My Issue With Single Parenting

I woke up this morning having chest pains, as I often do, and couldn’t really sleep to well all night. I decided to jump in the shower, to try to relax a bit, instead I found myself crying uncontrollably. I know that there is something wrong with my heart. Unfortunately, I may never know what it is because I simply cannot afford to pay anyone to find out. I stood in that shower praying over and over again to please be able to live long enough to watch my children all grow up and become beautiful adults. I am afraid – afraid of the unknown. This is my issue with single parenting.

I have been a single parent since the age of 16. I’ve tried marriage-that failed. I’ve loved my children more than I can describe in words, and the fear of not being with them anymore sickens me. Now, it is not to say that whatever the problem is, it’s a fatal one, but only God knows at this point. What I can say is that it does push me harder and faster toward my goals. I began college, again, in 2008, because I had a daughter nearing the college age, and I wanted to show her some determination. Of course, I also want to provide a much better life for them than they have seen thus far. I have since really persevered in school, and will be finishing, finally, with a degree that has eluded me for many years.

When your children are young, you know they are going to fall down and scrape their knees; they may even break a bone at some point. As a parent, you know how to deal with these mishaps. When they are teenagers, they are going to get their hearts broken, and scare you by staying out late – even past curfew some times. As a parent, I can handle these things too. When they go off to college, or move away, your heart is then broken, and you worry endlessly about them. This, as a single parent, I believe I can overcome as well. It is the things that you don’t know how to prepare for, physically and emotionally, that terrify me. It seems that all you can do is teach your children how to be strong, how to make decisions, how to love, how to be independent, and all the while they are teaching you these things as well.

Single parenting has taught me many things. It has brought me many tears, many laughs, and more pride than I could have ever imagined. It has shown me how to push through the pains of adversity, love harder than I thought possible, and dream bigger than my understanding could take me. It has made me realize that, no matter what, your children are yours, and regardless of what is going on in the world around you, they look to you for their every need. Your life is responsible for theirs. Every decision you make, or don’t make, every opportunity you take, or pass up, every play you attend, every game, every science project, every hug, every moment – it all means the world to your child, the one you brought here to share life with. This brings me to the one thing that being a single parent did not prepare me for – the thought of no longer being here, to be a parent at all.

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