Am I Raising My Son to be Single or Settle?

I consider my parenting style to be "old school" mixed with a little "new school." I took some of what I learned growing up with my mom and then I also had my own ideas of what I should be doing as a parent. As a single mother I knew raising a son would be something I needed to do on purpose. I am married now which I think was good for my son to see. He is 15 but I raised him as a single parent for majority of his life. I had my "board of advisers" my male friends and family members who supported me and my son. People have a genuine interest in him and want to see him succeed. He also now has my husband to look up to and has bonded with him in the best way. He has more positive male role models than he will ever need.

I cook Sunday through Thursday on Friday and Saturday there's left overs and sometimes we go out to eat. I love to cook and try new recipes. I am against fast food as a means of providing daily nutrition for my son. I set the standard that fast food is something that happens every once and a while, never a daily event. With that my son really appreciates home cooked meals. He makes special requests for certain meals. When I cook to contribute to a church function or a big family dinner, he rushes to eat my food first. He is not a fan of hot dogs and baked beans or boxed macaroni and cheese. He wants a plate full of food, he wants a starch, a vegetable and some meat or fish.

Education is a priority, I am on my son to learn AND retain. Despite some of the teachings in school, I want my son to be able to think critically. Sometimes he is penalized for thinking outside of the box, because he did not give the teacher the exact answer that was written in her answer key in the teacher's edition of the text book. In those instances I met with the teacher and challenged her to allow my son and other students to think outside the box as this is something they will need to learn for life. In life there are no grades, only consequences based on decisions you make. I want him to be a thinker. He is not perfect, I wish he would turn in his homework, I don't know what it is about doing homework and not turning it in. He says he forgets. So for the most part he's on top of things.

I want my son to be well rounded, I want him to succeed academically, but he is also an athlete and I support him in all of the sports he plays. I am at most of his games and discuss the games and practices with him. My son watches ESPN in the morning when he wakes up and would go to sleep to it at night. So I would discuss sports with him. I had to stay on top of things so that he would feel comfortable talking to me about and not feel like he had to teach me all of the time.  I also exercise and engage in physical activity. I have played basketball with my son, I'm not very good but hey I'll get out there. We've played tennis together. My son is very competitive and likes to talk a lot of trash. We play games on the wii. I like to be active with him. I feel that when we learn what our children's interests are and we make it our interests too, it keeps the communication lines open. Communication is what we lose first when they become teenagers so we have to set that foundation early.

With my son I stress to him how blessed he is. I do not want him to take anything for granted. I let him know that not all children live the way that he does. For the past three years he has been spending two Saturdays a month bagging groceries in the church food pantry. He would come home and say how many people came and how many families he fed. He would be happy. I thought I would have to wake him and encourage him to go, but he starts making plans Friday night about getting up Saturday morning. On Sundays we are in church. He is a young usher.

With all of this being said, as my son gets older, I think about the kind of woman he would bring home, what would his dating life would be like.  Would he have choices?  I do not want to come off like I think my son will be a perfect man but I have concerns. I see the young ladies today and they seem to be struggling with serious self esteem issues that lead to other behavior issues. Many boys are being raised to disrespect women. Many women don't cook so I know they are not teaching their daughters to cook. My son sees the way that I carry myself and I know he is going to look for some of those characteristics in a woman. He is well mannered and polite. I don't want this to be seen as a weakness. With every generation, the respected traditions gets lost. Are there parents out there raising their daughters to be respectful of themselves and others, are they being raised to use their minds instead of their bodies to get ahead? Are they being taught how to appreciate genuine qualities in other people? Will they know their own worth so they will be able to appreciate the worth in another? Will they be able to see past where he could take them or what he could give them?

The New Blended Family: We are NOT The Brady Bunch!

The New Blended Family

The blended family was first viewed on television with The Brady Bunch. Back then the man and the woman were married, then divorced then remarried. Each had three children so together they had six children. They had to resolve the natural conflicts of a blended family. Today the blended family can look a little different. There is a mother and a father; they may not have ever married. Either or both of them decide to get married to another person.  There may be children that come from that relationship. Now you have a mother, a father, their children with each other, and then their children with their spouse or other people. What the Brady Bunch did not show was the interaction with the outside parent. When people think about blended families they think about how to make it work within the confines of their home. We have to think in a wider range to include the biological parents sometimes otherwise known as the “baby mom” or the “baby dad”(terms I despise for various reasons) and their other children who are related to your child(ren) and who are involved in the parenting process.

