Going It Alone

Parenting is hard.  You know.   Think of it- the diapers, the feedings, the shopping, the stupid and clunky safe and wonderful car seats, the redirecting, reading, singing (that same CD over and over), the discipline, the meal planning, the dance classes, the life-lessons, and then somewhere in there you’re a person too.  Now take all that, and pull away the other parent.  Single parenting is really hard.  Reflect on one of your hardest days (or the hard weeks when your spouse is traveling, and you are gong it alone), now put that day onto every single page of your parenting catalog.

When I was a single parent, the hard days and the good days all got mashed up together into and endless number of days called survival.  My biggest goal was to make it to bed without shouting, numbing out, regressing to an ice-cream junkie, or disengaging from my child.  Actually just getting to bed was a good goal.   Work and bills, home-maintenance, cooking and clean-up, mowing or shoveling with a kid strapped on, reading, playing and child rearing; did I sleep in there?   Most days I pulled it off.  But to be honest, I can’t really recall many of the details of those days.  It’s a blur. The demands of being the bread-winner and the bread-maker are all too enormous.  So forget about themed play dates, eating organic, coordinating clothes from Carters with matching socks on each foot, strong reading skills before 5, impeccable character development, and avoiding all screen time until 12 years old.  Ha!  I was just hoping to make it to each tomorrow.

A few people have asked me which of those was the hardest part of single parenting.  Depending on the day, I might say it’s the exhaustion, the juggling, or the endless night wake-ups with no one else to nudge.  But one time, when someone asked me the hardest part, I said “you know what- the hardest part was not having someone right next to me enjoying all those great moments and milestones.”  The pride in those moments is diminished, and the victory is cheapened when the cheering crowd is down to one.

When my girl said her first words, took her first step, or even the first time I took her out sledding I laughed and clapped, felt young, and free and then I looked around remembering that I was seeing all this alone.    When my daughter started to talk she would construct the cutest little phrases ever put together in the English language! (In actuality it was probably a poorly tensed garble of words, but we laud ourselves to feel special).

I am sure you can think of a few adorable, or even the accidental swear words your little one has blurted out.  It was so fun.  Joyful.  But then it is so sad.  The hardest part about admiring her booming language acquisition skills, was hearing it alone.  Her delightful antics gave me such a smile, I look around and would say “oh my word, did you hear that?!?!”  To which I would respond to myself, “no one else is here.”  So to salve my hurt, I would write it down and tell my mom the next time I saw her.  It helped.  A bit.

The challenging moments of parenting make single parenting hard; but the incredible moments are painful too.  The marriage relationship was designed to flex and bend, to sharpen and make strong- when there is no one to support you in the hard stuff there is also no one beside you to soak in the glory.  Single moms, I hear your sighs today.  And I see your proud smiles too.  I hope you make it to bed okay tonight.

Twin Cities Familys Blog and Emerge have recently partnered to begin building an online community group designed to help teen moms connect with and support each other, including current and former teen moms. For more information on that group, go HERE.

Becca is a Twin Cities mom who took her circumstances, education, and passions and paid it all forward.  She co-founded and is the executive director of Emerge Mothers Academy.  Emerge is a charitable non-profit that serves and supports single moms in South Minneapolis.  She is now married and has two busy kids, who bring her much joy and also many opportunities to regress to evening ice-cream binges!  You can check out Emerge here:  emergetwincities.org  or on Facebook (Emerge Mothers Academy), or twitter (toEmerge).