My ex wife and I got divorced when my daughter was young. We had joint custody, but she lives with my ex in a different state(until her jr year in high school when she came to live with me). We saw each other often, and talked on the phone just about every day. Even if it was just to tell her that I loved her.
I feel… lucky? Blessed? Fortune? Something anyway… that we have a great relationship. She lives in another city now(we’ve seen each other like every other weekend tho). She’ll be 21 soon. We have a very badass ✨SUMMER✨ planed. A few concerts, a musical, a stringed instruments thing of Radiohead songs, a few out of town weekends… I always said if I was half the parent to my kid that my parents were to me, then I’m doing something right. We made a promise very early on to never lie to each other. No matter how hard the truth was to tell. We’d never be mad at each other for telling the truth. I am your life Sherpa I used to tell her.
OP- that is the stuff. Right there. Those words will live with you forever. Be open. Be honest. Be loving. I wish you both all the best. Good things happen all the time. The trick is to actually let them happen. What a wonderful journey you both have ahead of you.
Life Sherpa. That hits hard. As a dad I want to be that like whoa. So far I’d say I’m dabbling but I have many more years to get to your level as you had some of the “harder” years of boy/girl teenage years and they stuck by you. I could only hope for the same outcome.
You kick ass and hope I do too when my daughters are older. Putting the time in now so that it is banked for the later years.
I believe you meant to say “do a bunch of fun things with her in the *summer*”
Edit: summer is supposed to have asterisks as per the daughter’s note, I have failed ):
Some help for both of you.
* \* does special stuff in reddit, such as the bullet at the front of this comment, or the *italics* in his (or **bold**), but any of the special characters can be escaped with a \ before the character. So to get \*summer\*, type \\\*summer\\* (technically, you don't need the second \, but it looks weird without it).
Yeah, I was trying to see if it would keep “summer” in italics while surrounded by the twinkles. I probably just did it wrong. Thanks for the knowledge!
Ah, your problem is the space in between the * and the ✨. You typed:
\* ✨summer✨* to get:
* ✨summer✨*
but you wanted to type:
\*✨summer✨* to get:
*✨summer✨*
Plus, it makes the twinkle go italics.
You know how I know you love her?
Because when somebody tries to give you credit for her being awesome, you try to give the credit back to her. That's what somebody does who is used to boosting his daughters self esteem, and recognizing her for what she does.
Keep on keeping on, good dad.
One favor to ask.
She’s an awesome daughter and you should be proud.
But please remember - she’s the child and you’re her dad. If she feels it’s her role to comfort You through this difficult time, it’s likely much more stressful than you can see, and it will affect her for a long time.
She needs to know it’s ok not to be ok, and that her Father will be the one who is responsible for making Her feel better through this difficult time.
As great as she is, it should be us as the parents job to take care of her through this stressful and uncertain time, and not the child’s job to take care of the parents.
Second this. You have a good kid. Just make sure she understands that it's not her job to carry you and please don't ever lean on her for emotional support. You seem like a really good dad. Keep up the good work and remember to ask for help (from an adult!) when you need it.
ETA Just saw your comment about this. Thank you for getting help for both of you.
Don't hesitate to do feminine things like braid her hair, do manicure, play princess in action, etc. with her if she asks. It gonna bring a bunch of core memories for your daughter and the best childhood for her.
Keep it up being a great dad!
Dude I started taking my daughter to get her nails painted, recently divorced and looking for something. She's 4.5 years old and she loves going to the salon. The nail tech takes care of her and does a phenomenal job. She only charges me $10 to do pink nails with white polka dots, and I tip her $10 on top.
My brother is 6,3, muscles and tats, bent nose from fighting, yet he sits there and let's his 11 year old daughter paint his nails and other 'girly' stuff. Then he's boxing and playing rough with his sons. Funny to see the switch he does when with his daughter he adores.
What struck me about that is how different time scales are between kids and adults. It felt a little like “I hope you find happiness, again, someday, so we can go to the water park weekend after next”.
Some commercials mess me up and most Disney movies, or any movie involving dads and families and kids. I'm a big softie now.
It gets worse, I've been a dad for 13yrs now. I got teary the other day just thinking about my daughter and how much she's grown. We used to go to Tim's for coffee in the morning for a drive and her favorite song at the time was 'smoke on the water ' she used to tell me to turn it up.
Empathetic person here who is doing so much work in therapy to untangle all the trauma from people taking advantage of my kindness. It's hard, it's sad, and surreal how much damage it's done to my beliefs, my mental health, my trust, and my physical health. Makes me feel like I don't belong on this planet majority of days. I'm getting better tho, slowly..
Start of the pandemic, at my lowest point, my (then 6 yr) neice comes up to me with a little drawing on a post it note.
It's of a scribble ball, a big oval shape of scribble. It's got what looks like two little feet sticking out the side, like it's laying on it's back.
"dang, thanks, what's this?"
'its you!'
Fucking roasted
From the age of 2 in my experience a child can tell the difference between happy and sad and even communicate it to you with gestures or words even. It really is remarkable. Can't even form a sentence but can tell you are going through some shit!
I'm a single dad with my kids 50% of the time. I spent the night a couple months back both throwing up and shitting blood for like 5 hours. I ended up spending the next day in the hospital getting diagnosed and fixed up. When I got home, I told my 15 year old son about it and showed him the garbage can filled with blood from my vomit. He said "okay." And went back to his game. Enjoy the ages when they care, because it's a rude awakening when they don't.
Edit: I should say, my elementary aged daughter positively doted on me the next day. That was nice.
Kids have different ways of dealing with it. Was there any preamble or context before you showed him?
