It’s the best of times, and it can be some the toughest times. No, I’m not talking about The Tale of Two Cities; I’m talking about the ups and downs of single parenting. As I write this, my son is a teenager, rapidly approaching legal adulthood. When I look at him, I feel the most enormous pride, and a great sense of accomplishment. It has not always been easy, but life’s most rewarding journeys are seldom easy.

I was not born as the world’s most maternal person, but life changes you - ready or not. I was the kind of little girl who liked to play with Barbie’s Malibu Dream House, complete with a cool sports car, a pool, and my Barbie had lots of big parties. When I wasn’t living the grandiose life with Barbie, I was doing less than ordinary things. My favorite things were performing scientific experiments on dolls to bring them to life (ok, I figured out this wouldn’t work by the time I was 5), and I wrote small illustrated books. I must have been fascinated with science and science fiction, because I wrote a lot of monster stories. I’m sure therapy would help, but I’ll just settle for writing stories about my experiences to assist my mental health.

I’m telling you about my childhood so you can see I was not naturally prepared for the joy of motherhood. I rarely played with baby dolls, and I didn’t even babysit much as a teen. My primary interest in high school was photography, and I dreamed of traveling the world to photograph it. But life dealt me something more meaningful and beautiful beyond my wildest dreams.

Much to my own surprise, at the age of twenty, I married. My husband and I discussed our plans to start a family, but by the time our first child was conceived, we were having severe marital difficulties, and for numerous reasons, I decided it was going to be better to raise my son alone. I suppose it was part choice and part necessity, but I have always known it was for the best.

Then he was born. He was more beautiful and perfect than I ever imagined. I now had a very important mission in life - to do my very best for this sweet child. I was twenty-one when he was born. There I was, a naive child myself, with so much to figure out. For example, why the heck did my breast milk flow more when the baby was asleep than when the baby was hungry? There were challenges at every turn. One of the biggest ones, besides raising a happy, healthy child, was money. I was so afraid, so worried. How would I start from zero (actually it was a negative number when you account for the lawyer's bill for the divorce, and the medical bills), and create a prosperous life for us, and have abundant time to spend nurturing him, loving him, and playing with him? I don’t think I ever quite figured out how to “do it all”, and do it all well at the same time, but I have always been able to provide for him, to give him unconditional love, to encourage and support him, and to attend his school and extra-curricular activities. I even volunteered to be a soccer coach once when there were not enough coaches to form teams for all the boys one year. I wasn’t much of a soccer coach, but the kids all got to play, and they all had fun. It was a great experience for me, and my son will never forget the year his mom was the coach.

When I began my mission as a young mother, the journey ahead seemed daunting at the least, but looking back, I know I did what I could with the knowledge and abilities God gave me. Sometimes it was a real emotional roller coaster. The first time I cried as a new mother, was the day he was born when they brought him to me in the delivery room and laid him in my arms. Those were the happiest tears of my life. They were the tears of sheer joy and pure love - there he was - the child and friend I carried inside me for over nine months. The second time I cried as a mother, was when he was only three days old, and his amazingly strong little legs boosted him upward and out of his seat onto the floor. He only fell about a foot onto the carpet, but I was in hysterics, and I could barely speak as I called the pediatrician. The nurse assured me that his soft little head was much more durable than I imagined, but asked me to bring him in. I’m sure that they had me come in mostly to calm me, because they spent more time soothing and reassuring me, than they did examining my smiling baby boy. He was having a great time as always while watching the staff coo at him. There were many other times that my eyes welled with tears of joy or sadness over my child, but the first day I left him at child care when I had to go back to work was the day I never thought I was stop sobbing. I managed to compose myself for work somehow, but my face was still a bit puffy from crying, so I explained I was having in sinus problems that morning. By the end of each day, I was overjoyed to pick him up and hold him and smell his sweet baby scent. His joy at seeing me was just as great.

Like many young mothers, I thought things got a little easier after the diaper and potty training stage. Well, of course, I learned better. I will be writing more in this series, about my experiences and reflecting back on the precious years I have enjoyed as a mother. I would love hear from other single mothers about your experiences, and if you give me your permission, I would like to put some of your experiences on SingleGoddess.com as well.

Please return soon for another installment of Single Parenting from the Trenches.

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