A recent Washington post article, titled “Letting the kids stay in the home while the divorcing parents move in and out. Is it realistic?,” features DadsRights.org founder Anne P. Mitchell talking not only about why children need to have both parents in their lives after divorce, but also for the first time sharing her own personal experience with nesting. Nesting is when the children stay permanently in the family home, and the parents swap in and out.
Another variation is when both parents remain in the home, with the children, but in separate rooms, so that their children still have both parents fully in their lives.
In the Washington Post article, the section about Ms. Mitchell says:
Anne P. Mitchell, a lawyer, author and fathers’-rights activist, found that her experience of nesting evolved from an initial attempt to keep the family together. As her marriage broke down, she asked her husband not to leave but to stay in the house and sleep in different bedrooms.
“This worked very well, we were still able to co-parent very civilly, even supportively, we just weren’t husband and wife anymore,” she said.
Once her husband moved out of state, they started to practice nesting full time. Mitchell’s husband would fly in each weekend and she would move out. Mitchell believes that many parents allow their negative feelings about their ex-partner to affect the decisions they make post-divorce and that nesting can be a way to prioritize the children’s needs first.
“Children need both parents. Many divorcing spouses just want that other person out of their lives,” she said. “But that is not how it works when you have children; the other parent will always be in your life in some fashion, you will have to interact with them one way or another at least until they turn 18.”
You can read the full article here.
Have any of you nested? What do you think of the idea?
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