Advice For the New Single Parent

Ok, the unthinkable has come to pass. You have become the one thing you promised yourself you would never become; you are now (gasp!) a single parent!

It does not matter how you came to this point, you now have to deal with a new reality. There is a little someone (or maybe a few little someone's) depending on JUST YOU. It is time to step to the plate. Whatever dreams you had, whatever plans you had just became secondary to accomplishing your primary mission in life, raising your child(ren) successfully. Seriously think about your situation. You may need to drop your long term plans for short term security.

That may sound a little harsh, even a little cruel but it is also a lot practical. You may have been willing to live on canned beans in a one room apartment while you went through college and medical school to be a doctor. With a child in the picture, guess what? That is just not going to happen. You will probably have to give up the Med school and take a job now doing something solid (and lower paying that a doctor) in order to provide a life for your child.

Now that I have you ready to cry and thinking "boo hoo, woe is me, my life is in the crapper," let me clue you in on the good news. Your life is just getting started. You have years of good times ahead of you with your kids. Your life has just changed direction, that is all. As you grow older you will learn that this happens to us all and we rarely have control over it.

However you came to be a single parent, (and let me clue ya'll in here, not all single parents are unwed mothers, there are a lot of single fathers, and widowed parents out there) you cannot dwell on that and allow that event to dominate (and ruin) your life and the life of your child. Move on!

Just because your life has changed does not mean it has come to an end.

Next order of business, do not run out and get married or remarry just to "provide a father (or mother)" for your kids. I am the first one to say that children need both parents but, as badly as they do, it is far worse to make your families lives miserable with a bad marriage just so you can have a "complete" family.

Avoid the temptation to blame your children for your "misfortune." The child did not cause it. They need to be loved and cared for. Also, try not to go the other way, too many single parents tend to overdo the "love" part and overlook the discipline. In a two parent family there is almost always a natural "good cop/bad cop" dichotomy which just naturally forms. This is not so in a single parent family. All too often a single parent is so focused on being their child's "friend" that they forget to be the "parent." When the child is two and slamming cabinet doors, this may not seem too bad. When the child is fourteen, experimenting with drugs and telling his parent to "f-k off," it's a major problem. Unfortunately, it started way back when the child was two, or before. Don't forget to BE the parent.

Stay active in your child's life. Remember, you are doing the job of two adults here, keep on top of things as the years go on. Do not get too worried when your child does not turn out the way you had envisioned them. They won't turn out that way, they are their own person. The goal is raise them right and have them turn out to be a good person. If you do that you have done well. Mission accomplished. It's not impossible, it is just different from what you had planned.