The clock struck 7:00 PM on Sunday, and my stomach tightened into a familiar knot. It was the witching hour. The handover.
Headlights swept across the living room window. I took a deep breath, bracing myself for the transition from the peace of a quiet house to the chaos of re-entry.
My ex-husband, Rob, walked the kids to the door. They didn’t look like the well-rested, clean children I had sent off on Friday. They looked like they had survived a minor natural disaster involving high fructose corn syrup.
“Bye, guys!” Rob chirped, high-fiving them. “See you next week for the water park!”
He looked fresh, energized, the picture of the “Fun Dad.” My ex-husband picks the kids up on weekends, buys them toys, and takes them to theme parks. He gets to be the event coordinator of their lives, the man who exists solely to facilitate joy.
“Bye, Daddy!” my son wailed, clinging to Rob’s leg as if he were being shipped off to a gulag.
Rob peeled him off gently, shooting me a look that was half-pity, half-smugness. “Go easy on them, Sarah. He lets them stay up late,” he noted, “so they might be a little groggy.”.
Rob got in his car and drove away, leaving me with the wreckage.
I ushered them inside. The collapse was immediate.
“I don’t want to brush my teeth!” my daughter screamed, throwing herself onto the rug. “Daddy let us skip it last night!”
“I’m hungry!” my son cried, despite holding a half-eaten bag of gummy worms.
He drops them off on Sunday night, tired, cranky, and sick from sugar.
I spent the next two hours deprogramming them. I was the one wrestling them into pajamas. I was the one confiscating the candy. I was the one forcing them to look at a math worksheet when their brains were fried from forty-eight hours of screen time.
“I hate this house!” my son shouted when I put a plate of steamed carrots in front of him. “Daddy said ‘Mom is no fun because she makes you do homework and eat veggies.’“.
The words stung, precise and designed to undermine me. Rob wasn’t just being lenient; he was positioning himself as the hero by casting me as the villain. He got to be the “Yes Man” because he knew I would always be the “Responsible Woman.”
By 9:30 PM, the house was finally quiet. The tears had dried, the teeth were brushed, and the vegetables were (mostly) eaten. I sat on the couch, exhausted, staring at the silence.
I realized then the unfair math of our co-parenting. He gets the glory; I get the tantrums.
He gets the highlight reel—the laughter on the roller coaster, the sleepy cuddles during a movie marathon. I get the behind-the-scenes footage—the meltdowns, the discipline, the structure that keeps them alive and functioning.
But as I walked past their rooms and checked on their sleeping forms, I corrected the thought. He gets the glory, yes. But I get the parenting. He is a visitor in their lives, a provider of entertainment. I am the architect of their character. And while they might scream at the architect today, one day they will realize who actually built the home they live in.
