A child's view of divorce

Last night I was babysitting my nieces and nephews. One of their favorite games to play is called "neighbors." Paige (age 5) and I went to Elizabeth's who had just gotten married and was now having baby. At Elizabeth's Paige revealed that she was divorcing her husband. Elizabeth asked if he had another girlfriend and Paige very excitedly said, "No! It's because he is the 's' word." I asked, "What is the 's' word." "It's 'stupid.'" Pretty good reason for divorce. So I asked what he did and she had quite the list of words exchanged and what had happened:

"He cut off my toe nail!"

"He pulled out my tooth!"

"And he is always trying to put my earrings on me, but I can put my earrings on myself."

"He told me, 'go put some pancakes in your stomach with lots of syrup on top!' But I don't want pancakes! I want toast."

"So I told him, 'go put lipstick on your lips and never come back!'"

"Then he said to me, 'go cut your eyebrows and cut your hair off.'"

"He told me, 'go put your head in the dishwasher and when you open it back up your head will be all smooshed up and I will laugh so hard until I die.'"

So, I'm not quite sure what the media is teaching our children but divorce sounds pretty abusive and traumatic from the perspective of a 5 year old.