An article from Today’s Parent is circulating on today’s AFCC listserv.  The article is entitled “11 successful co-parenting commandments:  Follow these rules to rock at co-parenting.”

While all the commandments are well worth following, it reminds me of a book from a number of years ago entitled:  “All I Really Need to Know I learned in Kindergarten.”  Among the rules are “keep you hands to yourself” and “if you don’t have something nice to say, don’t say anything.”

In other words, while the article is correct in everything it says (which is why I linked to it above), co-parenting really does not need 11 commandments.  It needs one.  Per Rabbi Hillel:  What is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow: this is the whole Torah; the rest is commentary.”

If the rule is that simple, what makes the implementation so difficult?  The answer is that emotion sometimes trumps rationality.  It is in those instances that the commentary, such as these 11 “commandments” might prove useful.