In my situation, I raised my son alone with the support of my family. His father is present but not active in his life. In the beginning that made me angry. He wanted a relationship with me and we would be one happy family, but that relationship was not a healthy one so that would not have ever happened and staying together for the sake of looking like a family seemed disadvantageous. It seemed that he could not be an active parent unless I stayed single. When I didn’t have a boyfriend, he was involved, but when I had a boyfriend he stayed away. So this made for a distant relationship between him and our son. My son plays sports so his father comes to a few sporting events and he sees him on holidays and birthdays. Sometimes he sees him on other days but nothing consistent. Now that I’m married his interaction is almost nonexistent. He now also has two young children with another woman. My son loves his younger brother and sister and would like to see them more often but his father’s estranged relationship with the mother does not allow it. When they were first born, my son was able to see them more often but now that his father and she are not in a relationship he does not see them as much.

My husband has two children with a woman who is involved. They were in a relationship, engaged but never married.  Due to their own reasons, the relationship ended. I was not introduced to the mother of his children until after we were engaged. She knew about me, that he had a girlfriend and she was not too happy about me being around the children. She even threatened that he would not be able to see the children until she met me. The children love their dad very much; he does everything from taking them to and from school to taking them to all sports practices and games to taking them to doctor’s appointments. He is more involved in his kids’ lives than some fathers who actually live in the home with their children.  He and the mother argue quite a bit, there seems to be a competition for who buys the best gifts and who has the most fun stuff when it’s their turn to have the kids: frequent trips to Chuck E. Cheese and Dave & Busters & amusement parks, fast food for breakfast and dinner, etc. Needless to say a lot of money was being spent and the children started to expect “something fun” every time they came over. Not to say this is bad, but there was no balance. The parents were so caught up in trying to trump each other, the kids were not receiving the discipline and structure that all children need. This is something my husband and I discussed when we got serious. He began to realize this was not healthy for the children. They needed structure and boundaries; it can’t always be Disney land when they go to daddy’s house. This was an adjustment for the children and they resisted at first but have since been happy with how things are now. Not so much chaos, they know what to expect.  “Fun Stuff” still happens just not every day and when their behavior warrants such an event.

The ideal situation would be that everyone knew their role and everyone got along, but we do not live in an ideal world. We have people who were once in an intimate relationship that are no longer in the relationship, now in other relationships and everyone is connected by children. Ideally the people who were once in relationships get along and can have positive relationships with the new partners. Because the relationships may have ended on a sour note or the some people may be resentful of the other who decided to move on with their life, things can be difficult. We hear stories about celebrities like Will and Jada and Ashton and Demi who have forged these co-parenting relationships with their previous significant others either living across the street or in the same mansion with them. That is not my reality and I’m sure it is not yours. We have to do the best we can to make the situation a positive one and if we focus more on the health and happiness of the children we should be successful. We have to let go of the past hurts and negative thoughts about the other person no matter our role. Our kids are blessed to have so many people who want to be in their lives.  We just have to know our role and not let personal feelings get in the way of our parenting.

As a stepmother I was first unsure of my role. For my husband it was easier, I think.  He was able to continue doing what he does with his kids, with my son because my son’s father is not that active. For me it’s different. Custody is shared, they are with their mom sometimes then they are with us sometimes. I feel that she might be threatened that I want to take her place when that is not the case for me at all. I feel like my role is more complimentary to what they already do.  Nobody has to disappear for me to be involved. I can still love them and spend time with them. However I am aware that she feels there are things that only she can do with them and if I were to do them I would be overstepping my bounds. I have not figured out all of those things yet because I tend to put myself in others’ shoes and things that I wouldn’t have a problem with, other people do. This is a work in progress and hopefully one day she will feel comfortable with me being around and not feel like I am her competition but more of a complement, meaning I fill in where there is a need and add to the love that already exists.

What are your thoughts?

Creative Communication with Your Child

As a two year old my son didn't talk much, he was too busy getting into everything. By age 3 almost 4 years old, you could not shut him up. I used to call him "question boy" because he asked so many questions, one after the other after the other. His curiosity had no end. You never knew what he was going to ask. I was happy to answer his questions...if I could. So when he started pre-school, everyday I'd pick him up and ask "how was your day?" He would tell me about what his friends did, what he learned, what his teacher said, what he ate for lunch and snack, and what games he played. After a while, after I asked about his day, he began to ask me, "mommy how was your day?" He would ask me about traffic, because he heard me talk about traffic and how it frustrated me so many times before. He listened! As he got older our conversations after school were something that was regular.

