"This Wasn't My Choice" - An Look Inside a Single Parent's Life

There are many of us who didn’t willingly choose this marathon of single parenting. It’s easy to assume and group single moms (or dads) together in your brain subconsciously as people looking for handouts or taking the easy road out. Like all of us “chose to be single parents.” Ummm… no. There are a few single parents who willingly made that choice for various reasons. But on the other hand, some of us didn’t want to be dragged through this detour in life. Whether through a divorce we never wanted, a death, or an affair, or any number of reasons, some of us defaulted to status “single mom” and “single dad.” Rubber-stamped. Next. No time to reconsider the lengthy job description thrust at us.

Having taken on the responsibility of a packhorse, we looked wearily at the endless future ahead of us. It was overwhelming. We had no idea how we’d make it one more day. Life seemed impossible. Yet, there were some of us who didn’t want to get tied up in the struggle forever. We saw there was a better way, so we fought each and every day to make life better.

Now, we take nothing, and turn it into something. We make molehills out of mountains. We take what life throws at us and we just keep getting back up. It’s because we have no other choice.

People have said to me, “I don’t know how you do it. School, work, being a single parent? I couldn’t do it.” My gentle response is as matter-of-fact as it can be. “There’s no other choice. You just get up every day and do what needs to be done because there is no one else to do it.”

Sometimes that means 2 hours of sleep. That means being the only one taxiing the kids back and forth to school, sports practice, appointments, parties, church, and vacations. And then there’s the age when they become social and start making all kinds of new friends they suddenly want to “hang” with.

I actually had to dial my friends by phone. On my parent’s rotary phone. And someone could pick up another phone, so you had to be extra careful about what you said. If you wanted to see them, you actually had to walk to their house. Fast forward 24 years to tonight; my daughter video-chatted with a friend. I’m blown away by how tech-savvy this generation is compared to what I knew at their age.

See? Being a single parent, your brain is all over the map. You’re always running 5,268 open windows in your brain simultaneously. There’s a million things to remember. God help you if you forget your daughter’s gym locker code.

Daisy, our Min-Pin mix

Daisy, our Min-Pin mix

Playdates, planning out their schedules, visiting family, making memories, shopping for anything from school supplies to pajamas, screening both children and adults for positive role models; it’s all a one-management team. Don’t forget about dishes, errands, laundry, cleaning, and if you remember, car maintenance. Oh, and the family dog. We can’t leave her out. And somehow my fallible human self has to fit in a job AND finishing a college degree on top of my single-parenting gig.

No. Some of us did not choose single-parenting willingly. Looking at all of that, I couldn’t say “That’s the life I want. I purposefully want to make my life and the life of my children harder. I’d like to give us more obstacles to overcome.” Success shows up in simple ways such as removing obstacles, not creating them. Almost any sane parent would try to improve the lives of their children, not make them harder for no good reason.

Regardless of our situation, we single parents get up every day and do what needs to be done. And we teach our children what we can fit into each available moment. Sometimes we get eye-rolls, or the emphatic, “MOM.” But we don’t want them to repeat our mistakes. We’re intent on breaking the cycle.

Speaking of eye-rolls, pre-teens are awesome. They get embarrassed by the simplest things. I once danced and sang to a Pharrell song in a clothing aisle in Target. My kids did not appreciate my budding skills. But I did it with them in mind. Maybe someday they’ll thank me.

I know what our children will thank us for. We are teaching them that life doesn’t have to drown you. We are teaching our children that you can make good out of any situation. That there is nothing from which you cannot come back. We are teaching them the true meaning of success: being able to do what you love. For many of us, that’s spending time with our children, making passion-filled memories and burning mental snapshots in our minds of a life well-lived.

No, there are many of us who did not voluntarily choose this path. But now we have embraced it and wouldn’t trade our lives at present for anything. Well, maybe if a certain someone met a handsome Brazilian man? I digress. Mom-brain.

My daughters and I learning to embrace mental and physical challenges

My daughters and I learning to embrace mental and physical challenges

We’ve got this. Our kids see that we embrace challenges and learn from mistakes. Our kids feel our compassion, support, and validation. They know we are trying our hardest. Our family has its disagreements and conflicts like any other type of family, but we’ve learned how to use communication to work out our problems.

No, life never goes exactly as planned. How many of you are doing what you carefully scratched out on your kindergarten assignment entitled, “Who I am Going to Be When I Grow Up?” Maybe one of you? See, life rarely goes the way we think, even starting at a young age.

It’s all in how we react to our circumstances. Do we give in? Do we give up the fight? Do we become life-long victims of circumstance? No. We see that being a single-parent household doesn’t define us or our future. We have the power to be successful. Our magic comes in never giving up the fight. It’s consistency and commitment, day in and day out. Mixed in that magic is our tight-knit love for one another.