For my job, which I absolutely love, I have to build a timeline for what my work will look like in three, six, and 12 months.
Typically, I’m full of ideas and creative juices, but I’ve legitimately sat staring at blank paper for days. How am I supposed to know where I want to be in 12 months when I can’t even get to the corner store right now without asking a friend for a favor?
Ugh. Car trouble. As a single mom doing it entirely on her own, it’s one of my biggest fears, and now it’s a reality. Even worse, car trouble at Christmas time keeps me from working my second job, which leaves me little wiggle room in my budget.
The Unnoticed Fronts
I don’t think single moms are given the amount of credit they deserve. Society has a tendency to view it as an absolute deficit, and it is on numerous fronts, but there’s so much that goes into single parenting that goes unnoticed.
It’s the things like “who buries the family pet when it dies?” “Who does the small household repairs?” “Who carries out the trash and clears the sidewalks in the winter?” “Who helps with homework, monitors showers and baths, does the laundry, brings in the income?”
The list of what we do seems endless, and add “only parent” to the job description and you’re talking about no days off, shifts that run solo 24/7, and no real downtime because there’s always so much to do with rarely enough resources to do it the way you wish it could be done.
I know a lot of single mamas. Some of us are slaying it. Some of us are doing better than others. Some of us don’t have an idea how we’re doing because we’re too busy/exhausted/stressed/overwhelmed to even remember to notice. Most of us know the statistics: our kids are more likely to have an addiction, and they’re more likely to grow up poor, drop out of school, and become teen moms. Our sons are more likely to be incarcerated at a young age. The future doesn’t look too bright in that lens.
I don’t personally know a single mom who is financially stable, and Lord forbid someone finds out you’re a SNAP recipient because then you’re told to stop having kids you can’t afford. I read comments the other night on a Yahoo documentary about the effects of poverty on unborn babies and was sickened by what was said. We’re so quick to point the finger at the moms when the last time I checked, it takes two people to create a child. And something tells me that single moms are not the root cause of poverty. They may be ensnared in it, but I doubt they created it.
Borrowed Dads
A few years ago, I designed and was the leader of a ministry for single-mom families at a church I used to attend, called BAD (Borrowing a Dad) because men from the church volunteered to serve as, well, borrowed dads. We met monthly and while the moms were on site having small-group discussions, the borrowed dads and kiddos would participate in an activity. They went fishing and played kickball, and they went swimming and played softball. It was a great program, and the relationships still continue even today.
One of the biggest moments was when the borrowed dads rented an SUV and took the girls to the Father/Daughter Dance. They were all dressed up and ate at the Olive Garden, and, most importantly, the girls were not excluded from such a popular event. Those dances meant so much to my own children. It’s been years since their last one, but my oldest daughter remembers every detail about her first dance. She remembers where they ate and what they wore. And she remembers, perhaps most significantly, how he held the door for her and carried her across the parking lot in the rain so she wouldn’t get her new shoes wet. He taught her how she deserved to be treated that evening, and she still holds that experience near-and-dear to her heart.
This past spring, I watched a teen wreck the vehicle he was driving. He was worried to death about wrecking his mom’s only car and rattled on and on about how he was sorry he had done it. He kept saying, “My mom is going to kill me.” “My mom let me drive this one because someone hit my car.” “My mom will be so mad that she has to pay for this.”
I asked if his mom was a single parent and was told yes. He wanted to know how I knew and I told him it was the things he was saying that allowed me know because they were the same things my kids say when things go wrong.
I guess you could call it, “Kids of single moms’ speech.”
Keep Movin’ Forward
I don’t know what the point of this article is, really. Maybe it’s more of a journal entry than an article. Maybe I’m just thinking out loud on paper. Maybe I’m feeling sorry for myself while I’m without a car and this is how I deal with it. Who knows?
Or it might be because the kids are napping, it’s quiet, and I’m not wanting to think about where I will be in 12 months from now because I am enjoying these moments of silence before it’s time to cook supper, decide whether or not one of my kiddos needs to go to the doctor, help with last-minute final test prep, fold laundry, ask if the teeth are brushed and showers were taken, and figure out which friend is going to help me get my crew where they need tomorrow. And that’s all before 10 p.m.
Yes. Yes, I’d say that’s probably the point of it.
Keep movin’ forward, single mamas. I see you and appreciate you. We’ve just about made it to the end of another year.
Onward!
