Amber Rose & Wiz Khalifa Show Us How To Co-Parent

Effective co-parenting means detaching from our private, personal biases as women and as lovers for the sake of the love that is most genuine to us: our children. Our first perception of love in relationships is often the one that we see reflected by our parents. Every family is plagued with the burden of dysfunction, but in the age of social media, our disagreements are taken a step further and made public, amplifying domestic disputes.

In 2018, family matters manifest into screenshots and shady social media posts that put everybody and their mom (literally) in your business.

After a very public divorce in 2014, Rose and Khalifa show us that good parenting means putting aside a rough history for the person that matters most. Even if it means dressing up as Suicide Squad's power couple Harley Quinn and The Joker for their son Sebastian's 5th birthday party.

Amber and Wiz have definitely come a long way. It's no secret that Amber had a sordid past in the media. Years ago, the divorced couple made headlines when Wiz made a song about his ex-wife featuring the lyric, "I fell in love with a stripper, but I fell out of love quicker." Amber expressed her hurt over his words during her annual SlutWalk tearfully.

In the age where life through the scope of social media is more like reality TV, we forget that the real victims of public dysfunction are the children who are put in the middle of our sticky, adult mess.

As a child, our first perception of love is reflected by the love we see between our parents. I think about my own relationships and I can see that many of the behaviors that I tolerated and exhibited mirror those of my parent's relationship. Their relationship was so intense, so toxic, that I subconsciously yearned to find that same love for myself. I've wanted my parents to get a divorce since I was 10 years old. They were both such strong and intense people I felt that they would thrive, separately.

For years, my mother told me that she wanted to leave my father but wouldn't because she was afraid that I would want to stay with him. I would have much rathered separated parents, than unhappy ones. There is a toxic notion from the past that still lingers in the black community that it is better for a child to have parents that are married, happily or not. The first thing my family says someone is pregnant is, "Well, are they getting married?"

So what happens when you've created the most wonderful person in your life with someone that you've outgrown or have no desire to see again if you had the choice?

How do you find balance when the person with whom you've created the love of your life is not your soulmate? The concept of co-parenting is an effective and progressive ideal that expresses that we all have the right to be happy and do what's best for our children as a team, even if we chose to not be romantically involved.

In the past, Amber described co-parenting with Wiz in an interview with UsWeekly last November:

"We both love our son, so it just comes easy. We don't live that far away from each other, so anytime Sebastian wants to come back here or go with his dad [he can]."

But what comes easy for her, is not often the case for most women.

Be careful with your energy; the eternal battle for your power as a mother and a woman can be taxing and deplete you spiritually and mentally gradually over time. Compromise means everything except when it comes to the happiness or well-being of you and your child.

The only way to break the cycle of dysfunction that we learned as children is to confront and reject it in our own lives, and to consequently develop a more positive perception of love.

Co-parenting is a two-person job and isn't for the weak-hearted. Sacrifice, compromise, and persistence until you get it right as a team are well worth the reward of displaying a positive message of love to your child.

About a month ago, Wiz even shouted Amber out in a freestyle on Big Boy's neighborhood saying:

"I still love her, she loves me too/
You think I'ma talk bad about her, you're through/
I never will, that's the mother of my kid..."

Pretty straight to the point.

I can't say that Wiz and Amber have a perfect co-parenting relationship because there is always room for improvement in any relationship; but even if they were having problems, they've mastered the art of privacy.

To the public eye, though they live separate lives and have moved onto new relationships, they can put aside old drama from the past; at least in public, and at least for their child, which is all you can ask for from a good co-parenting team.

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