sister, her daughter and her daughter’s young family (including a two year old). So far, so good. Everyone gets along, my kids adore their little second-cousin, etc.

But every evening so far my 15yo teen spends much of her attention on her phone, incessantly texting her boyfriend back home for hours on end. What they talk about I don’t know, but I surmise it’s mutually reinforced wry commentary on the banality of life (I envision: “whatcha doing?” “nothing. what you doing?” “nothing” “bored” “bored 2″ “miss you” etc)

There is an element of rudeness to someone being in a social situation and texting their friend instead of participating, but that’s not really what’s happening because we are tending to playing with our own devices too, iPads, iPhone games, books, etc. So what she’s not doing is sitting in the corner texting while the rest of us are at the table playing a game or similar.

Still, it bugs me. But is it just me wanting everyone to be that mythic nuclear family where we do sit around and play games and talk because we’re all in the same space together — a highly unusual occurrence, I’ll add — and am I just so old school that I should just “get over it” and be glad she was willing to travel with us in the first place?

I should add that during the day when we’re doing things — read “at the beach” — she’s completely present and doesn’t even bring her cellphone with us to the shoreline, so it’s not like she’s completely unplugged and acting as if she’d rather be home hanging out with him than here at the beach with us.

So what’s your advice, my friends? What’s a smart and reasonable way to address this situation of too much evening texting? Or should I just chill the heck out and let her do what she wants when we’re on holiday?

So here’s the latest letter I got:

I’m about to become a divorced dad.  I don’t want that but it’s the direction it’s going in.  We have two adopted kids, 5 and 8.  It’s really killing me because of the kids.  We’re going to tell the kids tomorrow.  I read your piece on talking to the kids and how to do so.  After a crippling discussion several years ago of why they were abandoned and adopted, now “here we go again” is what runs through my mind.  I travel a great deal, well at least I did , which is what brought us where we are today.  I recently, very recently received an offer for employment locally, which is a miracle in today’s economy.  I did so to be close to the kids, especially due to the split between me and my spouse.  We’re still living together, and I’d like to have your thoughts as to how to best move forward.  Thank you

My response to the writer…

Sorry to hear that, it’s definitely not what your children signed up for when you all created a new family, but sometimes it’s just the journey life takes us on. How’d they take it when you told them?

If you really are getting a divorce rather than just having a separation, I would say that one of the best things for healing and moving on with your life is that one of you, you or your spouse (when i was in that state, I referred to my wife as my STBX, Soon-To-Be-Ex, fyi) to move out and get your own place.

I think it’s way easier for the adults and helps the kids start to understand the two-world reality that they are now in.

Otherwise, is it too late to seek a counselor for you and your wife to try and work out some things? Even if your life is a one-way street towards divorce, at least resolving tensions and difficulties now can help make a smoother future. My ex refused anything like that and I have to say that five years later she’s still so upset that I often end up communicating with her fiancee because it’s a smoother path for us to reach an agreement on issue related to the children.

I’ll also offer that divorce doesn’t mean the kids need to end up stranded. It’s never easy, but if you’re both attentive, loving parents, you should be able to work out a parenting schedule where they still feel held and nurtured as they grow up. After all, they are your children and you do have a moral and ethical commitment to them over and above any hassles you might have with your STBX.

Good luck to you. Hope it goes reasonably smoothly…

Now, dear reader, have you had any experience with divorce with adopted children? Anything different that you did or felt you needed to do — or wish you had done — given their life circumstance?