Check out the article in this month’s American Baby magazine, “Surviving (& Thriving) as a Single Mom,” by yours truly.
One of the best perks about writing this article was chatting with all these super-single mamas across the country.
Like Christina Ann Zola, Solo Mother of Washington, D.C, whose marriage fell apart when she was living abroad. She returned to the U.S. with a toddler, four suitcases, and four hundred dollars. She says, “You can survive this, or you can lie down and die.”
Of course, I also turned to Dr. Leah Klungness, co-author of the best selling The Complete Single Mother, for plenty of sound advice. You can read the whole piece here.
And then Do Tell:
What do you do to hold your head high? (call your girlfriends? take a bath after the Kid is asleep? watch R-rated movies? buy a new sex toy?)
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The key to thriving as a single mom is embracing the fact that you’re doing it alone. Even with occasional “time off” you are still always parenting, always on-duty. I think there are upshots to everything — and if you can intersperse those with the realizations that it’s really hard, you don’t get lost in the depths of it.
To have some true quiet time to myself I wake up before everyone else. It’s the only time it’s truly still. And once a year I schedule a weekend away from dogs and kids. I’m counting down to one right now — i t has been almost 17 months!!!
I breathe. One big gulp of air in and one big release.
I pray. God help me make it through this.
I smile. I look into her eyes and realize just how beautiful she is; I did that!
I focus. On anything and everything that can make our lives better. (I study harder at school. I submit more articles for possible publication. I work my buns off …one step at a time.
and then I Breathe.
1) Writing
2) Manicures and occasional pedicures
3) Reading a great book (Mostly when I’m traveling and away from the three-year-old)
4) Hot baths with candles and dimmed lights
5) A rare, yet occasional small gift or treat for myself
6) Setting the timer on the coffee pot and waking up to the aroma, then actually enjoying a cup (On weekends, when we don’t have to rush out the door in the early a.m.!)
7) Waking up, period, and realizing that as hectic and stressful as my life is, I have all of the basic necessities and a bright, happy, healthy, adorable child who was the absolute best thing to come out of my disastrous marriage!!
[...] get a note recently from a new reader who said she’d read about SoloMother in American Baby! Rachel Sarah’s great article, Surviving (and Thriving) as a Single Mom, is in the October issue, and you can read the article [...]
today it is the hardest. my girls do not and will not ever understand what i am feeling or going through. they are more worried about thier own boyfriends and friends more than thier own mom. i am the mother of 4, a 17 yr old, a 16 yr old, a 15 old, and an 8 yr old. my ex-husband was just found not guilty of aggr. robbery, kidnapping, and felonious assault. how on gods so called green earth am i suppose to be? he put a gun to me, he had another round in the gift bag-give me a break. please someone let me swallow what just happened. i love my girls i love them all. they are my reason. i get up, i get in the shower, i go to work–they are my reason, my purpose. i dont know how to go on..god has failed me..my family has failed me..where do i go?