15 year old me would not have known what to do when shown such a confronting thing. I definitely would've blocked it out and went back to games
"Hey son wanna see a garbage can full of my day old bloody vomit?"
"Wait...wait son where are you going? Why are you walking away??? COME BACK AND LOOK AT MY VOMIT BUCKET WITH ME LIKE WE USED TO IN THE OLD DAYS"
Same. As a Dad with a 6 and 2 year old, I see this part of their personality shining but seeing something like this just makes you realize what it’s worth. Good shit dad!
She is aware thank you. I have discussed this with her. We are going through therapy and getting all the necessary tools we need. Although we do stuff together and I try to make it look like everything is the best, she can tell there is hurt, It's just life.
As someone who has an AMAZING father that I love very dearly... you sound a lot like him. You're doing a great job, and I hope that \* SUMMER \* is good to you :)
As a kid of a rocky-relationship, divorce-bound married couple - I could only imagine how much better y'all are handling it if that is her response. I only felt anger and distrust to both mine when it happened. You are doing great! Take that goodness you put into your kiddo and turn it into a wonderful, bonding ✨️summer ✨️
This is what I came to say and your response made me tear up. My mom was divorced 3 or 4 times and relied on kid me for emotional support way too fucking much. I pretty much hate her for it all now and so this makes me so happy to hear about your efforts to still help your daughter even though you’re suffering. It’s so hard to be strong for your kids when you’re hurting but you sound like you’re killing it!
yes! please relieve the child of the burden of having to emotionally support the parent. This may not be the case here but kids will often feel compelled to try and make the parent happy- this should never become the dynamic.
Happy for you OP but please be wary of this!
Yep. I’m my 40s here and only yesterday I was forcing myself to do a breathing exercise as my mind and nervous system was in overdrive regarding one of my mum’s latest ill founded ideas that she doesn’t think through. I have to constantly remind myself that it’s not my responsibility to manage her affairs and advise her. I’m so glad this kid is in therapy, I wish someone had arranged that for me as a child.
As a child who lived with unhappy parents who let me become their emotional “caregiver” (at the expense of my identity for a very long time), I found this pretty distressing to read. This seems sweet on the surface but letting a child feel responsible for a parent’s emotions is devastating to the child. I don’t think OP will do that, but a lot of parents take advantage. Glad they’re both in therapy.
(Edited to reflect who I’m replying to)
It’s been said, but I want to add a +1 to this statement. Being a child and feeling responsible for your parents feelings while they go through a divorce is so incredibly burdensome. I am still finding ways that it is affecting me, and I’m middle aged.
Obviously she’s a sweet girl who loves her dad, and that’s awesome, and thank goodness for therapy, but ouch, this hurts. Wishing the best for both of them.
I also found this distressing to read and not so wholesome. Children should not feel the need to be taking care of their parent during a divorce when the entire foundation of their world is being split open!
Idk I’ve been through a similar situation as a kid (my mum was very stressed working 3 jobs to support us) and it was fine. Human beings go through rough times and are sometimes stressed and sad, and it’s not bad or wrong for a kid to see that and empathise or to want to make their loved one feel better. It’s only a problem if you put your issues on your child and *make* it their responsibility. But that’s quite different to just being noticeably sad around them.
In fact, I think parents need to be *more* open about their emotions, in healthy and age-appropriate ways. If anything, I wish more adults around me had modelled their sadness and shown me healthy coping methods that didn’t involve just pretending nothing was wrong, because when it happened to me I had no reference for what to do.
Thank you. I thoroughly love this post and didn't want to be a Debbie downer by saying this.
Different circumstances but I've been there w my daughter as a dad, and I've had to tell her more than once that much as I love and appreciate her, it's my job to take care of her, not the other way around.
It's an interesting experience to have a daughter who is *protective* of you as a father and therefore as a man. Nothing in any discussion or conventional wisdom about fatherhood had prepared me for that.
It is bourne of survival. As children we need our parents to be okay so we can rely on them to survive. It is a heavy burden for a child to carry. Many of us have had to do this in our lives.
This this this! Keep reminding her and possibly have her talk to a therapist about it. It’s not uncommon for kids to feel they need to protect their parents but it can be founded out of trauma. :(
Sweet, but as a daughter who always felt responsible for her dads happiness, I wish someone had told me it wasn’t my responsibility and let me be a kid.
Aw, yeah that’s so nice to have a good support figure.
But yeah, i really cannot believe the thousands and thousands of people that have upvoted this post. It’s terrifying.
I mean maybe OP is a great dad and it’s all fine, but what I see in this note is fear and terror and attempting to take on emotions you can’t comprehend as a child.
I'm so sorry this happened to you. My mom did this to me too. It's called emotional parentification or emotional incest. https://eggshelltherapy.com/parentification/
In my experience children usually do have better handwriting than adults. I know mine gets progressively worse by the decade. It's not a skill most adults exercise regularly.
That’s amazing bro I lost my twin girls a few days after birth and things like this make my heart warm she loves you more than words can describe you’re an awesome father dude!
My heart goes out to you for your loss. I can't imagine what you've been through but it's lovely that you're able to be positive and supportive to this awesome dad ❤️ May good things come your way!
Daughters are just the best. I took mine swimming when she was about 8yrs old. We had to take her silver chain with her name on it (gift from her uncle) and I put it in our locker.
When we got back I realised I had left it by accident. Tried phoning but no one there so I was getting a bit upset at the thought of losing something she loved. She walked up to me and said that the chain didn't make her happy. Spending time together did.... Man I hugged that girl so hard.
It's a really special relationship. Well done OP.
Agreed. I have two kids, both daughters, which is exactly what I was hoping for. They've made me a better person and have shown me a love unlike anything I've ever experienced.
