"Divorce is better for children than constant parental bickering. If parents do what makes them happy, their children will be happy too. In fact, divorce can actually benefit kids in the long run by introducing them to new people and new experiences."

So go the most popular myths today about divorce. But the reality doesn't line up with the myths, as many children of divorce already know. Most grew up hearing these myths. And they are left deeply frustrated.

Cindy is a child with divorced parents and she knows how deeply it affected her. In the midst of this "divorce happy talk," she felt that no one understood what she was going through. Cindy now understands how it had shaped her life and the lives of others like her. Divorce powerfully changes the structure of childhood itself. And that's why divorce leaves its mark even on children who grow up to lead happy and successful lives.

Even in the most civil of divorces, many burdens that rightly belong to the parents are shifted to their children. Though they need contact with both parents, for these children being with one parent necessarily means being without and missing the other.

Making sense of two ways of life is an active experience for married couples. . . . When they divorced, these parents successfully separated their two identities. But the children remained the bridge between them, seeking to make sense of two increasingly different ways of living as they attempt to forge identities of our own. In other words, after a divorce the task that once belonged to the parents--to make sense of their different worlds--becomes the child's. The grown-ups can no longer manage the challenge, so the child is asked to try.

Divorcing parents, even the most loving ones, cannot spare their children this burden. It's inherent in the divorce experience as are many other burdens--for example, the challenge of figuring out exactly what home means, and never knowing what's safe to say in front of one parent or the other, and being handed an unusual amount of independence at a very early age. And many children of divorce have problems learning to see God as a loving Father who will never leave them.

Please understand that we aren't saying that divorce should never happen under any circumstance. Nor are we trying to make divorced parents feel bad, or portray children of divorce as damaged goods. We're only asking that you look at the situation from a child's point of view. We want parents who are on the verge of divorce simply out of boredom or frustration or small amounts of conflict--reasons that are given all too frequently--to stop and think about what they're about to do to their children.

If divorce is a major and devastating event in children's lives, then we obviously need to stop obsessing about what makes us happy and start paying more attention to our kids--and maybe stay together for their sake.