Dear parents and grandparents and single parents and pretty much anybody taking care of children on a permanent basis:
Stop holding your children responsible for whatever psychological or emotional shit storm your environment put you through.
But particularly you single parents. Particularly, PARTICULARLY, you single parents who are single as a result of a deadbeat, abusive or negligent partner. Stop it. Stop projecting your expectations of a better partner onto your child. Yall got kids growing up not knowing what their interests are, afraid to explore because the moment they come across something that runs contrary to "you," they shut down.
Next thing you know, they're pretending, fabricating their lives and interest for the sake of not getting your bad side all because you've molded them into who you wanted your now-ex to be: someone who never disagrees with you, someone who caters to you, someone who only has 'eyes' for you...
And it's sickening ESPECIALLY when the children start looking more and more like that ex of yours.
Gets some help. Therapy. Solve that shit and let those children be children.
*spits in Simplified English*