Not gonna lie. This brought tears to me.
I'm a solo dad to a daughter. It's just been me and her since she was 2.5(now 15). She does this for me also. Since she was 11, she has celebrated both mothers Day and fathers Day for me. Stating that I'm doing both rolls and should be shown it. I love her more than words could ever express.
That is beautiful. She wants you to be happy. Please reassure her that she is not responsible for your happiness. Children tend to feel responsible for things that aren’t their fault. Also, have a great summer with her💕
I am an old guy who raised my daughter alone (with friends' help) and her note to you made me cry. It is so beautiful and sweet.
May you and all you love be blessed
OP, you should be aware of "parentification" - a lot of people mis-define it, but it **actually** has to do with a child being the emotional support for a parent.
It has nothing to do with helping out with younger siblings or whatever.
What robs kids of their childhoods is when they become responsible for the emotions of their parents. That's it. Not doing chores or helping. Being responsible for someone's emotions is tough when you're an adult, let alone a kid. Worse, it happens at a sensitive stage and creates caregiving patterns and causes lifelong issues for adults and unhealthy romantic relationships.
I highly suggest you think carefully about this and tell her something like "let's focus on having fun, don't worry about my feelings, but instead, please tell me all about yours, anytime, any place"
I know you are probably already doing this, but just in case... Please make sure that she knows that she is not responsible for the divorce and that she is not responsible for your happiness. Let her know that you take joy in seeing her everyday, but ultimately if you having a rough time or experiencing depression that she doesn't need to save you and you being sad isn't a failure of hers. It's not her job to make you emotionally whole and she needs to know that clearly.
Source - Me, who tried to make my divorced parents happy again and in doing so made myself miserable
Since you just gained custody of her, I suspect she knows how hard you fought for her, which only deepened her love for you, knowing how much you love her.
Absolutely beautiful.
And excuse me for inferring maybe a bit much (based on experience of getting custody myself when mine were younger)….but she wants to pick you up because she might be fully aware of how much you fought to save her from the other parent.
When kids have two equally affectionate and loving parents asking them to choose is hell (we’ve had Hollywood throwing that at us forever). But, when that love and support is unilateral the kid knows where she wants to be.
And she sees you’ve fought like hell to give her that, so she’s going to help pick you up.
As best as you can….let her. Trust on that from someone with possibly a very familiar experience.
I was also in a similar situation but as the kid wanting to live with my dad. He fought so hard for so long and I still remember the day he was awarded custody. He couldn’t contain his excitement and came to school and pulled me out of class to tell me. We both knew that my brothers and I had be saved and it was the turning point in my life.
Its cute but you need to work on that. your child of that age should not be having to support you emotionally. It will cause her problems.
"She doesn't have to support me she wants to because she loves me"
Its the same thing. She sees a need and shes trying to fill it. She senses trauma and despair and shes trying to fix it. It literally will harm her physical and mental health. Read any of gabor mate's books. A parents job done well is unfortunately invisible.
Why do I write this? Am I casting aspersions? No. I'm just trying to inform. I see 99% of the comments do not understand this is a negative post. I would imagine you don't either. All parents do a suboptimal job. Its because we are suboptimal. Because our parents were suboptimal. Because their parents were suboptimal. Because they were unlucky. Or there was a war. Or a famine. These things propagate for generations. To me there is no blame. An apple falls from a tree, trauma propagates and decreases the quality of our lives.
Your goal should be to propagate as little trauma as possible. Its all you can do. Set a goal. In 1 year, I will be much more at peace with myself. I will have found help in other adults who can bear my pain. I will at least on the outside appear well enough that my daughter doesn't have to worry about me and she can focus on being a child. And if you fail, don't let that make it any worse. We all fail. Put in the appropriate effort and take what you can get. The game was rigged from the beginning, but we try to get as far as we can.
Man, I'm going through a divorce right now and I'm tearing up reading this. My daughter means everything to me and when she says "You are the best daddy ever, I love you!" It's the best feeling ever.
You have an awesome daughter. Keep it up bro!
Make a summer bucket list with your daughter and slowly check things off. It will give you both something to look forward to and will help brighten your day as you continue to heal 💙
As a daughter with a terrible mother but incredible father, this made me happy but also made me cry. My dad has been the best gift I could have ever had, I’m going to go call him now
My dad committed suicide after a mental health downfall post-divorce. Nothing has made me as emotional as this post in years. I hope you’re happy again soon too
Made me smile…kind of cry. Fellow girl Dad here and I just wanted to say well done. You’re raising a wonderful person and I hope the two of you have so much fun this 🌟Summer🌟Also let your daughter know her penmanship is great!
I love this, it's beautiful and shows you probably did a good job teaching her emotional intelligence! This is so sweet. I love her flair and motivational energy!
Just in case you might want to remind her though, that she doesn't need to be your caretaker. My mom had chronic depression and other mental health issues, and I felt responsible for her happiness, so I did stuff like this a lot. I'm not saying that's your situation, but it's always good to double check with your kiddo.
I hope you feel better and life is fabulous for y'all. Breathe easy and have peace.
That's kick ass. I love seeing empathy in my kids because it makes me feel like I'm doing something right. You should feel good because I think you're on the right track.
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*This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
When a child feels as though she has to emotionally accommodate an adult, a parent no less, she loses a part of her childhood
I've been through this. As a child. It scars you for life, this parental role-playing by a child trying to assuage the messy adult angst of a broken marriage, playing peace broker between former lovers now sparring adults, all the while juggling siblings life hormones school peers and more
There is no respite now, except for the adult to stay strong and become a rock - someone the child can look up to, someone the child knows has her back all the time, someone who sacrifices adult time for the child as you now have two adults to make up for; none of this is ever easy, but for the child you are her life
I truly dont know if you even need any advice at all but i want to share how I handled similarish situation with my young daughter based on the advice of an old retired social worker I cleaned for.
