Single Parent Faith: Being the Parent

Showing posts with label Being the Parent. Show all posts

Thursday, August 9, 2012

High School Graduation Day

“The love of a mother is the veil of a softer light between the heart and the heavenly Father.” –Samuel Taylor Coleridge

In early June my daughter graduated high school. When that day arrived, it did so as if it snuck up on me. In the moment of the day-to-day life of raising a child, time seems to stand still. But then, in the surreal moment that is graduation day, it appears as if that day approached in a flash.

In the blink of an eye, I went from walking her into her first day of kindergarten, to shouting out her name in a crowd of over 800 graduating seniors. In the distance I watched her hugging friends and smiling for photos. This is the very baby I brought home from the hospital, without the slightest understanding of what it would really take to raise her. Nor that compounding this challenge I would one day face raising her as a single parent. I had no idea of the many things I would have to learn along the way. And the things I have still ahead of me to learn as a parent who walks through stages of my own development, in parallel with my teen.

Connecting with our Kids at any Age

The mother-child relationship is paradoxical and, in a sense, tragic. It requires the most intense love on the mother's side, yet this very love must help the child grow away from the mother and to become fully independent.” – Erich Fromm (German Psychoanalyst 1900-1980)

I always enjoy running across a file in my computer where I’ve documented a moment in the life of my child. Here’s a snapshot of a moment with my daughter at age 11.

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It’s my daily ritual to call my daughter at daycare in the afternoons. It gives us an opportunity to connect and gives her the chance to share anything that’s on her mind prior to me picking her up. Sometimes she tells me, “Mama, I’m not feeling too good,” which is sometimes code for, “I don’t want to go to soccer practice.” Sometimes she’ll tell me, “I just want to go home and snuggle with you.”

Parent Weariness— Teen now 18

“I have many times been driven to my knees by the utter conviction that I had nowhere else to go.” ~Abraham Lincoln

I have not blogged consistently for the past few months. To say my current reality during this timeframe has been rather chaotic and stressful, may be understating it a wee bit. You see, my 17 year old turned 18 late last year, and my world has been in utter chaos surrounding this milestone.

Everyone knows that raising teens is not easy. Having already weathered many teen storms, I thought that as she approached 18, the worse was behind me. I really began to enjoy her at 17. It seemed that her teen revolts were fewer and I saw maturity begin to set in. I thought she was finally “getting it,” understanding many things regarding life and our relationship seemed strong.

The past six months have been a struggle as I try to maneuver through the depths of this chaotic teen journey into adulthood. Not only is this a difficult period for her, but as her mother, I am catapulted into a transition I thought would be just that, “a transition.” Silly me, I thought a transition meant that there’s time to adjust. Believe me, there has been no easing into this life’s episode! It has been a catapult into enemy territory; only come to find out, I’m the enemy.

Want to Date a Single Mom?— Things to Keep in Mind

“When you are a mother, you are never really alone in your thoughts. A mother always has to think twice, once for herself and once for her child.” ~Sophia Loren

Talking to some single moms we got onto the subject of dating and how different it is— and should be— when a woman has children. Our priorities and focus are different from women with no children. Post kids, no longer do we put our individual desires front and center in our lives. We see the world through how our actions affect our children, and consequently, how the actions of those we let in, affect them as well.

I have often found that guys who are not, nor have ever been a parent/guardian could use some tips prior to pursuing a single mom:

Paris Amidst Teen Angst

“When I was a boy of fourteen, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be twenty-one, I was astonished by how much he’d learned in seven years.” – Mark Twain

Recently I ran across this photo of my daughter taken during a trip to beautiful Paris, the week of her spring break. She was 14 years old at the time, already a very difficult period in teen years, which explains why her back is to me.

When I discovered her sneakily placing a call back to the U.S. to talk to a certain guy from school, it thrust me into a state of fear, disappointment and parental guilt.

Trial of the Century— What we Can Do

When I was young I had a cat that gave birth to a litter of eight kittens. I remember removing one of her kittens and walking away into the next room. This mama cat meowed non-stop calling out for her baby. She instantly knew when she was plucked out of her litter, and came to search for her one that had disappeared. She didn’t give up until I released the kitten to her. Mama cat then grabbed her by the scruff of the neck and carried her back to her litter.

Image Source: http://flic.kr/p/9i62Rh

This relentless protective behavior is what we typically come to expect of mothers. Anything less is uncharacteristic of a mother’s love.

Dating Service- Through the Eyes of a Child and Single Mom, Part 2

“Do not train a child to learn by force or harshness; but direct them to it by what amuses their minds, so that you may be better able to discover with accuracy the peculiar bent of the genius of each.” —Plato

Image Source: http://flic.kr/p/9srnvp

The dating service arranged a meeting for me after work, on a Friday my daughter was to be with her dad. That morning, as I was in my closet, my daughter asked, “Do you know what you’re going to wear?”

"No."

“What kind of a look are you going for? Are you going for the sexy look?”

Where does she get this stuff? I don’t use the word “sexy” with my child, but there are multiple sources in a child’s life where they can pick up all sorts of language and ideas.

