Our Children Aren't Resilient; Divorce Breaks Them Often

One of the most damaging phrases that adults tell themselves is that "children are resilient" as a rationalization for divorce & other detrimental actions decided by the adults around them.

But they're not special creatures who are uniquely resilient; adults break them often.

Over the years, I've noticed the abundance of adults who have an immature nature about them, constantly chasing the next pleasure to satiate the emptiness they carry daily and using vanity to gain the acceptance of strangers because they've yet to accept themselves.

What's even worse, these same people have brought children into the world but still choose themselves over the ones they're supposed to sacrifice for. They see these small people as accidental byproducts of their sexual activities and not miracles that need constant love.

To love someone means that you're willing to sacrifice for them but the adults in the room have little appetite for this these days & would rather buy their children a PS5 & endless amounts of toys than sacrifice their selfish nature for the greater good of their offspring.

The adults tell themselves "I deserve to be happy," but chasing happiness shouldn't come at the expense of your children. We think that happiness is supposed to be a constant state of being and when we're unhappy for a couple of days, we need a prescription to revive it.

There is a pervasiveness about how we minimize the impact of our decisions on the most innocent population: our children. You'd need to believe that your children are resilient because you'd be a monster if you knew the damage you're about to cause and still continued with it.

I've talked to children of divorce and to parents who divorced and many of them describe how there is a pain that never goes away after a child experiences their family splitting apart in front of their eyes.

Many of these children blame themselves and can't understand why the adults seem remarkably happy while they're miserable. Yes, they were talked to prior & brought to a therapist for several sessions but no therapist can completely heal that wound that was inflicted by a choice.

Our children aren't made with the resiliency of steel but instead are as elastic as a rubber band; they're capable of bending but breaking isn't out of their characteristic. With every negative choice we make, we risk breaking them, whether it be when they're young or when older.

We model examples of adult behavior for our children but we also demonstrate what a relationship looks like for them. The dynamic between a mother and father, husband and wife, is what your children are likely to repeat, whether it be detrimental behavior or positive.

Our nation has demonstrated to the next generation that they should expect inevitable failure in our relationships and we wonder why young adults have become incredibly nihilistic about finding a happy and successful relationship.

Worse, when they happen to find a suitable partner who fulfills them and brings quality into their lives, they believe something must be wrong and sabotage a good thing because of the fear they have of experiencing the same disappointment their parents put them through.

We should not wag our fingers at the next generation and mock their failure to grow when the previous generation hindered it with their ill-advised choices. You thought they were resilient to your life-altering judgments & you're finally witnessing how injured they are due to it.

We are the sum of our childhood and the outcomes of our parents’ choices. When we fail as parents, our children are left with the burden of repairing what we broke inside of them or neglected to nurture in the first place.

So, if your children grow up to be shitty adults, maybe they're modeling the people who raised them. Maybe they were on the road to prosperity until their parents chose to chase inducing their endorphins with another partner rather than resolve differences.

Maybe we should learn to sacrifice our pride and humble ourselves by working painstakingly hard to fulfill the promise of "Till death due us part".

But our children aren't resilient no matter how many times we tell ourselves this: we break them often.