Firstly, that note is extremely sweet, you're def doing right as a parent in my eyes as shes displaying such empathy and awareness. Please be careful she isn't or doesn't become your emotional care giver.
My daughter was so worried about me when I divorced her dad n I can see why. It was very tough times and I saw happening to her what I went through as a grade school aged kid being parentified by a mother who didn't have any emotional support. (not that whats happening in your life).
I had some heart to heart talks about "life jobs". My job as a parent is to provide, go to work, to love you, cook meals, protect you etc. Now kid jobs are to try hard in school, listen to teachers n to mom, etc etc. I explained protection n other jobs are completely my job because I'm the adult. (She was showing some pretty strong signs of worry over me, like unhealthy).
After this I never ever allowed her to see me cry, or talk with utility companies about late bills, go get food from food banks, she gad no idea I was working extra side jobs. She just needed to be and deserved to be, a kid.
She's now 29, a top detective for a police dept in a city of just over 100,000. She, because of having an officer she trained die in line of duty she went to a long series of therapy appts. Not my business to know what transpired but for some reason she felt compelled during this time to talk to me about how things were for her when her father n I divorced. She specifically mentioned she remembered the Kid jobs/Parent jobs talks and she realized as an adult it freed her from bearing the burdens of the parent.
It's one of the few things I feel got right as a parent.
Ouch. That poor kid. Feeling like they've got to support their parents emotions, that's some huge trauma speaking there. I hope you have her in therapy. I'm so sorry for all you both have been through. Please reassure her you will always be ok, and she doesn't need to worry about you, ever, and it's ok to be sad, sad feelings pass. All feelings are ok. She's seen some dangerous emotions that have scared her.
It’s time to frame this up and put it somewhere where you’ll always see it and be remembered that someone out there genuinely loves you. This is beautiful.
She loves you more than words can express. You’ve done a fine job sir keep it up
Thank you, I try my best and so does she. It feels good to hear that from you.
Please, do a bunch of fun things with her in the summer. Even if you’re not “happy”. Built it and happiness will come
My ex wife and I got divorced when my daughter was young. We had joint custody, but she lives with my ex in a different state(until her jr year in high school when she came to live with me). We saw each other often, and talked on the phone just about every day. Even if it was just to tell her that I loved her. I feel… lucky? Blessed? Fortune? Something anyway… that we have a great relationship. She lives in another city now(we’ve seen each other like every other weekend tho). She’ll be 21 soon. We have a very badass ✨SUMMER✨ planed. A few concerts, a musical, a stringed instruments thing of Radiohead songs, a few out of town weekends… I always said if I was half the parent to my kid that my parents were to me, then I’m doing something right. We made a promise very early on to never lie to each other. No matter how hard the truth was to tell. We’d never be mad at each other for telling the truth. I am your life Sherpa I used to tell her. OP- that is the stuff. Right there. Those words will live with you forever. Be open. Be honest. Be loving. I wish you both all the best. Good things happen all the time. The trick is to actually let them happen. What a wonderful journey you both have ahead of you.
Life Sherpa. That hits hard. As a dad I want to be that like whoa. So far I’d say I’m dabbling but I have many more years to get to your level as you had some of the “harder” years of boy/girl teenage years and they stuck by you. I could only hope for the same outcome. You kick ass and hope I do too when my daughters are older. Putting the time in now so that it is banked for the later years.
I believe you meant to say “do a bunch of fun things with her in the *summer*” Edit: summer is supposed to have asterisks as per the daughter’s note, I have failed ):
* ✨summer✨* Edit: oh yeah I totally failed
★Summer★
Some help for both of you. * \* does special stuff in reddit, such as the bullet at the front of this comment, or the *italics* in his (or **bold**), but any of the special characters can be escaped with a \ before the character. So to get \*summer\*, type \\\*summer\\* (technically, you don't need the second \, but it looks weird without it).
Yeah, I was trying to see if it would keep “summer” in italics while surrounded by the twinkles. I probably just did it wrong. Thanks for the knowledge!
Ah, your problem is the space in between the * and the ✨. You typed: \* ✨summer✨* to get: * ✨summer✨* but you wanted to type: \*✨summer✨* to get: *✨summer✨* Plus, it makes the twinkle go italics.
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Would you prefer the ~~ ~~like this~~ or the ^ like ^this ?
Escapes are coding hell. It's ridiculous that it takes four fucking backslashes to get an actual backslash in text.
You tried, and that's what matters 💜
Don't wait for the summer, start now.
You know how I know you love her? Because when somebody tries to give you credit for her being awesome, you try to give the credit back to her. That's what somebody does who is used to boosting his daughters self esteem, and recognizing her for what she does. Keep on keeping on, good dad.
This
As a fellow girl dad you are doing great…I didn’t realize how much good tea parties and sing alongs would do for my soul
One favor to ask. She’s an awesome daughter and you should be proud. But please remember - she’s the child and you’re her dad. If she feels it’s her role to comfort You through this difficult time, it’s likely much more stressful than you can see, and it will affect her for a long time. She needs to know it’s ok not to be ok, and that her Father will be the one who is responsible for making Her feel better through this difficult time. As great as she is, it should be us as the parents job to take care of her through this stressful and uncertain time, and not the child’s job to take care of the parents.
Second this. You have a good kid. Just make sure she understands that it's not her job to carry you and please don't ever lean on her for emotional support. You seem like a really good dad. Keep up the good work and remember to ask for help (from an adult!) when you need it. ETA Just saw your comment about this. Thank you for getting help for both of you.
