Author’s practical guidance
"Do you still love Daddy?"
Source named in the book: long-term research on families after divorce (Hetherington)
This is the loyalty question in its clearest form.
Say this now
“That's between grown-ups. You get to keep loving him.”
Answers the real question, which is about them.
“He's your dad and he always will be.”
A fact about the relationship they are asking about.
Do this
- Answer the question underneath it rather than the words on top.
- Say something warm about him when nothing is happening, a few times a month.
- Keep his photograph up somewhere in your house.
- Never require them to choose even in small things.
- Say it in front of others the same way.
Avoid this
- "After what he did? No." True or not, it makes their love for him a betrayal.
- "Of course I do." A comfortable lie that will collide with what they see.
- "That's a strange question." It is the most reasonable question they have.
If it repeats
If they keep checking, they are usually reading something in the room rather than in your answer. Look at what happens to your face when his name comes up. That is the part they are actually asking about.
Why the book suggests this
This is the loyalty question in its clearest form. Long-term studies of families after divorce describe children working out whether loving one parent costs them the other, and asking the adult in front of them to settle it. The answer they need is about permission, not about your feelings.
The honest answer is complicated and it is not the one to give. What a four-year-old can use is the version about them: that their love for him is safe here, whatever the adults feel about each other.
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