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I have had my children ove a 15 year span...so I fit most of the age catagories at one point or another!!
With my lost son...I really would not have had to struggle if I had tried to keep him. Reality was that his father was/is very well off and I could have been very comfortable on child support alone. It just took me ten years to fiqure that one out!! so it was too late. Why no one older and wiser ( like my own mother!!) told me that I should have him be responsible for his child...ah, one of the greatest unanswered questions of my life.
Now my second son..I was just 23 and was considered "young" as a mom. His father and I struggled...we had this little teeny tiny backwards house..that was a converted drafty stable. Rent was 200 a month and it had no heat except for a wood stove, but we had free wood. I stayed at home and he worked two jobs. Then daddy couldn't handle it and I was left alone.I went at that point in a panic to social services but the blue book value of my 5 year old car was 300$ above my resource allotment, so I was out of luck. So I got a job that I could work late afternoons to ten pm. The little man went to a home day care that he loved and his father picked him up and did dinner and bed at my home..then I came home and he left.
The best thing I have done as a single mom was get into housing situations with other single moms. Once I rented a great huge house with another mom and her daughter..another time I had another mom friend and her daugter share living expenses with me at my house after I bought it. In between that I had a cute tiny country apartment that fit my needs and was cheap.
I have never had big issues about not knowing how to deal with kids or Mom in general. My baby brother was born when I was 12, so lots of ands on..I always baby sat and all, I was a nursery school teacher for years...so I am not one of the sort of neurotic mom types. My kids eat food off the floor, get dirty, touch worms, etc.
I find that the biggest misconception was how much things change. Like they do, but it's more of an evaloution..more gradual. Like I find that my kids have needs and so do I, and there is a balance between them..sometimes they come first, sometimes they don't. And everybody deals.
Stuggling was more of an inconvience...having to go to the laundrymat once a week instead of just thowing the laundry in. But I made it as fun as possible and we did what we had to do.
And even now..I have no trouble telling my 14 year old that he is crazy sometimes and I don't have the cash for the ski club. And that if he wants someting bad enough, then he is going to have to work for it. I don't think that not being able to afford everything makes his childhood lacking at all. I think it gives him real life coping skills and the ability not to be a super brat. He actually probably had MORE as the only child of a stuggling single waitress mom than my other two litle ones..because I HATE having to take both of them shopping. They make me crazy. Hence not alot of impluse buys. Plus I did more with him, we went out alot, I had more friends being younger and single..now it is a stuggle to say lets all go to the county fair, as I have three kids that ALL want overpriced stuff..so we do cheaper family outings like fishing. Plus I am more content to just stay home ( and be here..lol) now, plus the house with this many people in it..always needs something!
I don't think that I ever really doubted my ability to parent with any of my kept kids. I just rolled with it. I was probably more nervous wth the birth of my daughter, 9 years ofer son #2. And the main concern with that was ..OMG I will have to have those huge ugly baby things and TOYS all over the house again!!! I am still fighting the toy and mess wars..and losing.
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