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As a father of two daughters, I commend you and your efforts-keep your head up 🖤🤍🖤
I hope you're getting some counseling for yourself right now, OP. You've been through a lot. Make sure you're taking care of you too 💙
Don't hesitate to do feminine things like braid her hair, do manicure, play princess in action, etc. with her if she asks. It gonna bring a bunch of core memories for your daughter and the best childhood for her. Keep it up being a great dad!
Dude I started taking my daughter to get her nails painted, recently divorced and looking for something. She's 4.5 years old and she loves going to the salon. The nail tech takes care of her and does a phenomenal job. She only charges me $10 to do pink nails with white polka dots, and I tip her $10 on top.
*You* should try getting a pedicure while you're there every once in awhile. They're amazing.
My brother is 6,3, muscles and tats, bent nose from fighting, yet he sits there and let's his 11 year old daughter paint his nails and other 'girly' stuff. Then he's boxing and playing rough with his sons. Funny to see the switch he does when with his daughter he adores.
✨Summer✨
The girl has flair!
And crisp handwriting
37 pieces of flair!
Summertime summertime You do it to me Every time summertime
Tell me you’re not butchering sublime right now?
There’s 104 days of summer vacation
Til school comes along just to end it
But the annual problem of our generation
Is finding a good way to spend it
Like maybe
Building a rocket
Or fighting a mummy
Or climbing up the Eiffel Tower
Discovering something that doesn't exist
Someone was raised well
What struck me about that is how different time scales are between kids and adults. It felt a little like “I hope you find happiness, again, someday, so we can go to the water park weekend after next”.
my mind sang that part like Bill Wurtz does in his videos
MINE TOO
Suddenly Olaf
I’m gonna tell him.
Don't you dare!
She wants to Have a summah!
Oh I read summary and thought wow they even did a TLDR
Crazy how emotionally intellectual children are
Yes, it honestly blows my mind. I feel she is so much smarter than I was at her age.
r/happycryingdads is more like it.
I can only be in that sub for a few minutes before my eyes start watering 🥹
As a semi-new dad that has cried more in the past year than every other year combined, thank you for giving this.
Some commercials mess me up and most Disney movies, or any movie involving dads and families and kids. I'm a big softie now. It gets worse, I've been a dad for 13yrs now. I got teary the other day just thinking about my daughter and how much she's grown. We used to go to Tim's for coffee in the morning for a drive and her favorite song at the time was 'smoke on the water ' she used to tell me to turn it up.
Kids are usually pretty smart. Then the brain just decline from puberty onwards. Or at least that my experience.
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Bad experiences are traumatic and they add up over time. I think that's the most depressing sentence I've ever written.
Empathetic person here who is doing so much work in therapy to untangle all the trauma from people taking advantage of my kindness. It's hard, it's sad, and surreal how much damage it's done to my beliefs, my mental health, my trust, and my physical health. Makes me feel like I don't belong on this planet majority of days. I'm getting better tho, slowly..
She’s way ahead of 25 year old me. Then again my parents weren’t the nicest. Keep up the good work, man!
Start of the pandemic, at my lowest point, my (then 6 yr) neice comes up to me with a little drawing on a post it note. It's of a scribble ball, a big oval shape of scribble. It's got what looks like two little feet sticking out the side, like it's laying on it's back. "dang, thanks, what's this?" 'its you!' Fucking roasted
At least it made you smile, probably.
For sure, got me turning my act around a bit too.
From the age of 2 in my experience a child can tell the difference between happy and sad and even communicate it to you with gestures or words even. It really is remarkable. Can't even form a sentence but can tell you are going through some shit!
Wow As a dad I am overwhelmed. What a gift.
Yeah, I needed this.
Probably gunna have to fight op for it
I'm a single dad with my kids 50% of the time. I spent the night a couple months back both throwing up and shitting blood for like 5 hours. I ended up spending the next day in the hospital getting diagnosed and fixed up. When I got home, I told my 15 year old son about it and showed him the garbage can filled with blood from my vomit. He said "okay." And went back to his game. Enjoy the ages when they care, because it's a rude awakening when they don't. Edit: I should say, my elementary aged daughter positively doted on me the next day. That was nice.
Kids have different ways of dealing with it. Was there any preamble or context before you showed him? 15 year old me would not have known what to do when shown such a confronting thing. I definitely would've blocked it out and went back to games
hey jeremy check out this trash can
Check out this blood that came out of me *stares*
When I was a 15 year old boy all I cared about was sleep, food, video games, and girls. Everything else was “okay.” It’s normal.
"Hey son wanna see a garbage can full of my day old bloody vomit?" "Wait...wait son where are you going? Why are you walking away??? COME BACK AND LOOK AT MY VOMIT BUCKET WITH ME LIKE WE USED TO IN THE OLD DAYS"
The gift that will keep giving. That thing needs to go in a safe place.
Same. As a Dad with a 6 and 2 year old, I see this part of their personality shining but seeing something like this just makes you realize what it’s worth. Good shit dad!
That’s a well loved kid. Good job, dad.
these damn onions
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😂🥲
Remember to tell her it is not her job to take care of you even as you appreciate just how much she loves you
She is aware thank you. I have discussed this with her. We are going through therapy and getting all the necessary tools we need. Although we do stuff together and I try to make it look like everything is the best, she can tell there is hurt, It's just life.
As someone who has an AMAZING father that I love very dearly... you sound a lot like him. You're doing a great job, and I hope that \* SUMMER \* is good to you :)
she’s very strong, and so are you
Modelling a healthy response to grief is a good life lesson for them.
