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Twin mom: Co-parenting is not easy but necessary

Maybe growing up in a broken home allowed me to make sure my kids' home wasn't broken in half even though their parents are no longer married.

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Mary Alice Bell with her co-parent and twin boys
By
Mary Alice Bell
, WRAL assignment editor
RALEIGH, N.C. — I come from a broken home. Not only was my home broken, it was severed, and decades later I still deal with the pain.
Growing up I heard the word custody not co-parenting. There was mom’s time and dad’s time. Maybe I was lucky to grow up in a divorced home so that I know what not to do.

Maybe growing up in that environment allowed me to make sure my kids' home wasn't broken in half even though their parents are no longer married.

Not long after I had my twin sons, I found myself choosing between my happiness and the happiness of my kids in relation to my marriage.

I chose my happiness to ensure I could be the best parent for them. That meant getting a divorce.

With that choice, I also took on the responsibility of making sure my kids were as happy as they possibly could be in our new life and new family journey.

To do that I had to make sure I had a good working relationship with their dad. We both had to work at building a new friendship. It wasn't easy, nor was it really that hard, as friendship wasn’t where our struggle was.

I am aware not every divorce can be so lucky, but I would like to believe that in most cases when you base your decisions on “What will make my kids happy?” everything else seems to fall into place.

It's not easy. Had I not had kids would I be friends with my ex? I am not sure, but we have built a good friendship now and our priority together is our kids.

Co-parenting isn't easy even when you are in a committed relationship with the other parent, but it is easier than excluding your ex in the lives of your children.

Many single moms don’t have a backup. There are times when I want to be selfish and make it easy on myself and think “I’ve got this, I don't need their dad for this” or “it's just easier for me if it's just me," but what might be easy for me in the short term is not what’s best for my kids in the long run.

I overheard one of my sons talking with a friend recently. The friend asked, "Why don’t your parents live together?”  And my son said, “Well because they are just really good friends.”

My heart filled with joy. A parenting win!

I think we are getting it as right as we can and that’s all we can do.

Mary Alice Bell is a single mom of two twin boys (but not a single parent) who keep her very busy. She is also an assignment editor at WRAL-TV.

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