Guest edit it like Beckham. What his Country Life issue will feature
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A rare hazel dormouse is spotted — and other news in pictures
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The Guardian
an hour ago
- The Guardian
I'm estranged from my parents. How do I explain this to my child?
I am estranged from my parents. I was once close to them but after having my son I could no longer justify their poor and hurtful behaviour and I made the difficult decision to cut contract with them. They always said they had no interest in having grandchildren and they have made it clear they want no relationship with my son. I am mostly at peace with my decision, as sad as it is, as I feel that protecting my child from them is an act of love. What I struggle with is how I will explain this to my son as he gets older. He is five now, and doesn't question their absence, but I know this might change. How do I say 'my parents are cruel and self-centred people who have no interest in our lives' in a more palatable way and in a way that, most importantly, makes it clear that he is in no way to blame? Eleanor says: I'm so sorry you've had to make this decision. In telling him, I think you can be led by what he wants to know. It's amazing what we don't think to question when we don't know anything else. Kids grow up in all kinds of setups – three dads, two mums, raised by siblings, parents unknown – they don't always have the same sense as adults for what's noteworthy or what calls out for explanation. One strategy might be to level the explanations in an age-appropriate way as he gets older. 'Lots of families have lots of different relationships, and Grandma and Grandpa aren't in ours' could be a starting response that becomes incrementally more thorough as he seeks to know more. That way it doesn't feel as though there's one big day with one big reveal. When we handle facts gingerly we indicate that they're scary or that they might blow at any moment. If there's no sense of a big sombre reveal, we can make the opposite seem true: we can demonstrate that these are facts that don't have to be feared. People do this sometimes when telling kids they're adopted, for example. No big 'sit down we have to talk' moment, it's just always part of the wallpaper. A similar thing might be possible for you. He has loving, emotionally intelligent family near him already, there hasn't been a sudden change to his relationship with his grandparents – even once he learns more about the estrangement it might not occur to him to wonder about the details or think it could be his fault. Also, when you explain to him that they're not in your life, you don't have to add the moral adjudication of why not. I'm not sure how incomplete the explanation would be if you just said 'we aren't very friendly with each other so we've decided not to hang out'. The concept of 'bad people' and especially 'bad people in your family' can be tricky for kids, and making your parents figures of Bad or Evil might make them more fascinating than they'd otherwise be. The difficulty with giving full moral explanations of interpersonal conflicts – even if you're totally in the right – is that it makes them seem heated and therefore more curiosity-compelling, and it raises an imagined right of reply. If it's just 'we don't get on', there's not much more to say. If it's 'they're bad and we're better off without them', the curious listener might want to know more. They might even wonder how reliable the narrator is. You've had to make a difficult decision for yourself and your child. You don't need to submit all the inner workings of that decision to him for it to make sense. You can be led by age-appropriate honesty and his own questions. The letter has been edited for length.
Times
2 hours ago
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David Beckham to star in the King's Amazon Prime documentary
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