The difference in a child that has both parents love and support 100%.

My son will be 15 in a couple of months. I raised him alone. His father and I did not divorce until he was 3, but his father wasn't around, ever. I raised that child by myself. His father didn't want anything to do with him until he turned 8. he saw him three times in between ages 3-8. Once 8 he thought he was old enough to brain wash against me. So the nastyness started. My x doens't have a single good thing to say about me, or our son. When our son is with him he talks about me non stop, he tries to PAS from a distance. It's very odd. He knew I would never keep our son from seeing him, so he waited in the shadows and used my own heart and love for my son against me. He still does it, I still won't keep him from seeing him. My son finally has a good father in his life, my DH. He's his dad, for all intensive purposes. He knows he has me, DH, my family, DH's family all in his corner anytime he needs ANY of us. He knows that we all love him and will help him with anything. He has alot of problems though.....he's very insecure, even though I have praised him as much as possible. He has alot of authority issues, even though I've been hot on his heels his entire life (I never wanted him to use not having his father in his life as a excuse to get away with stupid stuff, so I was and still am pretty hard on him). He has very low self esteem, even though all of tell him how handsome, smart, and really athletic he is.

He has these problems because he had a lethal father in his life (as little as it was). He had a huge impact on our son and still continues to belittle him and his mom (me) as much as possible. When you hear 50 good things about you it's nice, but when you hear that one bad thing it's going to be what you remember.

My daughter will be 3 in August. She's so loved. She has me and her father and we are a part of her life everyday. The way a family is supposed to work.......I never knew what a real family was until I met DH. I kiss her a million times a day, her father tells her how beautiful she is every day, we praise her when she does anything good! She knows if she needs either of us all she has to do is say our names and we'll be right there beside her.

I know she's only 3 but I guarantee you that she will not have the problems my son has. She won't have them because she is loved by both parents, we won't allow any nasty person into her life, and she has support and always will.

I don't think it's coddeling your children to love, support, and praise them. I think it's called being a good parent.

Do we discipline her? We sure do, when it's necessary. Do we spoil her, we sure do.

The best thing my daughter has going for her is my DH and I. We're a team, and we're a strong one. We both would do anything, and I mean anything, to protect her. Neither of us would introduce a hateful person into her life. Neither of us would ever allow anyone to interfer in how we parent our daughter. We're tight, and we're a team. We'll always be. And for her, she's a member of that team. I don't put my marriage above my daughter, as far as we're concerned she's a part of our marriage. She's the tie that bonds him and I for the rest of our lives. We don't take that and let it roll off our back, instead we embrace that and it makes us stronger.

And I know one day our daughter will look at us and see the two people that love her more than anything in the world, and she'll know that all the love and support we gave her we also give each other.

My son, he'll never know that feeling. Not just because of the divorce, but because his father has chosen to not uplift him, to not support and encourage him.

There is a huge difference in how a child turns out based on how the parents are with that child. And it starts from the moment they are born.