“Single parenting is sometimes just a case
of sitting around by yourself in mild despair, not knowing what to do.” – Simon
Van Booy
I’m a mom
who is also a dad.
My husband
died 11 years ago and I inherited the “dad” crown. The only difficulty is, I
still struggle with how to wear it properly. I know what a woman can provide
for her children because I am a woman. But I don’t know precisely how or what a
man provides.
I have a
father. A great dad. And when I think about what he brought to my life, I think
of safety and security. He was sure. He was steady. He taught me how to change
a tire and check my car’s oil. He taught me not to keep too much crap on my
keyring because the weight was bad for my car’s ignition switch. He showed me
every day what hard work looked like.
Have you
ever heard the saying, “I have to work twice as hard to be considered half as
good”? I’m a single parent operating in a world that is still set up for a
two-parent household. Schools have “Lunch with Dad” day. My daughter came home
with that flyer from school and told me that her teacher said it didn’t have
to be a dad. It could be a grandfather. Any “father-figure” would be fine.
Somehow, though, me showing up to the lunch was not what they had in mind. But
I’m her father figure. Don’t they see? Gender-specific theme meals hurt the
kids. They cause the kids shame and pain and open them to teasing because, let’s
just say it, kids are cruel and they use things like this to taunt one another.
“Lunch with Mom” was equally painful for the little boy in her class whose mom
had died from cancer earlier in the school year. Can’t it just be “Lunch with
Parents”?
I play both
roles to my kids in an age when the idea of roles is supposedly becoming more
fluid and less defined. Except when you are the only parent on duty, those
roles are just as sharply limned as ever by you receiving comments like, “don’t
you have a man to do that for you?” This was when I went to the auto store for
new windshield wipers and asked how to put them on. Or, the only single dad in
my daughter’s class brought cupcakes to the class Christmas party (the only
party where we were allowed to bring sweets for the kids). One of the other
moms told him they were adorable and asked where he got them. He replied that
he made them. She paused for a moment and then said, “Oh, why didn’t your wife
make them?” He and his wife have been divorced for seven years.
I’m the mom.
I’m the one who cooks and cleans and snuggles and sings (badly). I tuck them in
at night and wake them for school in the mornings. I nurse them when they don’t
feel well; I do their hair. I’m soft, loving, warm, encouraging, hard-working,
independent, and filled with sage motherly advice.
I’m also the
dad. I drive. I teach them how to protect themselves from bullies, how to carry
themselves, and how to know what they are worth. I know how to fix tiny things
around the house, so they see me maintaining this castle of ours. I take the
car in for servicing and take out the trash. I’m firm, grounded, dependable,
steady, and occasionally want to tell them, “Go ask your mother.”
It’s hard to
know if I’m giving my kids what they need from both parents, because I’m only
one parent filling two roles. I can’t tell them how a man thinks because I don’t
think like a man. I can only perceive how a man thinks. I can only prepare them
for the extraordinary women they will become, for a broader definition of ‘personhood’,
in a world that is constantly changing around us all.