Rewriting the Rules: Co-Parenting Through Unmet Expectations.

I rush home on a Friday afternoon from school, arriving at my ‘first home,’ where I find my mum packing my bag. No, she wasn’t kicking me out, just getting me ready to go to my ‘second home,’ my dad’s.

6 p.m. hits and we’re on our way to my dad’s, who at the time lived in Mile End. I loved spending weekends with him. It felt good to have a change of scenery and company. At least that’s how I remember feeling from a young age. Before that, I couldn’t really say, but old photos reassure me that I seemed pretty happy.

Even though my own childhood reinforced that having two homes was neither confusing nor damaging, when it came to my son facing the same reality, I started to second-guess it. Was I doing the right thing by him?

But deep down, I knew that staying in one home, for the sake of appearances or tradition, would eventually make me unhappy. And if I wasn’t okay, he wouldn’t be either. The key was to be in my own space, to feel grounded and whole, and to heal. That choice led to him having two homes.

Interestingly, this was something my son’s father and I had both lived through ourselves. We grew up with similar routines, staying with our mums during the week and visiting our dads on the weekend.

From that perspective, the arrangement felt ‘normal.’ It was what we knew, and we trusted our son would grow up with the same understanding. One thing we were both committed to, though, was doing it differently. We made a conscious effort to keep the peace, to communicate, unlike the silence and distance we experienced between our own parents.

Still, the guilt lingered. The grief of unmet expectations. I hadn’t planned for this, to raise a child in a co-parenting setup, rather than one shared home. It’s a quiet kind of grief, the one that sneaks in when you’re alone or scrolling social media, seeing a family unit you once imagined for yourself.

We are a generation exposed to constant comparisons on social media, which can sometimes deepen our feelings of guilt. But conventional families are no longer the only narrative. More and more, I see modern motherhood embracing choice, independence, and the courage to break generational cycles. This awareness shows us that the most loving thing we can do is create a life that feels right, for ourselves and our children, not just what’s expected of us by societal standards.

And in choosing what feels right, we redefine the meaning of family.

“There are many ways to be a family. The only one that matters is the one where there is love.”

-R.H. Sin.

Part of my blog series “Redefining Family, My Way” - exploring love, boundaries, and belonging in non-traditional family life.