Full Disclosure

Last week a DJ on morning radio asked his audience to call in with a secret that they have been keeping from their spouse.

A woman called in to say that she hadn’t told her husband that she caught her 9 year old son watching porn.

The woman felt conflicted.

I think co-parenting works really well when the children are very young. It serves children well to see their parents as a united front so that they cannot play divide and conquer. But at some point full disclosure 100% of the time and team parenting just doesn’t work. It isn’t concordant with reality. There are some things that are best left off the need-to-know spreadsheet—either because they are issues that resolve themselves in a timely manner and are no longer relevant when the other parent pops into the picture, or because one of the parents (typically a mother) understands that bringing in a team of surgeons when a mere Band-Aid is needed is not the better way to go.

Which is why when the press hammered Michelle Obama for referring to herself mistakenly as a single parent, I had a good giggle. It was a Freudian slip at its finest. Because all mothers, whether they have a spouse or not, at some point realize that they are single—that they are the solitary monarch of parental rule. Mothers are the immediate and proximate judge and jury-- with no need to solicit advice from an outside litigator.

And when I heard that woman confess her sin on the radio I thought Just wait lady---that will be the least of many secrets you keep---And one day, when your child is grown, you will tell your husband and laugh. And you will be happy you kept it all under wraps and handled it all on your own.

And your children (and husband) will be glad too.