Legal Commentary

Good parent, terrible wife/husband?

By Beldar

InstaPundit Glenn Reynolds links this not terribly insightful piece from something called "Shine from Yahoo!®" called "Mom Confession: I'm a Terrible Wife." Its author writes, "I'm a very good mother. But I'm a terrible wife." By way of commentary, Prof. Reynolds adds:

Being a good wife is part of being a good mother. If you?re a terrible wife, you?re not actually being a good mother.

That bit of punditry should have come with a tsunami warning. Prof. Reynolds' remark is going to spark a lot of debate, including some very vehement disagreement.

By definition, his comment doesn't include ex-wives, nor husbands of any variety. But I would be inclined to amend his statement to broaden it to say instead:

If you're a parent, and your kid has another parent with whom you're regularly failing to cooperate, then neither of you is being a good parent ? regardless of whether you are now, or ever were, married, and regardless of whether either of you is, or ever was, a good spouse.

I never do remotely as well, under my own metrics for judging my performance as a father, as I think I ought to do. I'm constantly aware of my own failings. But at a bare minimum, I expect myself to cooperate actively and continuously and creatively with my ex to promote the best interests of the treasure we continue to share.

Full post as published by BeldarBlog on March 25, 2011 (boomark / email).