On taking your time, having the difficult conversations and finding your tribe
What motivated you to choose coparenting?
I was recently single and wanted to have children without putting pressure on myself to find a partner and possibly choose a partner unwisely due to my desire to have children. At that time I didn’t have any family who lived locally or the financial situation to mean I could pay for help. So I was worried if I went down the solo parenting by choice route that I would struggle practically and emotionally and not give my child the start in life that I would want to. I also wanted more than one child and felt that would be less likely to happen if I was a solo parent. I spent quite a lot of time weighing up the pros and cons of solo parenting versus coparenting. It turns out this is a difficult thing to do as one is not really comparing like with like, and coparenting is such an unusual thing that it is hard to work out all the pros and cons without having done it (this is obviously the same with any parenting decision but solo parenting and parenting in a relationship have a much stronger narrative in our world). Also, coparenting is obviously very much influenced by the personality and number of people you coparent with, pros and cons will differ hugely depending on one’s set up.
Is there anything you wish you had discussed earlier in the coparenting journey to help things go smoother?
We actually discussed a lot before we went forward with coparenting, however, I have found that discussing things in the abstract can be very different to what actually happens and people’s perceptions and behaviours once they have children. Therefore, the reality of our situation is, to some extent, not how we thought it would be when we discussed things prior to coparenting. However, I still feel those discussions were beneficial as at least we could explore our values and thoughts about parenting. We also wrote a coparenting agreement which I feel helped us to explore all aspects of parenting more comprehensively. If I could change something earlier in our journey it would be to have spent more time getting to know each other and building relationships more organically. I think this is something that is hard to do if one is meeting people solely for the purpose of coparenting but it is hard to really get to know people properly over a shorter period of time or with only a few meetings. Parenting is such an intimate thing to do with other people and looking back it feels almost crazy in some ways and probably naively optimistic that we went forward with it when we were only really friendly acquaintances at that point.
What advice would you give to people at the very beginning of setting up a coparenting arrangement?
Don’t rush it. It is tempting to just get on with it once you have met a person / people who you feel you get on with and who seem to have similar parenting views as you. But like any relationship, it takes time to really build up an understanding of the other person. Trust and time to do that properly, before children come along, should not be underestimated. I know for a lot of people, time is of the essence, and I understand this can be frustrating, but it is probably the most important relationship you will have in your life; they will be in your lives forever and will be amongst the most important people in your child’s life so you really owe it to yourself and future children to take that time.
You have to bring up any non-negotiables and have those difficult conversations before you go ahead. Don’t shy away from difficult conversations as they are not going to go away, they will just get harder and more urgent if you do go ahead with coparenting. And difficult conversations and difficult topics will come up regularly and cause lots of hardship, sleepless nights and stress unfortunately ☹
Try to work for a 50/50 arrangement as much as you can. It can be tempting, particularly if you have more traditional views of parenting or one parent who is more nurturing and active in parenting, to weight it in favour of one of the parents/parenting groups. However, in my experience, this does not benefit the child. When they are little the child can often struggle going to the lesser involved parent’s house and struggle to bond with them. Later in life the child may see the less involved parent as the ‘fun’, ‘holiday’ parent who can focus on them more when they are with them as they are more likely to have them at weekends/holidays and get all their adult jobs and responsibilities out of the way when the child is not with them.
How do you handle disagreements or differences in parenting styles?
