Your job is not to protect them from romance. It is to hand them a better script than the one you were given. To tell them that while the movies often end at the wedding, real love begins the next morning, with burnt toast and a shared umbrella.
A preschooler whose parents are divorcing will not ask, “Why don’t you love each other anymore?” They will ask, “Where will the daddy sleep?” They are obsessed with the logistics of the disruption. In their mind, romantic storylines are supposed to end with a wedding (a party, a cake, a consolidation of resources). A divorce is a narrative error.
And if you listen closely to a six-year-old explaining why Anna chose Kristoff over Hans, you might just realize that they understand the grammar of love better than most adults understand its poetry . They know that a relationship, at its core, is not about a grand gesture. It is about who brings the carrot to the starving reindeer. That is a lesson we could all afford to learn.



