The Story Behind "Papa's House, Mama's House"

Some weeks after my husband and I separated, my then five-year-old son, Paolo, after a trip to the neighborhood sari-sari store, asked me, “Mama, what is a broken home?”

Apparently, the neighbors, after learning of the changes in our household, asked my guileless son how he felt now that he was a child of a broken home. How adults can be so irresponsibly cruel!

It was hard to come up with a quick answer: “Hmm… I think it’s a house with broken windows. Do you see any broken windows in our house?” And he said, “Nope.” I asked further, “Do you feel broken?” He thought a while longer, then said, “Nope.” So I concluded, “Then the neighbors are wrong.”

Read more of the story here.