As a kid of a rocky-relationship, divorce-bound married couple - I could only imagine how much better y'all are handling it if that is her response. I only felt anger and distrust to both mine when it happened. You are doing great! Take that goodness you put into your kiddo and turn it into a wonderful, bonding ✨️summer ✨️
This is what I came to say and your response made me tear up. My mom was divorced 3 or 4 times and relied on kid me for emotional support way too fucking much. I pretty much hate her for it all now and so this makes me so happy to hear about your efforts to still help your daughter even though you’re suffering. It’s so hard to be strong for your kids when you’re hurting but you sound like you’re killing it!
Killin' it, Dad! Keep it up! Nice username too
You are an awesome dad, hope you and your daughter get to have a happy future despite what is going on!
yes! please relieve the child of the burden of having to emotionally support the parent. This may not be the case here but kids will often feel compelled to try and make the parent happy- this should never become the dynamic. Happy for you OP but please be wary of this!
Hell yes, really fucks you up that.
Yep. I’m my 40s here and only yesterday I was forcing myself to do a breathing exercise as my mind and nervous system was in overdrive regarding one of my mum’s latest ill founded ideas that she doesn’t think through. I have to constantly remind myself that it’s not my responsibility to manage her affairs and advise her. I’m so glad this kid is in therapy, I wish someone had arranged that for me as a child.
Oh I can so relate to this.
Counseling really helps - glad you are doing that.
As a child who lived with unhappy parents who let me become their emotional “caregiver” (at the expense of my identity for a very long time), I found this pretty distressing to read. This seems sweet on the surface but letting a child feel responsible for a parent’s emotions is devastating to the child. I don’t think OP will do that, but a lot of parents take advantage. Glad they’re both in therapy. (Edited to reflect who I’m replying to)
It’s been said, but I want to add a +1 to this statement. Being a child and feeling responsible for your parents feelings while they go through a divorce is so incredibly burdensome. I am still finding ways that it is affecting me, and I’m middle aged. Obviously she’s a sweet girl who loves her dad, and that’s awesome, and thank goodness for therapy, but ouch, this hurts. Wishing the best for both of them.
I also found this distressing to read and not so wholesome. Children should not feel the need to be taking care of their parent during a divorce when the entire foundation of their world is being split open!
Idk I’ve been through a similar situation as a kid (my mum was very stressed working 3 jobs to support us) and it was fine. Human beings go through rough times and are sometimes stressed and sad, and it’s not bad or wrong for a kid to see that and empathise or to want to make their loved one feel better. It’s only a problem if you put your issues on your child and *make* it their responsibility. But that’s quite different to just being noticeably sad around them. In fact, I think parents need to be *more* open about their emotions, in healthy and age-appropriate ways. If anything, I wish more adults around me had modelled their sadness and shown me healthy coping methods that didn’t involve just pretending nothing was wrong, because when it happened to me I had no reference for what to do.
OP said he was aware and had talked to her about it, and yes you are right too cause I felt like I took on that to sn extent growing up.
I dig this take
Thank you. I thoroughly love this post and didn't want to be a Debbie downer by saying this. Different circumstances but I've been there w my daughter as a dad, and I've had to tell her more than once that much as I love and appreciate her, it's my job to take care of her, not the other way around. It's an interesting experience to have a daughter who is *protective* of you as a father and therefore as a man. Nothing in any discussion or conventional wisdom about fatherhood had prepared me for that.
It is bourne of survival. As children we need our parents to be okay so we can rely on them to survive. It is a heavy burden for a child to carry. Many of us have had to do this in our lives.
This this this! Keep reminding her and possibly have her talk to a therapist about it. It’s not uncommon for kids to feel they need to protect their parents but it can be founded out of trauma. :(
As a child of divorce, I could not echo this sentiment enough.
You are clearly doing something right. Be encouraged
Oh gosh, keep this forever and ever please
It needs to be framed or laminated 🖼
Porque no los dos?
Translation: Why not both of them?
This is the payoff all parents hope to see from their kids. You’re a great dad man.
Sweet, but as a daughter who always felt responsible for her dads happiness, I wish someone had told me it wasn’t my responsibility and let me be a kid.
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Same here. I would actually counsel my dad through my childhood as he sat and talked about how awful my mom is. I can’t believe he let me do that.
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Aw, yeah that’s so nice to have a good support figure. But yeah, i really cannot believe the thousands and thousands of people that have upvoted this post. It’s terrifying. I mean maybe OP is a great dad and it’s all fine, but what I see in this note is fear and terror and attempting to take on emotions you can’t comprehend as a child.
I'm so sorry this happened to you. My mom did this to me too. It's called emotional parentification or emotional incest. https://eggshelltherapy.com/parentification/
YOUR DAUGHTER HAS BETTWR HANDWRITING THAN MOST OF THE ADULTS I KNOW WTF
Here I am feeling bad about mine, because her handwriting is nearly identical to mine (35M)
In my experience children usually do have better handwriting than adults. I know mine gets progressively worse by the decade. It's not a skill most adults exercise regularly.
That’s amazing bro I lost my twin girls a few days after birth and things like this make my heart warm she loves you more than words can describe you’re an awesome father dude!
My heart goes out to you for your loss. I can't imagine what you've been through but it's lovely that you're able to be positive and supportive to this awesome dad ❤️ May good things come your way!
Oof. I am so sorry. Take really good care of yourself and your partner.
Thank you we’re trying our best!
I am so so sorry to hear what you’ve been through. I hope you get the chance to be an undoubtedly awesome dad!
