I have been a guest blogger on several other blogs (which I love doing, but am entirely too embarrassed to advertise about...) and one blog chose one of my postings for their 2011 Top Posts. I am honored. Here is the post...
There is a online parenting community to which I belong. There are many groups within that community and one is specifically for single parents. I have found over the last 19 months of single-parenthood that I have little or nothing in common with many of the single mothers in that group. Today I made the momentous decision to cut the cord that is the Single Mom Group.
I have questioned, over the last 19 months, why the only topics that can be discussed on the aforementioned board include the hatred of the following: the ex. The baby-daddy. The ex's family. Custody battles. The ex's lawyer. Being tired. Being poor. Being alone. Being celibate. Working. Depression. Kids that get on the nerves.
So, in celebration of being a single mother, I will shout from the rooftops that I love, love, LOVE! being a single mother. I love the screaming toddler. I love cuddling with my sweet boy after a long day at work. I love the dishes, the laundry, the mess, the diaper changes, the tantrums, the bills, the stress, the sleepless nights. I love it all. I wouldn't trade it for the world.
There were days that I would reach my level of stress. One day, I stepped outside my meager, small apartment to have some peace. Then, I realized that this is the life that I was born for. I could choose, yes, choose, to be stressed or revel in every minute of this life with my beautiful boy.
I chose that day to fix his Thomas the Tank Engine fourteen, fifteen, sixteen times and not lose patience. I lay on the floor with my son and played. I was the bossy engine, Spencer, and we played and played and played.
I have questioned, over the last 19 months, why the only topics that can be discussed on the aforementioned board include the hatred of the following: the ex. The baby-daddy. The ex's family. Custody battles. The ex's lawyer. Being tired. Being poor. Being alone. Being celibate. Working. Depression. Kids that get on the nerves.
So, in celebration of being a single mother, I will shout from the rooftops that I love, love, LOVE! being a single mother. I love the screaming toddler. I love cuddling with my sweet boy after a long day at work. I love the dishes, the laundry, the mess, the diaper changes, the tantrums, the bills, the stress, the sleepless nights. I love it all. I wouldn't trade it for the world.
There were days that I would reach my level of stress. One day, I stepped outside my meager, small apartment to have some peace. Then, I realized that this is the life that I was born for. I could choose, yes, choose, to be stressed or revel in every minute of this life with my beautiful boy.
I chose that day to fix his Thomas the Tank Engine fourteen, fifteen, sixteen times and not lose patience. I lay on the floor with my son and played. I was the bossy engine, Spencer, and we played and played and played.
I ask the single mothers around the world, how do we do it? How do we survive on little or no sleep, scrape mashed potatoes from every surface within dinner distance, and change a "sauced" diaper, but find time to read to our little monkeys, bathe them, and connect with the very little souls that we fell in love with when we held them in that hospital bed for the first time? How do we teach them manners, but instill in them the sense of independence? How do we keep our tempers, see our hands and faces age, sacrifice so much, and love it?
The answer might be the same as the one given by my mother years ago, "What is the alternative?" The persistence of knowing or hoping that our children will choose to be more than we could ever be keeps us going - keeps me going, anyway. I want my son to eat better, study harder, and laugh louder than I ever did.
My own single mother who raised eight children once said, "Our lives are a culmination of our choices." After she passed away, I have thought that phrase nearly every day. I am where I am because of my choices in my life.
I chose to eat poorly and not exercise, so therefore, I am overweight. I chose the career field that I work in, so I am stuck in a field that may never pay well. I chose to being a single mom, therefore, I am that choice and everything that comes with it. I can choose to be upset about it, but in the end, it is my own choice.
And it is my choice to react how I will. I chose this life. I love this life. I choose to choose JOY!
The answer might be the same as the one given by my mother years ago, "What is the alternative?" The persistence of knowing or hoping that our children will choose to be more than we could ever be keeps us going - keeps me going, anyway. I want my son to eat better, study harder, and laugh louder than I ever did.
My own single mother who raised eight children once said, "Our lives are a culmination of our choices." After she passed away, I have thought that phrase nearly every day. I am where I am because of my choices in my life.
I chose to eat poorly and not exercise, so therefore, I am overweight. I chose the career field that I work in, so I am stuck in a field that may never pay well. I chose to being a single mom, therefore, I am that choice and everything that comes with it. I can choose to be upset about it, but in the end, it is my own choice.
And it is my choice to react how I will. I chose this life. I love this life. I choose to choose JOY!
What is your choice, no matter your life situation? What legacy of choice do you leave to your children, to your family, to the memory that others will keep of you?
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