Children, Marital Feuds and Irreconcilable Differences

First and foremost children, no matter what age they are, are just like you and me. They’re feeling beings. Little feeling beings that are truly a gift from God specially realized once you get to know of the sensitivity and love they are capable of. They are like mirrors that show whatever emotions they are experiencing. However, rational creatures as they are, they have also have this innate “gut” feeling that sometimes, even at a young age, no matter how confusing and even hurtful a situation is, they learn to quiet up and not ask.

My child was a little over 2 years old when he witnessed an altercation between me and my husband. I can see that he was shocked and tried to utter a word trying his best to let me know what had happened since he thought I wasn’t aware of it.

It was then that I started noticing that my son’s demeanor is in accordance with the mood in the household. If there was a misunderstanding between Mommy and Daddy he tends to be sad and almost uncommunicative. There are times when he would call my attention and point to his father as if saying “Mommy, Daddy’s there.” during the times when his father and I aren’t talking. Sometimes my child would ask me to enter a room where his father is if he senses that I’m avoiding his Daddy. This also happens the other way around if he senses that it is his father who is the one avoiding me.

Such is the sensitivity of children that it makes any feeling and considerate parent humble enough to let go of whatever disagreement there was and just shove it, so they say, under the rug.

Beside marital abuse, what could be more worth it to end a marriage if such humble, loving and innocent souls like that of the children’s are involved? Do parents really know how any form of dispute between husbands and wives is all the more frustrating to a child whose only sin is to feel that the very sense of love and security he’s receiving from both parents is threatened? Sometimes, children feel any marital misunderstanding is their fault. But what is surprising to me as a parent is the realization that even a toddler, because of any sense of dispute between Mommy and Daddy, can feel that the security of his very own world, his home, the only thing he has is endangered.

Children mirror their families. Actually, people mirror their families. A happy child came from a happy family and grows up to be a happy person spreading their bright aura and bringing smile and joy to people wherever they go. They are happy to be around with. A defensive child grew up in a threatened atmosphere and learned to cling stubbornly to anything he believes he owns. A child who likes to be alone was one who was left peacefully on his own to entertain and sometimes, unfortunately, even fend for himself . Troubled people who like to see everyone in misery, not surprisingly, came from the same troubled, miserable household.

Now that am a little older and probably a little wiser brought about by years living on this planet I now know when people say do your family good. You are what your parents were. You are the family that you came from. Sometimes people are aware of this and try to change whatever wrong it is that they saw their parents committed while growing up. If they’re very lucky enough they just try to emulate the ideal family that they came from. A lot, however, grow old, weak and wasted with the misfortune of being unaware and unable to remedy their very own unhappiness and misery brought about by their very own family.

Couples made a vow when they got married. Actually, they even decided whether the one they would marry is the one they should really marry. They planned, they invited and they signed. That was marriage. They know and they should know what they were signing up for. We know and we should know what we signed up for.

However, such is the absence of vows or contract ever made or declared by any parent that they, as parents, would ensure their kids’ happiness, their kids’ sense of security and even their kids’ sense of decency. This is the taken for granted part of the marriage package. So? So, how on earth did rational, feeling and supposed to be loving people ever came up with the supposed to be very valid “irreconcilable differences” of a term that can signal the end of their marriage and the end of everything for their children?