‘I Was Right There, But You Couldn’t See Me’

By Anonymous

Dear Crown Heights and frum world at large,

You probably don’t understand me. It’s not your fault. You come from a “normal” home.

I’m from one of the broken homes. Kids from broken homes mostly look fine on the outside, but we are far from it.

Let’s just say a regular kid’s life, like say, yours, is like a chair with four legs. Stable, sturdy. Sure it gets knocked down from time to time, but it still has all of its legs underneath it and can get back up and go on.

Think of kids from divorced homes as chairs with three legs, on a good day. If our parents fight or if we have little contact with a parent you can knock out another leg or two.

You see, chairs don’t stand that great with only two or three legs. And it’s not just for one day, it’s our entire childhood and sometimes our whole life. (Our moms or dads try to do everything they can to make us feel better, but there’s a void that can only be filled by the wholesomeness of a family.)

Before you scroll on, can you spend a few paragraphs with me? It could change a kid’s life. No hyperbole.

I’m assuming you take for granted how much who you are comes from your parents and your home. You shouldn’t.

I was 11 when I found out my parents were getting divorced. I could feel it instantly in my stomach. While writing this now, I can still remember how strong that feeling was. I heard people say, that my sister and I “got the rug ripped out from under them”. Yeah. That would have been nice. This is what you (normal family people) don’t understand. When your parents get divorced, and in my case like many, it was very acrimonious, the very ground that you walk on has been removed. You feel like you’ve sunken into a dark pit and you spend years trying to climb out and stay out.

My sister and I went from being nurtured to survival mode. Picture being eleven and having these kinds of thoughts:
“Why doesn’t he love me? Why doesn’t he want to spend time with me? Why doesn’t he keep his word?”
“Why do the other kids in school have it easier than I do? What did I do wrong? Is this my fault? If only I had been a better kid, better behaved, better something, this never would have happened. I wish I had a happy home with both of my parents like my friend Shaina does.”
“Yesterday my father forgot to pick us up for his Shabbos to ‘have the kids,’ and I heard my mommy crying from her room all night. Does Tatty not want me?”
“Mommy is trying so hard and working at night. I won’t bother her by telling her that I do not understand what is going on in Chumash class or that I am getting bullied at school, she has enough on her plate.”

The very core and foundation that we needed as children, to grow and succeed was shattered.

And adding insult to injury, no one knew what we were going through. People felt bad for us, the kind of pity no one wants or needs. But it felt awful that no one “got us” or could relate to us.
Can you imagine not going to your daughter’s bat mitzvah because you want to stick it to your ex? I know, it’s hard to believe, but there are much worse things that adults do to their children in the blinding hate and revenge that they want to inflict on their ex.

I often thought that if the person who’s meant to love me the most can’t even be there for me, why would anyone else?

In our community, a community built around the nucleus of a healthy family, Shabbes and Yom Tov meals, family events, avos ubanim learning, we pretty much felt “less than,” “odd one out,” “black sheep” almost all of the time.

Then one day, life got a little better, when my mother put us into a new program called My Extended Family. This was a room with kids just like us. I remember walking in and feeling for the first time since my parents got divorced, like it’s ok to breathe in here, I can stop pretending for the “normal kids”, I can just be myself.

I started dreading when the programs would end and counting the days until the next one. We met every week, did homework, ate dinner, made some art and crafts thingie. But the best part was my “Big Sister” she became such an important part of my childhood. I had someone who could focus exclusively on me. I wasn’t a big cryer, but I remember my mother was surprised when I cried on the last day of the year. She knew how much we loved it but didn’t realize to what extent.

The program didn’t heal my pain, or bring our parents back together. We hobbled through our childhood. But the program stabilized my life in the most real way. It was like a new leg sprouted from my proverbial chair that gave me so much balance to be able to get through my turbulent childhood.

Today, the org has hundreds of kids (it’s now also for yesomim and kids whose parent is in jail) who meet every week, and a whole host of things that you can read about on their website. If you want to make a difference in a kid’s life, please please support them.

But even if you aren’t in a position to support them, I hope you learned something about that kid you know or your daughter or son is friends with. We might look ok on the outside but we aren’t.

What can you do for “the kid from the broken home”? Be our friend. Real friend. Kids are smart. No one wants to be treated as a nebach. And we aren’t. We kids from divorced homes do have a higher rate of falling into not good places but we are also very likely to grow up to be more successful than you.

Just open your heart. Be thoughtful. Invite us into your home for shabbos on Tuesday, not on Friday morning. Think about us when you’re planning your family chol hamoed trip. Figure out a way to make us not just feel welcome under your “family’s talis at birches kohanim” but let us know it somehow won’t be the same without us.

Thanks for staying until the end.

SF

I hope your mind and your heart are now a little more open to a child from a divorced home.

If my words resonated with you or if you are currently living this, I encourage you to share your story and what it’s currently like or was like. Please email your story to [email protected] with or without your name. Let them know if it’s ok to publish. with or without your name. Let them know if its ok to publish. The goal is to collect personal accounts so teens and adolescents who are living through it have a place to go where they can read other people’s experiences and get strength from it.

If you can support the org please go to https://crowdspark.com/myef/hero/teams/crownheights