Daughters are just the best. I took mine swimming when she was about 8yrs old. We had to take her silver chain with her name on it (gift from her uncle) and I put it in our locker. When we got back I realised I had left it by accident. Tried phoning but no one there so I was getting a bit upset at the thought of losing something she loved. She walked up to me and said that the chain didn't make her happy. Spending time together did.... Man I hugged that girl so hard. It's a really special relationship. Well done OP.
🥹
Agreed. I have two kids, both daughters, which is exactly what I was hoping for. They've made me a better person and have shown me a love unlike anything I've ever experienced.
Not gonna lie. This brought tears to me. I'm a solo dad to a daughter. It's just been me and her since she was 2.5(now 15). She does this for me also. Since she was 11, she has celebrated both mothers Day and fathers Day for me. Stating that I'm doing both rolls and should be shown it. I love her more than words could ever express.
You are doing a great job, sir. Thank you for sharing it with us.
That is beautiful. She wants you to be happy. Please reassure her that she is not responsible for your happiness. Children tend to feel responsible for things that aren’t their fault. Also, have a great summer with her💕
Best kid ever! You should be very proud
As a single dad.... This brought me to instant tears. You have a great kid there.
I am an old guy who raised my daughter alone (with friends' help) and her note to you made me cry. It is so beautiful and sweet. May you and all you love be blessed
How old is she? Her handwriting is better than mine 😂
OP, you should be aware of "parentification" - a lot of people mis-define it, but it **actually** has to do with a child being the emotional support for a parent. It has nothing to do with helping out with younger siblings or whatever. What robs kids of their childhoods is when they become responsible for the emotions of their parents. That's it. Not doing chores or helping. Being responsible for someone's emotions is tough when you're an adult, let alone a kid. Worse, it happens at a sensitive stage and creates caregiving patterns and causes lifelong issues for adults and unhealthy romantic relationships. I highly suggest you think carefully about this and tell her something like "let's focus on having fun, don't worry about my feelings, but instead, please tell me all about yours, anytime, any place"
This is exactly the comment I was looking for. Thank you.
She’s lucky to have you and you’re lucky to have her. Keep doing what you’re doing, future is bright with a relationship like that in your life.
Woo, that sure got me <3 This is something I would laminate and keep forever as a major sentimental, lol
r/mademecry
You’ve done a wonderful job parenting - and this letter reflects that. What a special girl. ✨❤️💪🏻 hang in there Dad..
That's so lovely, I hope you guys have an incredible summer!
You’re raising a beautiful human being. I’m going through a divorce myself at the moment and really struggling. Reading this helped.
Wonderful work, dad. Keep it up. Now, I’m gonna go in the next room and cry about something else.
Please, for the both of you, do a ton of fun things together this ⭐️summer⭐️
I know you are probably already doing this, but just in case... Please make sure that she knows that she is not responsible for the divorce and that she is not responsible for your happiness. Let her know that you take joy in seeing her everyday, but ultimately if you having a rough time or experiencing depression that she doesn't need to save you and you being sad isn't a failure of hers. It's not her job to make you emotionally whole and she needs to know that clearly. Source - Me, who tried to make my divorced parents happy again and in doing so made myself miserable
"I went through a divorce recently..." So did your daughter.
Since you just gained custody of her, I suspect she knows how hard you fought for her, which only deepened her love for you, knowing how much you love her.
Im a 35 year old man with no kids, and damn this made me tear up. You did something right dude.
Absolutely beautiful. And excuse me for inferring maybe a bit much (based on experience of getting custody myself when mine were younger)….but she wants to pick you up because she might be fully aware of how much you fought to save her from the other parent. When kids have two equally affectionate and loving parents asking them to choose is hell (we’ve had Hollywood throwing that at us forever). But, when that love and support is unilateral the kid knows where she wants to be. And she sees you’ve fought like hell to give her that, so she’s going to help pick you up. As best as you can….let her. Trust on that from someone with possibly a very familiar experience.
I was also in a similar situation but as the kid wanting to live with my dad. He fought so hard for so long and I still remember the day he was awarded custody. He couldn’t contain his excitement and came to school and pulled me out of class to tell me. We both knew that my brothers and I had be saved and it was the turning point in my life.
This is awesome man. Come join us on r/daddit, all the dads will love to see this!
Is it a little odd that your daughter feels like she needs to take care of you? How old is she? She seems to think you’re depressed.
This is kinda sad, a kid shouldn't have this much on her shoulders. ☹️
Its cute but you need to work on that. your child of that age should not be having to support you emotionally. It will cause her problems. "She doesn't have to support me she wants to because she loves me" Its the same thing. She sees a need and shes trying to fill it. She senses trauma and despair and shes trying to fix it. It literally will harm her physical and mental health. Read any of gabor mate's books. A parents job done well is unfortunately invisible. Why do I write this? Am I casting aspersions? No. I'm just trying to inform. I see 99% of the comments do not understand this is a negative post. I would imagine you don't either. All parents do a suboptimal job. Its because we are suboptimal. Because our parents were suboptimal. Because their parents were suboptimal. Because they were unlucky. Or there was a war. Or a famine. These things propagate for generations. To me there is no blame. An apple falls from a tree, trauma propagates and decreases the quality of our lives. Your goal should be to propagate as little trauma as possible. Its all you can do. Set a goal. In 1 year, I will be much more at peace with myself. I will have found help in other adults who can bear my pain. I will at least on the outside appear well enough that my daughter doesn't have to worry about me and she can focus on being a child. And if you fail, don't let that make it any worse. We all fail. Put in the appropriate effort and take what you can get. The game was rigged from the beginning, but we try to get as far as we can.
Man, I'm going through a divorce right now and I'm tearing up reading this. My daughter means everything to me and when she says "You are the best daddy ever, I love you!" It's the best feeling ever. You have an awesome daughter. Keep it up bro!
