The Moms-In-The-Hood
When the e-mail invite to a reunion of neighborhood Moms dropped into my inbox three weeks back, I’d marveled at the timing of the event. Only days before it arrived, I’d read a guest essay about the legacy of divorce in The New York Times (7/5/21). As I turned the pages of the newspaper, I couldn’t help but reflect on the role these women living so close to me—and who were very married at that time—had played in the way I felt about myself back in 1997. Which was the year I turned in my badge as a wife.
The Times piece (wherein the noted author Joyce Maynard explored the details of her divorce from today’s perspective of the thirty-two intervening years) sparked in me a host of recollections about my own long-ago marital implosion and its effects on my daughter, then seven years old. In particular, the author’s reference to a longitudinal study by psychologist Judith Wallerstein, one that had struck anxiety in Maynard, had resonated with me, too, and at a high pitch.
Wallerstein had published her groundbreaking exploration of divorce in 1989, and an updated version appeared in 1996, the year my marriage completely unraveled: her research postulated that the negative effects of divorce on a child were absolutely profound––and remained so all the way into adulthood. Difficult as these findings were for me to face as I contemplated a split with my husband of twenty years, I nevertheless made the decision to terminate a marriage I could not salvage.
Still, in spite of the trepidation, guilt and fear over the impact of my actions on my daughter and whether she would be able to balance her life under the burden of so much upheaval, I also felt a concomitant relief for myself. The divorce would turn out to be critical to my growth as a woman—and as a mother, too.
After perusing the article that day, I’d scanned the accompanying readers’ comments––varied and impassioned weigh-ins about the path Maynard had elected to follow, and the emotional repercussions for her children. All of these remarks resounded with me. Some unnervingly so. The posts that deemed divorce a “selfish” act, and that couples should stay together for the sake of the family, struck hard in the moment and resurrected the dread I’d felt when I’d contemplated the judgments others would make upon learning of my decision. Perhaps the most intense memory I had was how nervous I’d been as I steeled myself to tell the Moms-In-The-Hood of my decision to go solo.
My fear centered around the choice I’d made to raise my young daughter in a community that boasted “intact” families almost exclusively. Would it prove to be too hard to swim against the current? Would the “broken home” label that was so prevalent then cause these mothers, whose friendships I valued, to shun me?
They and I already lived side-by-side with our differences: I was a working Mom and they were of the stay-at-home variety. In the wake of the anxiety and confusion the end of my marriage had caused my child, I determined that continuity and consistency were the qualities I most needed to give her: restoring a sense of stability for her was what mattered most.
Yet, how could I be sure that these women, whom I’d known only a couple of years, wouldn’t quietly steer their own seven-year old daughters, all of whom were good buddies and classmates of my girl, away from the playdates and carpools we shared? And to what extent were my goals for my daughter’s relationships unduly influenced by my lonely childhood and a long-standing desire—and need—to be accepted by others? To become part of a circle?
Now, as the day of the Moms’ get-together neared (only our third gathering in almost a decade), my thoughts traveled once more to that time when I was the newly divorced parent in our group of twelve––the career psychologist who had just modeled how to abandon the matrimonial ship for her child.
You know, we never really knew John, Mary Beth from the next block remarked, shrugging at my news. You’ve always been the funny one, anyway, so I’m just going to stick with you, she added, her grin turning sly. Wow! blurted another. Are you doing okay? What do you need? Offers to provide help, including last-minute childcare, were common. All the responses had been kind, even among those who seemed genuinely perplexed by my situation. As a private person, one who hadn’t been in the habit of discussing her marriage, I understood that they were puzzled. But what I hadn’t expected was so many no-drama Mamas; women who were generous with their hugs and who, most importantly, avoided proffering advice.
Eventually, the “Moms” became the “Buncos,” the name assigned to our Friday night no-brainer dice game; happily, we played each month over glasses of wine and homemade desserts. After electing to rotate hosting duties, Bunco night became a regular event that lasted throughout our kids’ childhood and teen years––morphing into a Christmas-time get-together only after they had launched into college or careers.
Throughout that period, I remained the only divorced parent in our group, but there were no detectable differences in how we shared our fears and our dreams for our children: ours was a group where we could be both vulnerable and strong; a collective of what prominent psychoanalyst D.W. Winnicott might have deemed “good enough” Mamas, the ones who supported each another through both happy and hard times with grace.
On Saturday night this week, unless the guest count changes, all twelve of us Buncos will gather again, and together we will toast our friendships, which have now hit the quarter century mark. I’ll be marveling at our relationships once more, but this time it won’t be in response to the timing of the invite and my reading the piece on the legacy of divorce. Rather, it will be over our great good fortune to have maintained tight bonds with one another—those which have survived without any of us ever having been cast in the role of the “odd-girl-out.”
What I don’t imagine happening come Saturday evening is a preoccupation with the legacy of my divorce on Grace, who is now an adult. I expect—as has been true for many years—that I will be far more eager to share in the exchange of the triumphs and travails we each have faced in the time since we socialized last en masse.
Such lack of interest in no way implies that I dismiss how difficult—and sometimes devastating—the impact of divorce can be for children. My own, I am certain, suffered under its weight. But how, and why, and to what degree, are all her story to tell, as well as how she managed those difficult years until she could make her own decisions about her life.
As for the legacy of divorce? I am most likely certain about only two things: the first, that like so many critical life decisions, the complex realities associated with ending a marriage do not lend themselves to simple, opposing categories. Good vs. bad are not helpful dichotomies. And the second? That when I made the painful choice in my marriage to “go solo,” I was lucky to have been embraced by the Moms-In-The-Hood.
Best,
