The bankruptcy effect on our kids

Many people have written to me and asked me about how bankruptcy has affected my children.  My children are now 17 and 15 years old.  To say the least, they have been through the mud with our financial situation.  They were 12 and 10 years old when we lost our house to foreclosure.  It was the only home that they knew since they were both born into that house.  We lived in a neighborhood with close neighbors and family who lived within walking distance.  The kids that they went to school with all lived in our neighborhood as well.

My kids loved where we lived and enjoyed friendships with so many other kids that lived nearby.  They were especially close to our next door neighbor's children.  Our house was like a revolving door with kids constantly coming and going.  Our house was also pretty large in size.  Looking back, we did not really utilize the space that we had in a good way but we did have plenty of space.  We never really used money to decorate the house, decorate the kid's bedrooms and such.  We just really never had extra to do that.  At the time, any extra money all went into the family business, the restaurant.

When we realized that we were going to lose the house, we never really sat down and explained to the kids what was going on.  It was so painful for us that it was difficult for us to explain.  They knew something was going on.  Their father and I were at odds with each other during this time and there was so much tension in the household.  Then, time ran out and we had to tell them.  They were so confused about moving.  We did not yet know where we were going to move to but they went with us when we were looking at apartments and flats.  You can imagine how disappointed they were with everything we looked at.  They were going from a house they loved to something that was so foreign and strange to them.

Since our applications for every place we applied were rejected, we were invited to live with my parents...in their basement.  My kids were excited about living with grandma and grandpa but not int the basement!  They both complained loudly about that.  The basement was just one large room with stone walls around the outside.  There were no walls to separate us in any way!  We could only bring a few pieces of furniture with us and minimal amount of clothing.  Space for our "stuff" was extremely limited and when we packed up the kids room and put most of it in storage, they were visibly upset.

More on the next post...