Single-Parent Guilt

Having great kids was something I never felt I could truly take credit for. I was always so proud of them and bragged about how wonderful they were, yet I knew that it wasn't me that made them that way.

When I was 23, I had just gotten a divorce and moved from North Dakota to Minnesota to Arizona to Idaho in a span of just three months, dragging along my 3-year-old daughter and 5-year-old son. In the process, I had changed jobs twice and couldn't afford to move my belongings that were in storage yet in North Dakota. We found an apartment with a fabulous view of Pocatello and were within driving distance of the best of everything: the Grand Tetons, Salt Lake City, the Snake River, and so much more. All I had to do was to get back on my feet.

Unfortunately, it was February. We didn't have a car, beds or furniture of any kind, no television or even cookware. The three of us slept in two sleeping bags zipped together, ate off paper plates, and took the bus everywhere, which included the library once a week to get our maximum number of books so that we could read stories before bed each night. I was working 60 hour weeks, so I didn't get much time to spend with the kids during the week. On the weekends, however, we had a blast exploring the cowboy park in Jackson Hole, the water slides in Provo, and white water rafting on the Snake River. Yet, I felt guilty. I was the only single parent they knew. All their new friends had two parents. These parents took pity on me mostly, inviting my kids to do things with them when they had family outings. We eventually moved again to Texas and then to Massachusetts.

It seems I spent my whole life working to get them everything they wanted and trying to make up for failing to "keep up with the Jones's." Our vacations were backpacking trips to the Poconos and Adirondaks when their friends went to Disney and the Bahamas. It was the best I could do and I was always quite sure it wasn't good enough. They were really good kids and they deserved better.

When I enrolled them in school in Massachusetts, their new teachers began commenting to me about what great manners my kids had. Of course, this was the minimum expectation in Texas schools, answering questions with "yes sir" or "no ma'am" was mandatory there and they were just used to it. They soon realized that having been all over the country helped out in their geography classes - my daughter even got an extra credit question right when the teacher asked where the headwaters of the Mississippi River was. Of course, we had just been to Bemidji and she had walked across the headwaters in her bare feet just the summer before while on a visit home to see our relatives.
One afternoon when the two of them were in high school, they had friends over goofing off and watching television in the living room while I was baking cookies in the kitchen. I overheard their conversation that went something like this: My son: "Hey - remember when we were little and we all slept in a sleeping bag and read books every night because we didn't even have a tv?" (I swear my heart stopped, terrified he was about to expose me for being the world's worst mother.) My daughter: "Yeah, I sort of remember that." My son: "Wasn't that the best time of our lives?!" They went on  discussing how much fun it had been and how good they were at camping, from setting up tents to starting a campfire, while I, in complete shock, tried to figure out how they managed not to grow up hating me and were somehow boasting about their particular skills when it comes to roughing it!

That day changed the way I looked at raising kids. When I was growing up on a rural dairy farm, all of our neighbors were also dairy farmers, everybody pretty muched dressed the same and we all had the same things from bikes, BB guns, and dolls, to pets, barns to play in and lakes to skate on. We watched black and white television with three stations to choose from but if it was nice out, we preferred to build tree houses or play cowboys and indians. I had suddenly realized that when you're a kid, it isn't about what you have, rather, who you have. I had brothers, sisters, neighbors and friends. So did my kids. They missed out by not having their grandparents around, but there were people who played those roles in their lives in a way. There were always people around who cared about us and that matters more than anything you can buy.

Hug your kids. Love them. That's all it takes!