Being A Single Parent is Easy, Being a GOOD Single Parent is Hard!

One day when I was feeling completely overwhelmed with all my responsibilities and admittedly feeling a great amount of self pity, I was confiding in a friend about how stressed I was. What did all those other single parents out there have that I seemed to be lacking? There are so many single parents out there that seem to float through their days without spending even one second stressing out, and here I was pulling out my hair, crying and struggling to figure out how I was going to make it all work yet again. Then my friend looked at me and said "being a single parent is easy, but being a good single parent is hard, and you are a good parent."

WOW! That was one of my "ah-hah" moments. I stopped dead in my tracks and started mulling over what he had just said. He was so right! Being a parent would be easy if I did not care about where my kids were, that they were getting good grades in school, who they are hanging out with after school, making sure there was good food to eat at home, and just making sure that in general their lives were pretty normal.

It is all the other stuff that seems to stress me out. Making sure they get to all the activities that they want to participate in and still getting all their necessities covered becomes a juggling act. I make sure that I am there to watch them in as many events as my schedule would allow. I may miss one game to watch someone else's but they always know which events I will be at and which ones I have to forgo. I hate having to choose, sometimes it is the distance of the drive or the time that dictates which event I get to attend, but I try to spread myself around and attend as many for each of them as possible.

Some might say that I let the kids dictate our lives and schedules with their activities, but they are people who have never felt the joy of a parent as you watch the pride and sense of accomplishment on your child's face when they just had an awesome win or played a great game. The sense of pride you feel when they look for you in the bleachers and smile when they see that you are there. They learn so much from their other activities that to not let my kids participate would do more harm than good. They learn to be part of a team (or family), they learn to win and loose, they make friends outside their normal school circle, they learn responsibility, dedication and hard work. They learn to respect their teachers, coaches, officials and teammates.

Could all these things be taught without all the activities, I don't know. But I do know that as a single parent, I will take all the help I can get to help turn great kids into fine, young, happy and healthy adults.

I have been blessed with my children and I will do whatever it takes to help them grow into great adults. I have seen hints that all that I am doing now is making a difference in their lives. They may not always admit it, it is not cool to say you want your mom to be there, but they do look for me and can not wait to tell me all about it, even if I was there and saw everything. I am told that someday they will appreciate everything I have done, so in the meantime I will take what little crumbs I can get and sit back and enjoy the fruits of being a GOOD single parent.