Parenting - Being a Single Mother

One may find oneself a single mother as a result of different circumstances such as having a child out of wedlock, separation,divorce or death of one’s spouse. Whether by chance or by choice, being a single mother is no easy task.

A single mother needs the support of family members and close friends in raising her children. Even where financial support is not an issue, she needs persons who can be trusted to pick up the children from school when she is working late, who can allow the children to stay over for the afternoon because she has a medical appointment. She needs someone to share her worries about her son who seems to be following the wrong crowd or her little girl who is growing up and getting interested in boys. She needs another voice that the children might listen to in a difficult matter because they hear hers all the time.

Sometimes, single mothers may unwittingly cause their children to undertake adult roles prematurely. For want of other options, their teenage children become their confidants on whom they pour out all their work frustrations, financial frustrations and sometimes even emotional frustrations . In time, these children develop a protective attitude toward their mothers as they gravitate more and more into the adult role.

Also, single mothers in low income brackets may find themselves in situations where they are forced to place financial burdens on their teens by allowing them to work in order to help with domestic bills. One of the consequences of such a situation might be that the teens might become unmanageable because they feel that since they are sharing the financial responsibilities they are exempt from obeying the rules. This can certainly create difficulties in the home.

While it is true that boys have a tendency to be attached to their mothers to the extent that they share their innermost secrets with them, I have found it true, in my experience, that boys who grow up without a father figure feel that they are missing out on this important element in their development. It is a father who takes his son out riding, roller-blading, football playing, etc. Consequently, boys, in the absence of a father, sometimes attach themselves to other male figures such as their friends fathers, their teachers or other adult males who are willing to spend time with them and who offer guidance, mentoring and love.

A mother might experience great difficulty in relating to the issues of a teenage son who is having difficulty transitioning into manhood. She would probably call upon persons such as her brother, father or religious minister to assist her in dealing with the situation.

Indeed, a single mother might do a fantastic job of raising her sons. Certainly, many fine young men have been raised by single mothers. Yet who knows what serious deficiencies are harboured deep within their hearts throughout their entire lives as a result of having grown up without a father figure? It takes a man to raise a boy. It is said that a boy needs a father to nurture him into becoming a man.

Likewise, every girl should have a mother and big girls need their mother even more than little girls do. However, a girl also wants her daddy to be proud of her at her graduation; she needs her daddy to let the bad boys know that there is someone at her back; she needs her daddy to reassure her when she is feeling down and insecure in her relationship and most importantly perhaps, to walk her up the isle on her wedding day. Single mothers may be fantastic, but they cannot satisfy the yearning that every girl has for her father.

Single mothers are necessarily strong women. However, they too have needs. get lonely at times. They provide love and comfort for the kids; they are there to meet the kids' every need. But who meets their needs?

Single mothers get lonely at times. A single mother, like everyone else needs a soul mate, but can be very difficult to find the partner who will blend in well with the kids. She finds someone whom she really cares for, but her son can’t stand him or her daughter resents him. She has the options of a life of loneliness to keep her kids happy or a life of conflict between spouse and kids. Therefore, to avoid having to choose between her spouse and her kids she abandons the relationship before it has even started.

Happy are the single mothers who find the happy medium.