Parenting Alone : Wider Community Makes for Healthy Kids
Parents are bombarded with a double message today regarding the relative importance of fathers in the lives of children. On one hand there exists a strong cultural current out there to the effect that fathers are not very important, and you can raise a perfectly happy, well-adjusted kid, without a partner. More and more women are choosing that option, or finding themselves faced with a situation they hadn’t planned on. At the same time, there is a big surge of interest right now in the important role that fathers play in the lives of children, and there are single mothers who take on a lot of guilt for not being able to provide the “ideal” home for their children. It’s no wonder so many women feel conflicted on the subject. I recently overheard a young mother say in an angry, defensive tone of voice, “My baby doesn’t need a father! He has me, and I am the only person in the world he needs!” Her statement set off alarm bells ringing inside me.
Parenting is hard work, the hardest, most rewarding work I have ever done. I do not believe the cultural expectation we have for mothers in this culture is humane or healthy, and that includes single and partnered mothers. Human beings developed within societies built upon large extended families. We lived that way for thousands and thousands of years. People shared their work then, and most people in the rest of the world still live that way. We westerners with our nuclear families have really left behind something wonderful, and I don't only mean help with work and child-raising. We are missing a lot of our sense of community, our appreciation for intergenerational relationships, and a whole lot of other great stuff, as a result of the current most favored family structure.
No parent should be an island. Single parents living alone with their children have it twice as hard as partnered ones, with just the work-load alone (unless the partnered ones have lazy co-parents). I also think that it is really healthy for children to have more than just one attachment figure. Having only one attachment figure sets a child up for a devastating, perhaps unrecoverable fall if s/he loses that one figure. Parents do die sometimes! But a child with two attachment figures has some insurance against permanent devastation, and a child who, say, lives with extended family may have a whole handful to rely on. Children with a number of attachment figures also learn valuable interpersonal skills as they maintain close relationships with different sexes, ages, personality types, etc. And when children are in the volatile teen years, having a number of different attachment figures to go to for help, advice, and listening, has been demonstrated to be a real asset in helping adolescents avoid the pitfalls of the teen years. Having more than one attachment figure is good for kids, and having other adults in their lives that they can rely on is good for parents.
Finding other attachment figures for our children can be really difficult with the way our society is set up now. I am lucky. I am still close with the women I met with for weekly Northwest Attachment Parenting meetings for five years. The women in that group became an extended family for my children. My blood family lives fairly close by too, so my children’s lives are enriched with a number of major attachment figures. Many people live across the country from parents and siblings these days, though, and we move so often in America today, that our children do not have the benefit of knowing, as they grow up, the loving old lady next door. We have so lost our sense of community, and we are so wary of child molesters, that we often don't even get to know our neighbors well enough to let our kids play at their houses, let alone allow our children to form close bonds with them. Single moms have an even harder time because they don't have a partner or the possible resource of that partner's family to draw from. That is not to say that it is not possible, or that that is a good reason to stay with an inappropriate partner. I am not bashing single moms here! It is just harder.
I have often thought if I were a single mom with a dysfunctional family or no family, that I would embark upon a quest to find a bosom friend to share the load with; someone like me to share expenses with, and the work load, someone else my kids could rely on and bond with. I'm not certain how realistic that fantasy, but I would try.
We are all being the best parents we can be. Millions of kids are out there right this minute, in two AND one parent homes, crying to be held and no one is holding them, but not our kids. You don't have to do it alone. Find support. Find other parents who understand what it is like to be you.
Parents are bombarded with a double message today regarding the relative importance of fathers in the lives of children. On one hand there exists a strong cultural current out there to the effect that fathers are not very important, and you can raise a perfectly happy, well-adjusted kid, without a partner. More and more women are choosing that option, or finding themselves faced with a situation they hadn’t planned on. At the same time, there is a big surge of interest right now in the important role that fathers play in the lives of children, and there are single mothers who take on a lot of guilt for not being able to provide the “ideal” home for their children. It’s no wonder so many women feel conflicted on the subject. I recently overheard a young mother say in an angry, defensive tone of voice, “My baby doesn’t need a father! He has me, and I am the only person in the world he needs!” Her statement set off alarm bells ringing inside me.
Parenting is hard work, the hardest, most rewarding work I have ever done. I do not believe the cultural expectation we have for mothers in this culture is humane or healthy, and that includes single and partnered mothers. Human beings developed within societies built upon large extended families. We lived that way for thousands and thousands of years. People shared their work then, and most people in the rest of the world still live that way. We westerners with our nuclear families have really left behind something wonderful, and I don't only mean help with work and child-raising. We are missing a lot of our sense of community, our appreciation for intergenerational relationships, and a whole lot of other great stuff, as a result of the current most favored family structure.
No parent should be an island. Single parents living alone with their children have it twice as hard as partnered ones, with just the work-load alone (unless the partnered ones have lazy co-parents). I also think that it is really healthy for children to have more than just one attachment figure. Having only one attachment figure sets a child up for a devastating, perhaps unrecoverable fall if s/he loses that one figure. Parents do die sometimes! But a child with two attachment figures has some insurance against permanent devastation, and a child who, say, lives with extended family may have a whole handful to rely on. Children with a number of attachment figures also learn valuable interpersonal skills as they maintain close relationships with different sexes, ages, personality types, etc. And when children are in the volatile teen years, having a number of different attachment figures to go to for help, advice, and listening, has been demonstrated to be a real asset in helping adolescents avoid the pitfalls of the teen years. Having more than one attachment figure is good for kids, and having other adults in their lives that they can rely on is good for parents.
Finding other attachment figures for our children can be really difficult with the way our society is set up now. I am lucky. I am still close with the women I met with for weekly Northwest Attachment Parenting meetings for five years. The women in that group became an extended family for my children. My blood family lives fairly close by too, so my children’s lives are enriched with a number of major attachment figures. Many people live across the country from parents and siblings these days, though, and we move so often in America today, that our children do not have the benefit of knowing, as they grow up, the loving old lady next door. We have so lost our sense of community, and we are so wary of child molesters, that we often don't even get to know our neighbors well enough to let our kids play at their houses, let alone allow our children to form close bonds with them. Single moms have an even harder time because they don't have a partner or the possible resource of that partner's family to draw from. That is not to say that it is not possible, or that that is a good reason to stay with an inappropriate partner. I am not bashing single moms here! It is just harder.
I have often thought if I were a single mom with a dysfunctional family or no family, that I would embark upon a quest to find a bosom friend to share the load with; someone like me to share expenses with, and the work load, someone else my kids could rely on and bond with. I'm not certain how realistic that fantasy, but I would try.
We are all being the best parents we can be. Millions of kids are out there right this minute, in two AND one parent homes, crying to be held and no one is holding them, but not our kids. You don't have to do it alone. Find support. Find other parents who understand what it is like to be you.
| gaelenbillingsley_child_singleparent1.doc |