We stood in my closet as she pointed and selected various items, trying to match them for me. Eventually we made a combined selection—Of course I had veto power.

Silent Treatment— Teen Moments

I’m getting the silent treatment again. I am referring to my fifteen year old daughter. Need I say more?

No matter how much time I spent attending to her needs as a baby, time I took off of work to attend her events at school, science projects I guided her through, soccer games I drove her to, talks we’ve had, I don’t get to bypass the alien stage.

There are moments when she’s my sweet girl most familiar to me, and moments where out of nowhere she’s giving me the cold shoulder. I once heard an educator refer to these teen years analogous to having ones child abducted by aliens. Truthfully, when he said that, I thought he was out of his gourd.

I thought, Hmm, maybe he doesn’t have my kid, or maybe he just isn’t as fortunate to have the close relationship my daughter and I have.

This judgment that I passed was of course based on my daughter not yet having entered this teen phase. Ah, ignorance is bliss. Now, I’m convinced they planted a chip in her, designed to test my faculties, my patience, and my sense of humor.

The thing about motherhood is not only the obvious missing manual, but also that as my child grows, so do I. This is the stress and the joy of it. Of course being a single mom adds to the stress of it.

During these moments where her hormones are playing ping-pong, I try to remember that this is only a moment in time, and moments are fleeting. Nothing highlights this more than recently while cleaning out a doll basket, I found her bathing suit from when she was 3 years old. I lifted it up by my fingertips, trying to imagine the moment when she fit into it. It seemed like yesterday.

Wasn’t it yesterday when she kissed my cheek leaving behind the sticky trace of peanut butter? Wasn’t it just last week when she was four years old, and she asked me to lift her up so she could look into her day care cubby? She reached in with her rubber band wrists, pulling out something very special she picked up for me while on the playground.

She sweetly said, “Take this to work with you Mamma, so when you miss me you can look at it and think of me.” Her tiny precious hand in mine, she unveiled a whole, unopened pecan shell.

A few weeks earlier when she had a tough time at daycare with separation in the mornings as I dropped her off, I gave her a locket with a picture of me on one side and her dad on the other. The intent was for her to look at it when she missed us. She smiled and loved looking into it often. She wore it every day until she was ready to shed it.

Now fifteen, one day soon, I know she will be ready to shed another layer of her childhood, another stage, and she will one day become a grown woman. When I look back to this moment, I wont remember me asking, “What’s wrong?” and her pat answer, “Nothing.” Instead, I’ll recall the greatest ride of my life: Motherhood.

She is God’s blessing for my life, so that I can know what it is to love another, unconditionally. No matter what the moment she’s in, sweet or alien, I have come to know that the good and the bad are here to make us better parents— better human beings. To guide a child through their anger, through their fears, through their selfishness, forces us to see a reflection of ourselves. Forces us to learn ways to still reach them through their difficult moments (and as a consequence, our difficult moments).

Like the shelled pecan, kids can go into their shells and need to know we are still there for them despite this act of alienation. It’s never personal. It’s about what’s happening inside their world, which often is more confusing to them than to us. I extend to her the life line, “When you’re ready to talk about it, I’m here, wanting to listen.”

Ella Venezia

Extracted from my older writing archives—Younger reflections of my child.

http://flic.kr/p/bkwcrU

Sunday, May 22, 2011

Day at the Park— Amidst the Fun, A Questionable Moment

Yesterday morning in an attempt to finally “start” back exercising, I accompanied my daughter to our favorite park. It is quite large and has many fields and trails—so there’s a lot to choose from.

The irony didn’t miss me. Years prior “I” was the one giving her instruction on what exercises to perform. Today “she” was doing that very thing to me. She of course, being in her teens and active with cross country running, is in a lot better shape than sedentary mom whose been far too many hours sitting at a computer.

Unpopular Mom

I received a call from my then 13 yr old daughter crying, saying her chest hurt. I rushed over to pick her up from daycare to take her to the doctor’s office. She greeted me angrily “I wish you wouldn’t go ahead and make an appointment after I told you I didn’t want to go to the doctor’s!”

Having turned 13, she would no longer be able to attend daycare after this summer session. She wanted to squeeze every moment of time she could with her friends and teachers, now as the summer was drawing to a close.

As I drove her, she moved her body as far away from me in the front passenger seat as she could. Her aversion to me and any contact included giving me the silent treatment.

Hey, remember me? The lady who adores you and cares about you? The one who nursed your many fevers and handled hundreds of diapers? Remember me? The one who has to do unpopular things when I know you are not yet able to discern and appreciate these decisions. The battle waging within you to grow up so fast and yet, stay a child.

The doctor gave her an inhaler to outrule asthma, and we discussed several cardiac conditions that may cause similar symptoms. She was a part of the conversation, so she must have surmised that it was a worthwhile visit. As we left the office, she reached for my hand to hold, “I love you Momma.”

And all is back to normal, my child is back.

“I love you too! Being a parent means sometimes doing the unpopular thing out of love. ”

She turned toward me and smiled, “I know.”