A “Dear Mom & Dad” letter written by a child of divorce.
Dear Mom and Dad,
I know you’re both suffering. I’m suffering too. I feel bad because you don’t pay attention to me. I might be still small and can’t always express my feelings clearly, but I know how you feel as you are going through your divorce. I feel like my heart is breaking every time when I see you fighting.
I know I’m just a child, but I have feelings just like you do. I also need love, attention, care, understanding, patience, and, what’s the most important, to feel that I have a place in your lives.
Don’t fight about me, and don’t involve me in your conflicts. Don’t lie to me that everything is okay, because I know this is not so. All you prove by your fights is that your marriage was a bad step, and if you paid attention to me, you would know that you are destroying my childhood.
With your divorce, you’re killing everything in me that I thought about the positive side of life, especially the most important thing, that love is unconditional. By your divorce you simply show that everybody’s replaceable. With your squabbles, you’re suggesting that I shouldn’t fall in love and shouldn’t love anyone, because at the end I will end up disappointed and in a lot of pain, and it will be very difficult to recover.
I might not understand everything, but you must know that you are responsible for me, and if you fight, you are destroying my emotional safety. I need to feel that you’re taking care of me, you’re protecting me from bad things, and I can count on your help.
Your divorce makes me so afraid. I don’t even want to think about spending the rest of my childhood with only one of you, with my mom and dad never being with me at the same time.
Your divorce will scar me for a lifetime, and I will always remember that good things only happen to good people – so I’m probably a bad person.
Don’t forget that I’m only a child in your divorce.