Divorce Through a Child's Eyes

When I was only five years old my parents got a divorce. Some of you may find this surprising, but I remember it like it was yesterday. I am now nineteen almost twenty. I remember it vividly though. In fact, I am the one who told my dad that my mom had strange men over. It seems kind of strange now, but I am actually a daddy's girl.

After the divorce, my mom had full custody of us. I could not understand this. She had cheated on my dad and lied so why did she get rewarded? It was not very long however, until my dad started fighting for custody. My whole childhood I can mainly only remember being with him. I have a few memories of being with my mom at her many homes. Maybe I blocked a lot of the memories of being with her out. My dad did eventually get custody of my brother, my sister, and I. My mom decided to freely sign us over to him. Full custody right over to my dad. I was happy though my dad took great care of us and still to this day does.

I learned quickly to cope. I tried blocking all of it out of my mind. Mom would talk about dad and vice versa. We were not allowed to take clothing of other items to the other parents house. What dad bought stayed at hes house and what mom bought stayed at hers. Even though it was ours, what were they going to do with it? This went on until my mom just pretty much stopped caring.

When I turned about sixteen I stopped seeing my mom much. She had missed most of my childhood really. She never really came to watch me play sports. I worked as hard as I could to start on my middle school basketball team and she never came. The same went for my high school softball team. My dad was there for every game though. It always made mi feel so proud to have him watching me. To know he was sitting there in the bleachers just to cheer me on.

There is one thing I remember very clearly about my mom. No matter what day or what time of the day it was, she would always the one who would take us to the doctor. Whether it be the eye doctor or the dentist she was the one who always took us after the divorce. In fact, I do not know if my dad ever took us much. I can not remember a time when he did. That was one of the main things I remember about her. I also remember always thinking how beautiful she was. I always wanted to be just like her. When I was smaller she was, to me, the most beautiful woman in my life.

I did the best I could to forget the memories of the divorce, but sometimes they still haunt me. Parents just remember when your going through divorce make it as easy as you can for your kids. They are dealing with enough as it is. They may act like everything is fine, but you never can really know how they are feeling.