This is an interesting question as it can be quite difficult to identify differences or disagreements in everyday parenting as you don’t tend to see what they are doing very much. I have found this hard to deal with emotionally as the lack of knowledge and influence can be anxiety provoking and not what one tends to experience in other parenting models: the experience that your children are being parented by someone else / other people with whom you may not be particularly close and who you have little influence over or the potential for parenting discussions with can be isolating and difficult to manage. In an ideal world one would discuss parenting regularly and bring up things which were important to talk about but this is particularly and uniquely hard to do in a coparenting relationship specifically, for a number of reasons. The opportunity to talk is limited, once your children are past about 18 months you cannot talk in front of them and as you don’t live together you may have few chances to speak – even after the children have gone to bed can be difficult to organise and not always conducive to long conversations. Also, feelings of judgement, control, over-involvement, meddling etc are difficult to reduce – this is true of all parenting relationships I am sure but seems even stronger in coparenting as the relationship is more transactional. When we have discussed significant decisions or differences it has been difficult to negotiate – we have more than 2 people involved in coparenting so more personalities and views are involved. I always try to look for the positives, ‘win-win-win’ solutions, putting my ego aside, being as self-aware as I can be, apologising wherever and whenever necessary to reduce conflict and friction and always trying to maintain or redevelop positive relationships. This has been extremely hard at times, but finding a way to have good relationships is always going to make coparenting easier for oneself as well as the children so it seems really sensible to keep trying to achieve that.
What has been your biggest day to day challenge and how have you managed it.
I think that has been finding ways to communicate about things. This has been hard for a number of reasons, practical reasons, different ways of communicating, different comfortableness levels with communicating, different expectations of communicating. Managing it is a work in progress! Trying to meet in the middle and understand their point of view – people view communication very differently and it is important to see one’s own views are also subjective, there is no ‘right way’ a lot of the time.
What would you say to other LGBT+ families considering coparenting.
Spend time getting to know each other, even if that slows down the decision. This is probably the most important decision you will make and one that you have to live with, for better or worse, for the rest of your lives! A rushed decision could lead to much unhappiness or difficulties in terms of the parenting journey.
Ensure you have your own support network, particularly if you are going into this single. Do not assume they will be your support network. They might be but equally you will want a support network of people who have known you before you started this journey and who know you other than due to coparenting. The relationship can feel very transactional at times; if you were not coparenting with these people you may not know them or be close to them so it can be difficult to feel truly supported in that circumstance.
Be ready for the fact that you will meet a lot of people that you may have to / feel you should explain your situation to (e.g, medical professionals, other parents in groups you join, ‘the school gate’ community etc). You are likely to get a lot of frustrating, unhelpful, thoughtless and basically stupid comments about coparenting from these people. Hopefully these will not be phobic but even the positively phrased ones are often still pretty unhelpful. As examples, ‘It must be so nice to have a break’ and ‘I bet you all are the best of friends’ being the ones I hear the most as well as very general ‘wow that’s amazing’ type comments. I constantly get into discussions with people I don’t even know trying to communicate the complexities of coparenting and how it has its cons as well as pros and it is often just pointless and exhausting – unnecessary emotional labour. I have not found a good way of handling these types of comments but I am getting better at not launching into a monologue about it!
Because coparenting is so unusual people often seem to have an opinion about it and feel they get it immediately in a way that they would never assume they would understand couple parenting or solo parenting as they would immediately understand that every person’s situation is different. As coparenting is still pretty unusual we become examples of a type unfortunately.
If you have connected with other LGBT+ coparenting families how has this helped you?
I have had a small amount of connection with other coparenting families but it has not led to sustained friendships which is a real shame. However, the times I have spent with other coparents has been a real relief and an emotional resource – comments they have made about coparenting have immediately echoed my own thoughts and feelings and there is something just so reassuring and emotionally sustaining to find one’s tribe and feel you are not the only one. I think this is one of the hardest things about coparenting – feeling isolated and on one’s own so much – the narratives of couple parents and solo parents are so strong in society that coparenting always feels set alongside and compared with them so one can feel misunderstood and alone at times. In my experience long term friends and family do listen and want to understand it which is obviously a great resource.
What is the biggest joy for your family from coparenting?
Being able to spend time together as a whole family, for birthdays, Christmases, holidays and seeing how much my children love that.
Knowing that my children have a much larger extended family than I would be able to have given them and hoping that that is a positive experience for them throughout their lives.
Being proud of myself for doing something different and taking charge of my decisions and future.
