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Iwas emotionally wrung out from another painful session with one of my prayer partners. For the past year she'd been struggling through a separation with her husband. Over the months, we'd shared tears, tricky parenting issues, and time spent praying for wisdom.
My dear friend isn't alone. Too many women today are valiantly parenting solo or attempting to blend families. As I've talked to women in these situations, I've heard firsthand how they're tackling some of the challenges they face.
Going It Alone
Cindy, a single mom, felt so alone as she raised her children. When the kids began talking back to her, she wasn't sure how to handle it. When sibling rivalry occurred, she wondered what to do. Where could she get help when her kids said, "Every-one else gets to!"?
Cindy looked to her church, but she didn't wait for someone to reach out to her. Instead, she began to pursue fellowship with other couples. On Sundays she invites another family home from church for a simple soup and salad lunch. It's brief, casual, and a wonderful way of exposing her kids to two-parent families. And it gives her a sounding board to talk about parenting issues. Now she has others with whom she can discuss the best way of handling hot topics such as homework, chores, curfews, dating, and television viewing.
Sunday lunches have been a blessing for her kids. As they've gotten to know other couples, they've been able to glimpse how a good marriage works. And as these relationships have grown, Cindy's kids now have other sets of adults with whom to talk through tough issues.
Those of us in two-parent families can learn from Cindy's lunches. Make a point to include a single parent and her (or his) kids in your extended family. Have them for Sunday lunch. Invite them on special family outings. Take her kids out for ice cream. If every single-parent family in our churches were partnered with a two-parent family, we could make a tremen-dous difference in the next generation's ability to raise healthy families. Filling in the gaps in each other's life is part of our calling as believers.
Being Compared to "Real Mom"
When Jeff and Ann married, Ann became a new bride and a new mother to Jeff's son Tom, four. Tom's biological mom would often buy him gifts, and one day after being out with his "real mom," Tom announced, "My real mom bought me a truck, what are you going to do?" The child unconsciously set up a competition between his biological mom and the mom with whom he lived.
Ann soon learned not to compete with Tom's biological mother. Her role isn't to one-up the other parent, but to build her own relationship with her stepson. Ann's also realized she must be positive about the child's birthmother. She doesn't badmouth her; instead, Ann's grateful to her for giving birth to little Tom. Ann recognizes she's been given the gift of im-pacting this little boy's life, so she's made a list of things she wants to teach Tom, such as a love for nature and for reading. Her vision for their relationship enables her to be an initiator rather than a reactor to his stages of growth. And she's blessed as she sees God using her in a child's life.
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