"Stay Together for the Kids" is a song recorded by American rock band Blink-182 for their fourth studio album, Take Off Your Pants and Jacket (2001). It was released as the third and final single from the album on February 19, 2002. The track shares writing credits between guitarist Tom DeLonge, bassist Mark Hoppus, and drummer Travis Barker, with DeLonge serving as its primary composer. The dark, emotionally charged ballad draws from the members' personal experiences with divorce. It balances quiet-loud dynamics with post-hardcore influences to heighten its emotional intensity.
Told from the perspective of a child caught in a collapsing household, the song reflects themes of family breakdown, emotional displacement, and adolescent frustration. The song's original music video, directed by Samuel Bayer, depicts the band performing in a suburban house being destroyed by a wrecking ball, serving as a visual metaphor for a broken home. The clip was re-shot following the 9/11 attacks, with both the band and label MCA deeming its imagery too similar to the collapse of the World Trade Center.
The song was produced by Jerry Finn. Critics responded positively to its emotional weight and tonal departure from the band's usual pop-punk style, while others noted its raw depiction of divorce as especially resonant for listeners from similar backgrounds. It was a hit on rock radio in the United States, where it peaked at number seven on the Modern Rock Tracks chart in 2001, and also reached the top 15 in the United Kingdom.
Background
thumb|175px|left|[[Tom DeLonge, the song's primary lyricist, seen here in the early 1990s.]]
"Stay Together for the Kids" is written about divorce from the point of view of a helpless child. Its heavier sound was inspired by bands the group's members were listening to in the two weeks they wrote their fourth album, Take Off Your Pants and Jacket, such as Fugazi and Refused. For Hoppus, he was eight years old when he was sent to live with his father. "The thing you realize as you get older is that parents don’t know what the hell they’re doing and neither will you when you get to be a parent. You’ve just got to understand that people are human and they make mistakes," he said. He spoke on the song's inspiration in 2001: