Exes Co-Parenting in Peace?

I like to think of myself as fairly magnanimous. Generous of spirit. Warm hearted and welcoming when need be. But I’m going to be honest with you: If I had to walk my precious toddler to his first day of preschool alongside his father’s girlfriend — and my child was calling us both “Mommy” — it would be hard for me not to hurt the hag with my fingernails. And, depending how quickly I could get it off my foot, maybe also the heel of my right shoe.

But that’s exactly what happened (the dual-Mommy part, not the crazed-maiming part) in Oklahoma recently, when Hayley Booth, 26, and her ex-husband’s new wife escorted Booth’s 4-year-old daughter to day one of class. Booth’s social media post about it went viral: “If you are lucky enough for your ex to have a woman who loves YOUR child or children like their own, and one who helps raise them and shape them, why would you not allow them to call a woman they love mommy?” Booth wrote in a post whose popularity landed her on the Today show and in Us Weekly magazine. “Don’t tell me that peaceful co-parenting isn’t possible, because it is. I do it everyday.”

My parents divorced (each other and then, well, others), and I know that busting up a marriage does a number on the psyche — but busting up a family can be emotional fricking bedlam. It shakes up your center of gravity and aims a fire hose at your self-identity. So how is it that some divorced parents are so sanguine and evolved, while others resort, well, to shoe mauling?