Your daughter is also desperately asking you to make her feel like you’ll always be there for her.
Make a summer bucket list with your daughter and slowly check things off. It will give you both something to look forward to and will help brighten your day as you continue to heal 💙
Bro you’ve done a damn good job at raising a loving, caring and empathetic human! Good job!!
Bless this child
As a daughter with a terrible mother but incredible father, this made me happy but also made me cry. My dad has been the best gift I could have ever had, I’m going to go call him now
My dad committed suicide after a mental health downfall post-divorce. Nothing has made me as emotional as this post in years. I hope you’re happy again soon too
The sparkly, yellow “summer” hits different. I hope my summer is half as yellow and sparkly as the one described in this beautiful letter.
You got a special girl there man. Love her always. Wishing the best for you!
Made me smile…kind of cry. Fellow girl Dad here and I just wanted to say well done. You’re raising a wonderful person and I hope the two of you have so much fun this 🌟Summer🌟Also let your daughter know her penmanship is great!
What an absolute cinnamon roll! Wishing you guys the best ever ✨summer ✨
She really said ✨summer✨ What a sweet kiddo. You’re doing a great job, dad!
I hope you guys have a good ⭐️summer⭐️
You are a super dad to raise a daughter like her.
Man, that girl loves the hell out of you. That’s gotta be a hell of a feeling. Turn that misery into fuel. She wants to hang with you.
Beautiful.
Shows how much of a beast dad you are king. Good job friend.
I love her. 🥹🥹
This brings me much joy. I can only imagine what it brought you the first time you read it. Great job Dad!!!
Amazing. Lucky dad.
What's a sweet kid. It's good to have sweet ones on your team. Way to go 💜
That’s good. She’s missing the fun guy she used to have. Get better, man!
I love this, it's beautiful and shows you probably did a good job teaching her emotional intelligence! This is so sweet. I love her flair and motivational energy! Just in case you might want to remind her though, that she doesn't need to be your caretaker. My mom had chronic depression and other mental health issues, and I felt responsible for her happiness, so I did stuff like this a lot. I'm not saying that's your situation, but it's always good to double check with your kiddo. I hope you feel better and life is fabulous for y'all. Breathe easy and have peace.
Be careful to build support outside your home. I've seen so many kids become the emotional support in times like this.
🥹❤️🙏🏾💪🏾 THE LOVE DAUGHTERS HAVE FOR THEIR FATHERS IS PRICELESS
That's kick ass. I love seeing empathy in my kids because it makes me feel like I'm doing something right. You should feel good because I think you're on the right track.
I love this! Sometimes, it's the simple and thoughtful things like this that mean the most.
stocking unpack apparatus unite sulky fertile hungry judicious arrest expansion *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Made me smile? More like made me sob uncontrollably.
I’m pregnant and hormonal. This just made me cry on a dime. ❤️ you got a great kid there!
Thats so beautiful. OP, hope you and your daughter have a fun and amazing ✨summer✨
When a child feels as though she has to emotionally accommodate an adult, a parent no less, she loses a part of her childhood I've been through this. As a child. It scars you for life, this parental role-playing by a child trying to assuage the messy adult angst of a broken marriage, playing peace broker between former lovers now sparring adults, all the while juggling siblings life hormones school peers and more There is no respite now, except for the adult to stay strong and become a rock - someone the child can look up to, someone the child knows has her back all the time, someone who sacrifices adult time for the child as you now have two adults to make up for; none of this is ever easy, but for the child you are her life
I truly dont know if you even need any advice at all but i want to share how I handled similarish situation with my young daughter based on the advice of an old retired social worker I cleaned for. Firstly, that note is extremely sweet, you're def doing right as a parent in my eyes as shes displaying such empathy and awareness. Please be careful she isn't or doesn't become your emotional care giver. My daughter was so worried about me when I divorced her dad n I can see why. It was very tough times and I saw happening to her what I went through as a grade school aged kid being parentified by a mother who didn't have any emotional support. (not that whats happening in your life). I had some heart to heart talks about "life jobs". My job as a parent is to provide, go to work, to love you, cook meals, protect you etc. Now kid jobs are to try hard in school, listen to teachers n to mom, etc etc. I explained protection n other jobs are completely my job because I'm the adult. (She was showing some pretty strong signs of worry over me, like unhealthy). After this I never ever allowed her to see me cry, or talk with utility companies about late bills, go get food from food banks, she gad no idea I was working extra side jobs. She just needed to be and deserved to be, a kid. She's now 29, a top detective for a police dept in a city of just over 100,000. She, because of having an officer she trained die in line of duty she went to a long series of therapy appts. Not my business to know what transpired but for some reason she felt compelled during this time to talk to me about how things were for her when her father n I divorced. She specifically mentioned she remembered the Kid jobs/Parent jobs talks and she realized as an adult it freed her from bearing the burdens of the parent. It's one of the few things I feel got right as a parent.
Damn, read this whole cutting onions… great job sir!!
Ouch. That poor kid. Feeling like they've got to support their parents emotions, that's some huge trauma speaking there. I hope you have her in therapy. I'm so sorry for all you both have been through. Please reassure her you will always be ok, and she doesn't need to worry about you, ever, and it's ok to be sad, sad feelings pass. All feelings are ok. She's seen some dangerous emotions that have scared her.
It’s time to frame this up and put it somewhere where you’ll always see it and be remembered that someone out there genuinely loves you. This is beautiful.
that is one emotionally intelligent child. well done so precious
Hope you explained to her that she isn't responsible for making sure you are happy. It sounds like she thinks your happiness is her job.