The Educated Single Mother

The Educated Single Mother

“A mother is she who can take the place of all others but whose place no one else can take.” (Mermillod) This quote emphasizes one of the many meanings of the word “mother”. This quote can especially relate to single mothers. When faced with the difficulty of raising a child by yourself, you sometimes have to play the role of mom and dad. Mothers may never be able to fill the void of the missing father, but given the chances, they will try.

To say the least, being a parent means taking care of your child everyday, knowing everyday occurrences, and learning about them from their expressions and behavior. Raising a healthy, well rounded, respectful, and intelligent child is every mother’s goal. There is so much personal reward in learning about your child and growing with them. The reward becomes ten fold when mothers do it alone.

Being a single mother myself, I have done my best to make my daughter’s life as level as possible because of her loss. My child’s father left when she was 16 months old. Her father did not run off to never return or call. He simply moved out of the house and has every other weekend visitation. He is what I classify as a “weekend dad”. Although he is a good dad when he has her, I would not consider him a parent. I have taken the duty of a single parent running a house, working, going to school, and raising my daughter. Although I have a number of obligations, my first priority is to raise my daughter to be the best woman she can be, despite her situation. I do not want my daughter to develop emotional problems because she grew up in a single parent household.

“Emotional intelligence is a set of skills learned from early childhood on- mainly from our parents” (Neilson 5). With that said, we, as single mothers, should be educated on the development of children in single parent households to help our children through hard times. Parents who ignore the fact that their children could suffer from the loss of their father are going to make it even harder for the children. If the parent’s don’t acknowledge there are problems, how is a vulnerable child going to be able to cope with the stress from their problems? As mothers, we can begin to help our children through these times by being educated about our children’s development.

During my research on this subject I came across a book that caught my attention unlike any other book has in a while. It was written by Neil Kalter, Ph.D., psychologist and psychiatry at the University of Michigan. The book is called Growing up with Divorce: Helping your child Avoid Immediate and Later Emotional Problems. This book is remarkable in covering all aspects of a divorce or break up involving children. It covers the different stages of divorce and how each stage affects the child at their particular stage in their development. What I found particularly valuable were the use of many different situations. When you research this material, there is an abundance of research that leads to poverty. This book contributes to everyday situations that everyday people go through whether in poverty or wealth. Regardless of economic status, some issues with divorce and break ups are inevitable.

Although infants may be the most difficult to care for, helping them cope seems to be easiest when they are still so little. This may be because they don’t understand about divorce or breaking up. All they know during a divorce or breakup is environmental changes. Even though she doesn’t know why, she can feel that you do not have as much time to spend with her. Now you have to take care of the cleaning, laundry, shopping, and cooking alone. Also, when she spends time with her dad it will most likely be in a place that she is not familiar to being in with him. Any change that takes place a baby’s life is one that you as a mother have to help them adjust. One way to help your daughter healthfully adjust to this change is to keep her life as consistent as possible. Kalter defines consistency as “the child has a regular, predictable daily schedule of where he will be and, even more urgent, who will care for him” (74).

In Kalter’s book he talks about a young toddler that was having anxiety when he had to visit his father. His father was exercising visitation once a week. His parents were getting along despite the break up. The child was doing well in daycare. Therefore, his behavior lead his parents seek the help of a child psychiatrist. The psychiatrist broke it down and explained that children become familiar and comfortable with their environment and situation from physical experience, not emotional experience. It is hard for a young child to develop a bond with someone they only see once a week (86).

The typical visitation schedule of every other weekend is not a good idea for children so little. If this situation took place, she would have to spend 2 days with a man that she hasn’t seen in 2 weeks. This does not allow her enough time to know that she can trust this man to care for her, leaving her feeling uncomfortable. Much like the child in Kalter’s book.

This situation may also be detrimental to her dad developing a bond with her. Divorce is hard for everyone, even dad. If he is already having a hard time dealing with not being able to see his daughter everyday, it can be harder for him when every time she is with him, she is unhappy. This can be wounding to her dad and may harm the chance of a healthy valuable father-daughter relationship in the future (Kalter 85).

A solution to this may be to allow for more consecutive visits from her dad. For instance, he could spend 3 days a week with her. Let these days involve activities that are important such as feeding, diapering, bathing, and playing. She will experience that he can take care of her like a parent is expected. When he is rewarded with the sense of being needed from his little girl, this can make it hard for him to abandon her. This can ultimately contribute to the life long bond between her and her father.

Also with children this age, it may be best to not allow over night visitation until they are a little older. Make sure you and her father have a clear understanding that this is not to punish him, but to allow for her to adjust to the changes in her primary home. Keeping a consistent routine of daily activities (wake-up time, dressing, nap time, bed time, breakfast, lunch, dinner, etc.) will help her to adjust to only having mom to take care of her. It would also help to talk with daycare providers to keep this schedule during the work week and weekend. Make an extra copy for