Single Parents Town Blog

“With everything that happened to you, you can either feel sorry for yourself or treat what happened as a gift. Everything is either an opportunity to grow or an obstacle to keep you from growing. You get to choose.”

Wayne Dyer

I have reflected back on this quote many times over the past few years. I sometimes wonder if the author was a single parent? Over the past six years I have been through living with an alcoholic, a broken marriage, interventions, rehab. centers, a separation, a divorce, the death of my children’s mother, the death of their grandmother, the executor of two estates, an IRS audit (which I won), a failing business, the meltdown of my investments in the stock market, a depreciating home value, raising my kids on my own 24/7, dealing with their grief, anxiety and fear issues and wondering when it will all stop? One thing that I refuse to do is feel sorry for myself. Hell, I don’t have enough hours in the day to feel sorry for myself. I remember that someone once told me that the difference in life between a pessimist and and optimist is really nothing. The optimist just enjoys life more:) I have to say that I have really tried to enjoy life but sometimes it is difficult. When you spend your whole day taking care of, and worrying about everyone else it can wear on you. For as long as I can remember my mom has always told me that “God only puts as much on your shoulders as you can handle.” Now I know why I work out six days a week. My shoulders need the strength. Continue reading »

Deep down I knew I had to leave.  I had known I had to leave my daughter’s father for 5 years but I just couldn’t find the strength to walk away.   Well having her finally started to break the spell I was under and I very quickly felt myself detaching from him in a way that I never thought would happen.

But now I had a lot more at stake.  I was all the way out in Kentucky so who knows what type of laws I was facing about taking my child out of state.  Also, as much as I was starting to not want to be with him anymore, I felt a tremendous guilt over the idea of taking her away from her father.  I was seperated from my father after an almost life ending car accident at the age of 5 years old on Christmas day with my father in Florida.  He was sent back to New Jersey to be taken care of by his dad and my mom, wanting to start a new life, moved me and my sister to California.  I don’t remember seeing my father again till I was 10 even though he says he did see me a couple of times.  In fact, I don’t have any recollection of my life at all until 10 years old.  So the idea of my daughter not getting to be around her dad on a frequent basis killed me because I know the problems it created for me.  

So I saw my situation as a no win situation.  Stay in a relationship that was getting progressively worse day by day or become a single mom and face the hardships my mother faced and separating my daughter from her dad.  I remember going to single mom forums just to see what I was up against, and there was not one single mom that had a good thing to say about the dad or being a single mom.  Not one!!!  I tried my best to suck it up, stuff down my pain, put on a happy face and hope everything would get better but it just got worse.  We were both abusive towards each other and emotionally immature and I was concerned that it may escalate into potential physical abuse.  I do not buy into that old school mentality that even if the relationship is bad, the parents should stay together for the sake of the children.  What does that teach our children?  I firmly believe that I was put on this earth to break family patterns and the history of abuse was going to end with me.  I was not going to model that for my daughter.  NO WAY!  But still, as independent and head strong as I am, the thought of leaving was still very very scary. Continue reading »

Over the years I have learned that there are times when my kids love to talk, and times when they just don’t. As a full time single dad I am sure that I probably talk way to much for their liking. I am always trying to impart what little wisdom I have upon them through our conversations. I believe that this is called parenting, they believe that this is called nagging. What I have to remember is that there are times to parent and then there are times to just listen. As the old saying goes “God gave us two ears and one mouth for a reason.” That saying is a bit tough for me to swallow since the kids believe I have such a big mouth:)

What I have learned over the years as a parent is that children are no different than us. They really do want to share stories with you, it just has to be when the time is right. I my daughters case, right after I pick her up from school is the perfect time to talk. She is filled with stories of what went on at school, who got in trouble and who has a crush on who. She is a regular chatterbox. I always make sure that I ask her two questions each afternoon. What was the best thing that happened at school today and what was the worst thing? Those two questions will bring out a conversation for as long as you want. For my son it is a bit different. He is 15 and usually isn’t going to share his entire day with me on the way home. He definitely isn’t going to share with me during his favorite television show, video game or text sessions with his friends. For him Sushi Rolls and Yellow Tail seem to be the magic potion that turns on the communication button.

Last night while Michaela was attending a friends sleepover (no school today) Jack and I went off to his favorite sushi restaurant. It was just he and I one on one. Just a boys night out. No little sister trying to dominate the conversation. From the moment we sat down he started  talking. He was like an auctioneer at a charity event. We talked about school, friends, weekend plans. We talked about ideas that he had and how his day went. There is something about one on one time with dad that brings out the best in Jack. Maybe it was the six Yellow Tail he ordered, or the Crunchy Roll, or the Mi-so soup or the shrimp, but whatever it was, it was his time to talk. Continue reading »