I sat her down and told her to tell me about her feelings, and to cry if she needed to cry. Well, she cried. She begged me not to make her move. She said she wanted to be with her daddy and she wanted to be with her friends, and why did she have to choose one or the other? We have had this discussion before, but tonight it really hit home. She said, could she please, please, please have one more day at her old school with her friends … PLEASE!
I had to say no, and that her new school was already expecting her, and that she would make so many new friends, and be so happy, and I promised that she would like it. I watched my child’s face crumple, and saw, literally saw, her heart break. I am not sure if I can clearly explain the feeling I had when I knew that a decision that I made had broken my child’s heart, but I can tell you that it hurt … a lot.
I made her call my husband immediately, because I was out of pep talks, and she ended up having him in tears. Usually, she fakes happiness for her dad and never lets him know how she really feels, and I end up having to deal with her anger and sadness. But tonight, as I watched her try not to cry on the phone, and fail, I felt a pain that I have not felt before. There is a specific pain that a parent gets when they know that they have made a decision that is for the best, but hurts their child in the process. We love our girls so much that we decided to face the difficult challenge of moving so that we could give them a better life. And even though we know that this is the right decision, we know that we have broken our daughter’s heart. She is such a good girl, and has given us so much pride and joy, and we want to make her happy.
I am a rational person, and I know that we have made the right decision, but I never knew how much pain would be involved. Can anyone tell me how you deal with the pain of breaking your child’s heart—your child who has never done anything wrong and does not deserve to be hurt? How do you explain to a seven-year-old that leaving all her friends is a good idea? I know all the reasonable explanations—but is there some secret I don’t know? Or is this just how painful parenting can be?
