By Kate Lohnes

You can pick your saying – lemonade from lemons, silver linings from clouds – and chances are Rob Crane subscribes to it.

A physician who teaches family medicine at The Ohio State University, the Dublin resident says he has an unconventional idea for parents who, like him, must go through the process of divorce. What’s more, he has taken to the Internet to publicize his and his family’s experience. His ultimate hope: to inspire and educate others with a different approach to divorce.

Crane is the founder of the Web site KidsStay.org, which launched at the beginning of October. The site details a different solution for couples with children who decide to divorce. Instead of shuttling the kids to and from each parent’s house, they instead stay in the family home while parents move back and forth. This way, Crane says kids can keep their own rooms, pets, friends and neighborhoods.

Crane’s Web site, as well as the method it describes, comes from personal experience. When he and ex-wife Sandy divorced in 1993, they both feared their daughter Whitney, then 8 years old, would be traumatized by a traditional divorce arrangement.

“We faced a challenge that many splitting couples face,” Crane says. “How do you maintain a sense of family for the kids? The data on the effects of divorce on children is bad. They experience more anxiety and depression, more behavioral and physical problems. We wanted to mitigate that as much as possible. My ex-wife is a social worker and I’m a physician, and we’re both very aware of the issues.”

Crane says he brainstormed the solution to keep Whitney in the family home and Sandy was immediately receptive to it. However, such a method was practically unheard of at the time, with no existing literature to use as a guideline.

“There was nothing (about it),” he says. “We looked around. We’re both used to looking at medical and social literature, and we couldn’t find a thing. We both got a lawyer, so we asked them if they had heard of anyone doing this and neither one had.”

On his Web site, Crane details the arrangement he and his ex-wife developed. Not only does the site include testimonials on the experience from Sandy and Whitney, but it also includes a copy of the house schedule (which parent stayed at the house, called “Rushmore” because of the street name, on which days); details on living arrangements (each had separate bedrooms and a house or apartment of their own); and the legal documents they used to secure the agreement.

Crane says he had no qualms providing such personal information on the Web site, although creating the site was ultimately a group decision.

“I’m not concerned (about privacy), although I think both Sandy and Whitney had substantial concerns about privacy at first,” he says. “I think for a while, our then-teenage daughter was like, ‘Yuck, are you kidding me?’ But now that she’s out in the world, she understands, and she looks back on the experience in a more important way. Of course I’m disappointed in the divorce. It was a terrible thing. But I’m proud of how we handled it.”

The unique arrangement came with its own set of potential issues, Crane says, many of which he, Sandy and Whitney had to iron out as they navigated the years together. Primary among these was Crane’s 2002 marriage to current wife Shannon. Even after the new couple moved to Dublin, Crane says he still maintained his schedule with Whitney: on the nights Crane spent at “Rushmore,” Shannon stayed by herself at the Dublin house.

“You have to elevate your game and ask, ‘What’s the priority here? Can I act like a grown up?’” he says. “You can’t predict everything that’s going to happen, but you have to say, ‘Let’s be grown ups about this.’ That’s the problem most divorcing couples face. They move away from adulthood and back into an insecure, angry, hurt place.”

The experiment ended five years ago, when Whitney went to college. Crane and his ex-wife sold “Rushmore” and used the profits to pay for their daughter’s education. Now Crane says his objective is to reach out to other couple’s via the Web site. He’s sending letters to a network of friends and co-workers, and he’s already heard from three couples – from Maryland, Nebraska and even Zimbabwe – who have tried a similar approach. He’s hoping to hear from even more in the future, and include other people’s testimonies on the site.

“I’m completely open to ideas of how to publicize and promote this idea, as well as put together meaningful discussions for folks considering this,” he says. “The real message of the Web site is this: if you know someone who has done something similar, please have them contact us. This is a logical solution. It’s not for everyone, and it does involve extra effort and a modicum of extra expense. For people who put their children before everything else, this makes sense.”

For more information on Crane or his Web site, visit www.kidsstay.org.

Kate Lohnes is assistant editor of Dublin Life.