Transcript
Raffi Bilek: Hello and welcome back to the Better Marriage Podcast, where we are going to be giving you actionable tips every week that you can use to make your marriage better on the spot. So today's tip is going to revolve around parenting disputes. It is super normal for people to argue about parenting, not see eye to eye on all the parenting things they do, have little skirmishes and arguments and bickering.
Raffi Bilek: Totally normal. I assume maybe you've seen lots of this when you work with people.
Ibinye : Seen it, experienced it, been there, done that.
Raffi Bilek: Oh, yes. Right. The experience it is also true. Yeah, that's an important point to make. Like my wife and I do not always see eye to eye. And in fact, as with many of the people listening, I'm sure there are longstanding disputes.
Raffi Bilek: For example, is she too lenient? Am I too firm? Et cetera, et cetera. And haven't we all been there or whatever your particular flavor of argument is? OK, where do we start with this one?
Ibinye : First of all, okay, we've said it's normal. We agree it's all normal. Do not, absolutely do not undermine your spouse in front of the kiddos.
Ibinye : Okay. It's not helpful. Doesn't feel good. And when you think about it, right, as parents, both of you should be a united front in front of the kids because you're both the authority figures.
Ibinye : You're both the ones who are giving love. You're both the parents. You're both the ones doing all the things. And we want the kids to equally love and respect both kiddos. I mean, both of both parents.
Raffi Bilek: That's right.
Ibinye : Right. and
Raffi Bilek: Now, it's important to know that this doesn't mean that you have to agree on everything or that you're not allowed to disagree ever in front of the kids. Right. what When we say undermine, it means, you know, if your spouse said, you know what? Yeah. OK, I think it's fine to have another scoop of ice cream.
Raffi Bilek: You do not step in and say, no, absolutely not. We agreed only one scoop of ice cream. Yeah, OK, fine. Right. Maybe you yeahall if if one of you says, you know what, I think let's have extra dessert tonight. The other one says, like, I'm not sure that's a good idea. That's fine. That's what that's a discussion.
Raffi Bilek: Right. And it's normal to disagree. So united front doesn't mean that we agree on everything. It means I'm not going to undo what you did and sabotage your authority because that looks real bad to the kids and makes your job much more difficult.
Ibinye : Right. Absolutely. The important thing is for for the kids to know that both of you are on the same page. When I mean on the same page, so for example, ah kids come to mom. Mom, can I go to my friend's house tomorrow? You say yes.
Ibinye : They go to dad. Dad says no. And then all of a sudden there's this big argument between the both of you. Why did you say no? Why did you say yes? It's a whole thing. No. But we want the kids to feel like Mom and dad feel the same way about the sleepover, about the whatever.
Ibinye : um Because think about this. We don't want kids feeling like one parent is more important or one parent is the authority and the other one is just there for sure. We want them to equally respect both of you.
Raffi Bilek: Right. Now, it's possible you do have different opinions about sleepovers. One person in favor, or one person's not. And that's OK. And they don't have to believe that one of you thinks what you don't. The key is, you know, if if if little Timmy goes to mom and she says, no, you can't go to sleepover.
Raffi Bilek: And then he goes to dad, which they always do this. They try to see if dad will like and dad's like, yeah, fine, whatever. Okay, that's normal. That's going to happen. The point is we don't get into an argument and we don't undermine, you know whatever the first person said, like, oh, but i already said he can't go. oh Oh, Timmy, I didn't know she said that. Yeah, we're going go. with Even if you think it's fine. She said that we'll support that and we'll discuss it later. Now, here's a really critical point about this whole endeavor is that sometimes you'll see your spouse do something you don't like. Okay, so she let Timmy have the extra scoop of ice cream. Right. And you think it's already too much sugar and he's been sugared up the whole day.
Raffi Bilek: And you might say, no, that's really not okay You might want to say, we're not going to do that. The critical point is this. The conflict you create by fighting with your spouse in front of the kids is worse than nearly any decision your spouse is going to make.
Raffi Bilek: The extra scoop of ice cream is not good. It's too much sugar. You don't like it. Fine. Timmy will survive that. But having his parents argue and really get mad and nasty in front of them because of the ice cream, that is far worse. So anytime you see your spouse doing something you don't think is a good idea, you should evaluate, is getting into a fight about this now going to be worse than letting Timmy have this? And the answer is almost always yes.
Raffi Bilek: unless there's a safety issue, you know bicycle without a helmet, car without a seatbelt, um or if there's you there's some kind of abuse going on. or We're talking about the real extreme situations. In nearly every situation, it is not worth that fight.
Ibinye : Yeah, I like that you talked about safety issues because safety issues are different. Safety issues, we always go with safety 100% of the time. A nice approach to this is you can you can pull your spouse to the side and say, hey, Timmy's had five scoops of ice cream already.
Ibinye : He's bouncing off the walls. I'm concerned that if he has one more scoop of ice cream, he's not going to sleep tonight. It's not great for his health. It's bad for his teeth. All the things. Chances are your spouse wants good things for Timmy as well.
Ibinye : Sometimes your spouse is making decisions because they don't even know the full story. So it's okay to give them more context.
Raffi Bilek: Right.
Raffi Bilek: For sure. Been there, done that also. that I've definitely been there. um However, note that if you have had the discussion about how much ice cream is enough, that's that might be an ongoing discussion to have. Again, it doesn't need to happen in the moment.
Raffi Bilek: You may not like that they let him have more ice cream again, even though you've discussed this. It won't help to do it in the moment. It will make things worse. What you do is, as we've talked in previous episodes, you take a break, you come back to it later, and then we move into helpful listening, communicating. Once Timmy's already in bed, you guys sit down and say, hey that was a really frustrating situation. we talk about the ice cream again? And you may be talking about the ice cream for a long period over the course of your marriage.
Raffi Bilek: And this again is normal. There are many situations and many disputes that will not have easy resolutions. And the solution is not to fix it, but to keep talking about it in a way that works.
Ibinye : Yes. So what are our actionable steps for today?
Raffi Bilek: Actionable step is when you see your spouse doing something you don't like, you shut your mouth and you wait until later. That is the main thing, right? Remember, take the this is the takeaway.
Raffi Bilek: Anything that you're going argue about with your spouse is probably worse for the kids than what at what what the issue actually is. Better to have the ice cream than the fight.
Ibinye : Yeah. And the one caveat we talked about was when it comes to safety, of course, we prioritize safety. So we're not saying if you see something unsafe happen, you just be like, oh, we'll address this tomorrow. No, please don't let them ride in the car without ah without a car seat. It's it's a safety issue.
Raffi Bilek: Yeah, okay, so two action items. One is don't fight and two is wear seatbelts. That's an important action item, folks. Okay, very good. Thank you so much for joining us for this week. We will see you again next week with more actionable tips for the Better Marriage Podcast.
