There's a conversation happening on another blog that I thought was interesting - mainly because it's been on the front burner of my thoughts today. The subject revolves around feeling like you are a better parent when you have another person to parent with. A single mom by choice says no.....a single mom by default says yes.
The second topis was are children of single parents more at-risk socially, emotionally and acedemically.
Here's what I wrote:
You know what's weird? I was actually going to write a simliar thread tonight on my blog - about how Dakota starts classes again on Monday - about how stressed out I am about it because it means I am virtually a single parent 95% of the time. The point of my post was going to be how I feel like I am a MUCH better parent when Dakota is with us then when she is not. The past 4 weeks really brought this home to me. When I am "Mommy on Duty" I'm short tempered, tired, low on energy, overwhelmed, overworked and over everything and anything else you can think of but when Dakota is here to share it all with - I am so much more patient, playful.....fun. I actually enjoy my kids.
I'm only going at this from MY perspective - I'm a SAHM with 2 kids, with little to no child-free time. No "me" time to speak of.
I know that M shares the same basic background - and then she added school, studying, internship, etc. So perhaps her experience in similar.
L, I know you work outside the home full-time which probably gives you the time to fullfill yourself in various ways, run some errands while being child-free, and in general, re-energize yourself.
Ok - so maybe this addresses somewhat the being a better parent inside the structure of a relationship.
As for the social and acedemic risk part of it - I'm not sure I agree with that part the way it is written (and may be coming across). I think that if you go into parenting solo on purpose and have worked out the financial and emotional sides then I would say that your child is no more at risk than any other child. HOWEVER I think this statement MAY be true if you went into parenthood with a partner and then you are suddenly, without warning, a single parent.
In this case, you didn't have the time or resources to have put financial and emotional resources into action. For M the break up was sudden, she was a full-time SAHM mom with no income of her own. The house was sold and she needed to make a move. She could either stay where she was and pay a huge amount of money, work full-time in any job she could get quickly (vs. a career), put her son into daycare and try to survive OR she could move to her childhood town and stay with her parents (eventually building a mother-in-law apartment for space). Then she could return to school and eventually find a career.
So for her - the chance that she was putting her son at risk was very real. But for L, I don't think this was (or is) the case.
I think this is one of those times when the statement needs to be evaluated on a case-by-case basis.
And....now I think I will just cut and paste this onto my blog and save myself some time. :)
L - I think you are a GREAT mom.
M - I think you are a GREAT mom, too!
You're both single moms but you both took VERY different routes. It's easy to see where the views would not match. :)
1 comment:
I completely agree with what you said. I think I was trying to say that just by virtue of being raised by a single mom, that that doesn't put you at risk, it's the lack of resources or poverty that alot of suddenly single parent families find themselves in that's the issue, not just the fact that there's only one parent.
Obviously I have no basis of comparison, but I think that alot of moms who are partnered or who find themselves single do feel it was easier or they were a better parent when they were partnered because they went into parenting with the expectation that they would have a partner, that there would be support for them. When you going into knowing you'll be a single parent, you've never had any expectation of that, you never know anything else.
And I do think working out of the home is a help. As much as I love B, I don't see myself as a SAHM, not even if I was partnered. OTOH, I don't spend much "me" time unless I spend $$. If I'm at work, except maybe for my lunch hour which is often given over to errands, it's all about work. And then I'm home and it's all about being a mom. If want to go out, I have to pay a babysitter. The trip I'm taking to the MOA is pretty costly when you think about it for a few days on non-mom time.
I often wonder what it would be like to parent with a partner. I also wonder if/when that day comes if I'll be able to cede some of my ground so to speak since I've been THE mom this whole time.
Good topic for discussion.
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