Kids Draw Their Parents' Splits: Postcards From Splitsville Chronicles Childrens' Divorce Pain

Perhaps you've heard of Post Secret? The Website--part art show, part therapy session--asks people to mail in their anonymous secrets on postcards. The result is an often brutally-honest--and compulsively readable--glimpse into strangers' secret lives.

Postcards From Splitsville takes the concept one step further, using postcards as tools for children of divorce to express the anger, hurt, frustration, and sadness surrounding their parents' splits. "Drawing is a way they can express themselves, and to vent," says Postcards From Splitsville founder Kara Bishop.

While the site was inspired by PostSecret (Bishop even contacted creator Frank Warren "to get his blessing"), and features many cards mailed in anonymously (kids can print off a pre-addressed 4"x 6" postcard from the site), most were created during a Tuscon, Arizona-based class Bishop leads for kids of divorce and their parents called Children of Divorce and Changing Families--a program not unlike the San Francisco-based Kids' Turn.

All the images here were created by kids ages 10 to 12, though the site features work by kids of all ages. "These tiny little beings have their world rocked and their whole idea of what family is shatters," says Bishop. "You see that in the pictures."

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Comments

[Krow01]

03:54 PM on 02/24/2011

This is one of the most depressing things I have ever seen. Radiohead put it most aptly..."Cut the kids in half."

[KennyFox]

02:26 PM on 02/04/2011

Its cards llike these that keep me married.

[linton]

08:32 PM on 02/03/2011

My parents divorced after 25 plus year of marriage. It turned me into an introvert, lived with mom after that, never wanted to take a friend home because I was always worried they might ask where my dad was. Divorce is not good especially if there are kids involved but then sometimes it is a necessary evil and the kids ought to receive some form of counseling.

[matson]

12:28 PM on 02/02/2011

My last comment that was censored is exactly the problem with why kids suffer and the censor could not handle it. Totally way weird for Huffington Post. So I will try this: Unless things are at the level of imminent physical harm, stay together and agree to disagree. Once you decide to have children, their live are MORE important than your life. Once they are out of the house then you can pursue whatever you want.

[LemonFreshScent]

12:20 PM on 02/02/2011

Our society seriously needs to educate people on how to recognize GOOD relationships before people get together and get married in the first place! How many people do you know that just married the guy they were with because everyone else was doing it?

[clairenb]

11:09 AM on 02/02/2011

These images are consistent with those we see at Kids' Turn -- and have seen since 1988. Children do not have the language to express the emotional roller coaster they ride when parents separate. Expressive art is an effective modality for their expression.

When parents see the images, they are stunned because they generally like to assume their kids are 'doing just fine.'

Thanks to Splitsville and the HuffingtonPost for sharing the artwork.

Claire N. Barnes, MA
Executive Director
Kids' Turn www.kidsturn.og

[MarcEdward]

08:24 AM on 02/02/2011

Stories like this make me both sad and angry.

[displaced1]

02:07 AM on 02/02/2011

These are just heartbreaking. Like I needed more....

[JeffersonState]

01:16 AM on 02/02/2011

Single dad of three- 8,10,11- in his new rental house... tearing up. Wish their mom could put down her new gentleman friend long enough to see something like this.

[KennyFox]

02:29 PM on 02/04/2011

Hey. We dont know each other. It might not have worked for your wife...but things like this worked for me. I was the male version of your wife. But I put down the friend and looked closely at this.

[KLMwrites]

10:06 PM on 02/01/2011

this makes my stomach hurt. a lot.

[Anne Mccormick]

08:19 PM on 02/01/2011

i wonder how many of these children are used as weapons against the other parent.

[Ronni01]

08:04 PM on 02/01/2011

#2 Divorce is my burden... Thats so sad. The kid had to pick sides and spy. How can parents really be this selfish and so self-involved that they'd put their child in such a predicament.

[Colleen Robley Blake]

07:58 PM on 02/01/2011

Divorce can be extremely traumatic to families, especially children. My children’s picture book, Living With Mom, Spending Time With Dad takes us through a myriad of emotions that two children, Stephen and Alex experience through this tumultuous period. The children, especially Alex gives an extremely candid and honest account of the day to day trauma, the hostility and at times the many poignant memories that he has. Living with Mom, Spending Time with Dad also addresses the concerns and anguish of being torn between two parents. Throughout the story there is that underlying hope that everything will turn out alright and everyone will be back in their original comfort zone.

[bmora]

05:37 PM on 02/01/2011

Those representations could almost be mistaken for the work of children.

[AZLibDem]

07:14 PM on 02/01/2011

The article says they were from kids aged 10 to 12; all of them seem to be from that level of ability.

[OmegaHunter]

04:51 PM on 02/04/2011

It is true that the article makes that claim.

However, if you go to the website it seems that the creators had initially been working with children 10-12 when they came up with this idea. These postcards are not the work of those kids, instead they are mailed in anonymously from kids anywhere and then posted to the site. So basically a 60 year-old that wanted to talk about his parents divorce could make and send in a postcard. They even refer to the site as "PG-13", something I wouldn't expect from a site aimed at a decidedly under-13 crowd.

Some of the postcards (including a few here) are blatantly not done by 10-12 year olds. Some show handwriting that very much looks like that of an adult, or concepts and statements well beyond that of a pre-teen.

One of them on that site specifically says their parents were divorced at 12, their dad said the mom died at 13 and they found her still alive at 18. So someone that is at least 19 made that one.

As for this batch, I seriously doubt 2, 3, 5 and 6 were created by young children. They may well have been kids when their parents divorced but not when these were made.

[SonyaInTx]

09:33 PM on 02/01/2011

#2 does look like adult talk to me too.....

[MarcEdward]

08:34 AM on 02/02/2011

This work comes from therapy, so my guess is that the therapist and the child were talking about the issues being dumped on him by the parents.
"spying" - wtf? What kind of horrible parent uses their child to rat on the other parent? If you use your kid to spy on their dad or mom, you are a bad person and unworthy of the title of "parent"

[loki]

05:14 PM on 02/01/2011

interesting how many tell a story of the dad being verbally bashed by the mom and the children being hurt by it. But not many the other way around. I know thats the way it is between my ex and myself. She is non stop bashing me, everything , even if she loses her job, breaks up with the most current boy friend, whatever it is, it has to be my fault. And she walked out on the marriage years ago to pursue other men without the guilt of sneaking around. IT sucks. Things go wrong in her life, its my fault, things go good in her life or even good in my life. its all her doing. In her mind. Why do some women insist on blaming the man? Some might deserve it, but not that many.