Yes, parenting is hard. Single parenting is harder.
As a single parent, you don’t have a partner to either reassure you that you are doing the right thing, advise when things go wrong or commiserate on the struggle. You are left twisting in the wind, unknowing if what you are doing is right.
It’s even worse when the other parent is still around and does things that upset your children, like unexpectedly leaving them at an aunt’s house on the other side of the state. The kids are fine, just with a bit more shaken faith in the other parent.
In addition to keeping our children safe as much as possible, parents should help prepare them for the adult world, and that can be so much harder than it sounds. The lessons often seem to go in one ear and right out the other because they’ll do the same thing again … and again … and again. It’s as if they want to purposefully let you know they hate you and will defy you every chance they get. When in reality, they likely just don’t care. And making someone care is darn near impossible.
You can hear it in their voice when they say, “Yes, I understand.” The tone, the lack of inflection, you know they don’t understand. They just want you to shut up. But you care, you want them to understand how the real world works, how they have so much control over their lives based on the decisions they make. There is so much we can’t control, but there’s also so much we can control for the better in our life.
I’ve learned that lesson, and now I pay for my mistakes. I hope they don’t have to pay, but the lesson is lost.
So when I dropped them off at school and they give me that sad goodbye because my advice on how they could improve their life sounds like work, I sit in the car and have a bit of a cry.
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