Happily ever after is make-believe - even for a prince and princess

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You read the statistics and look around and count the number of couples who are no longer couples, who live miles apart or in the same house, who pledged to love one another but are now indifferent strangers, and you know there is no happily ever after.

But you believe in it anyway. A lifetime of love songs and fairy tales can't be undone by other people's unhappy lives.

"It'll be different for us." That's what every bride tells herself as she walks down the aisle. "Our marriage will always be loving and romantic and ideal."

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After the wedding, real life goes on

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OK, so I'm a sucker for sentiment. Plunk me down in front of a carousel on a hot summer day, give me some cotton candy, let me hear the calliope and the yelps of excited children and I get all filled up inside, although I may know no one, although I may be among strangers.

Give me a seat at a recital. Let me hear children sing. Put me behind a school bus and let me watch as the bus stops and the kids spill out, and I get a lump in my throat.

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Divorce, Sesame Street style

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The saddest story in the news last Friday had nothing to do with crime or politics or the economy. It had to do with the way we live our lives, and the way we treat our children. It was a heartbreaker, yet relegated to the back pages, as if it meant nothing at all.

Sesame Street announced that it was putting its new episode about divorce on hold because the preschool children who had previewed it had become upset and had found it too painful to watch. The Snuffleupaguses were splitting up and the kids didn't like it a bit.

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Child is the real victim of divorce

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Sometimes you don't want to hear it. You want to drive past the house, away from problems that shouldn't exist at all.

He said this. She said that. He has a lawyer. She has a lawyer. Two adults who vowed to love each other now spend their time tearing each other apart. And in the middle there is always a child, a bewildered child, who loves them both. This time the child is not even 3 when Mommy leaves.

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Promises are just words, and court orders mean zip

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She called last week, upset, frustrated, furious. Her husband walked out on her 12 years ago leaving her with four children, 10, 9, 6 and 5. He still loved her, he told her then. He was just tired of being married. "But don't worry," he said. "They're my children and I intend to provide for them. Don't you think for a minute that I'm deserting you." Yet that's exactly what he did.

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