The Challenges of Single Parenting
Kaylee shrugs and drops her backpack on the chair. She glances at the note Mom left on the table for us. It’s called “parenting by paper.” You know, guiding your kids into adulthood through instructional notes left on the kitchen table along with endless bowls of pasta in the fridge.
When I was ten years old my father died. Aside from the emotional upheaval that losing a parent presented for me and my six and fourteen year old brothers, it also presented my mother with the challenge of becoming a single parent. Not unlike Flip and Kaylee when we were growing up my brothers and I became “latch key kids,” coming home after school to an empty house while our mother worked to support our family. Being parented on paper and over the phone became our reality. TV dinners, and long hours in front of the television were not unusual in my middle school years. Like Flip and Kaylee, when we were grounded, our mother would check in by phone several times to be sure we were actually staying home as instructed. Nevertheless we found many opportunities to get into the kind of trouble no parent wants their kids getting into!
Along with the very real financial burden that arises both in divorce and with the death of a spouse comes the worries a parent faces because they may need to leave their children home alone more often than their better judgement advises. While I’m sure having so much time alone offered me the opportunity to become more independent and self reliant, I also know that I would have benefitted mightily from being held accountable and feeling a safer container as a teenager.
I know my mother chose to ignore many behaviors I as a parent might not. But being a parent now I see just how exhausted she must have been after a full day of work. Coming home to three children, laundry, cooking, and homework left very little time for her to relax and even less time for us to sit together as a family, play games, or watch a movie. My mother just wanted time to herself. Flip and Kaylee found Zorba to fill the void their working parents left. I found other families to take me in and give me that sense of home I so longed for.
As an adult I now have such deep respect for the single parents I know. I have an appreciation of just how challenging it can be to parent a child even with two people. Families are structured in many ways. Although I know my mother could have used some help, and we kids a bit more supervision, I am quite confident that my strength and independence as a woman as well as my comfort with standing up for myself came from the strength I saw in my mother each and every day as she raised three children on her own.
If you are a single parent I hope you are able to find support where you need it, and time to relax with your children and on your own. You deserve it! And if you know someone who is a single parent – offer to make the family dinner, or take the kids for a weekend, or check in to see if there are ways you can help keep an eye on their children during the week. It really does take a village to raise our children, and if you are doing it on your own that village becomes your partner in parenting even more.