I think children of divorced parents do grow up quicker. You just do.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
Parenting is not for everybody. It changes your life. Especially when they're little.
Often, parents feel overwhelmed. Many must accomplish the whole job single-handedly while bearing all of the emotional pain of divorce.
Most people don't grow up. It's too damn difficult. What happens is most people get older. That's the truth of it. They honor their credit cards, they find parking spaces, they marry, they have the nerve to have children, but they don't grow up.
When your parents divorce, it makes you grow up fast. I'd urge parents to strongly consider working things out. I'd work things out and I'd definitely stay put.
My own parents divorced when I was six. I was raised with my brother Joel by our mother on the East Coast, visiting my father in Los Angeles during holidays. When your parents are divorced, you don't know anything else, do you?
My parents had four children quickly, divorced quickly - when I was two - and my mother remarried quickly. We were suddenly in a different environment with a different father.
My parents were divorced when I was really young.
I am a step mother, so how children deal with divorce is something I've witnessed first hand and thought about a lot.
I firmly believe that every six years, a person goes through a serious change. Think about it: At 6, you start school. At about 12, you start hitting puberty. And then it goes on. You start hitting these different mental levels, and people change. I think that's part of the reason the divorce rate is so high.
Coming from a family where the parents had been together for 40 years, you never imagine that divorce is going to happen to you.