Then we get to the teen years. Apparently adolescents in the years of one-word-answers. I would ask "how was your day?" He would say "fine" or "okay." I realized that teenagers have the same policy as the military: Don't Ask, Don't Tell. So I had to start probing. I had follow up questions for the one-word-answer. How were your classes? Did you have any tests or quizzes? Any coming up? Do you have homework? Did you turn in your homework? (I could look this up online, but I'd rather hear it from him) How was lunch? Who did you sit with? How are things going with your friends? I would ask questions until the question-answer session became a free flowing conversation.

Now in high school I developed the "Circle of Trust" taking the after school chat one step further. The purpose is to teach him to express himself freely and openly; to learn to not hold things in. As a public health professional I can't help but think of the health implications of holding in your feelings. My son is growing up to be an African American male who are at risk for heart disease, strokes due to eating, exercising and stress habits. So my son gets exercise, eats well, but he tends to hold some things in and I do not want this to be a habit.
The rules are: during the time frame you choose (an hour maybe), say what you truly feel and think; nothing said in the circle can be used against you. This can be done with all children or if you feel some children need privacy or alone time with you then it could be just you and that child. You know your children and will know what is best for them.
You begin with reminding them of the rules then asking a few questions:
What are some things you are concerned about?
What are some of your worries or fears?
What are some things that you are excited about or make you happy?
Are there things you wish you could change? Or you wish would change? Why?
Are there things you think I (the parent) don't understand about you?
If their have been changes (new marriage, new home, new school, new baby) have happened this is a good time to process the change with your child.

It maybe awkward at first because these questions probe their innermost thoughts. You as the parent maybe afraid of the answers, you may not like the answers, but as your child answers the questions, process with them. Try to find out why they have the feelings they do. The more in tuned you are to your child the better parent you will be. You can also set the tone for the conversation by answering some of the questions yourself. That will build a trust within the conversation, nobody wants to share their feelings with someone who is not willing to share theirs. For example I would answer the first question with:
My concern is for your safety. Every morning I pray that God protects you and keeps you throughout the day. (Awareness) I also pray that He gives you wisdom to make good decisions and choices. (Accountability)
As the parent you will have to be open and honest and open and NON-JUDGEMENTAL. If they mention something about their other parent, you have to put your personal feelings aside and realize this is their parent and this is how they feel and you have to validate their feelings. If not, they will not communicate with you or they will give you limited communication because of your reaction.

There are other options for children to get out their feelings like writing in a journal, but with facebook and texting, the more personal interaction the better. Actually talking about things you are able to provide feedback and help them process their feelings and your feelings too. You may learn a lot about yourself in the process. Our children are our mirror. They show us ourselves. Sometimes we don't want to see some things but that doesn't make it disappear. So if you need to prepare yourself ahead of time, do that. Just know that building an open communication dialogue with your child will make for a great relationship as well as prevent issues that come up in a teenagers life you wouldn't otherwise know. Your child will also care about how you are doing and feeling because you've shown them how. We are the first teachers.

Team Parenting

Times have changed. People have children with people they are not married to or married people, have children and don't stay married. There are people who have children with 2 or 3 different people. People without children enter into relationships with people who have children. There are so many parenting dynamics it's hard to keep up. The picture of a family is no longer Mom, Dad and 2.5 children. There's mom, grandma, uncles, or dad, grandma and grandpa, or mom and husband (step father), dad and girlfriend, etc. People in different roles are raising children today and sometimes the biological parents are involved and sometime they aren't.
In parenting, the first thought should be the child and what is best for that child. As a parent we have to put our own thoughts and feelings aside to make sure our children are safe, happy and stable. Are they loved, receiving the best education, socially, mentally and physically healthy? These are questions we have to answer with a "yes." If we cannot answer with a "yes," then we need to find out how we can get as close to "yes" as possible. There is no such thing as a perfect parent or perfect family; we all work with what we know at this moment. We use our current knowledge and knowledge we gain from other sources. We work with our past experiences with our own parents, whether we want to be just like them, be completely opposite or take some things and leave the rest. We look at our friends, family and other people in our lives as guides.
Team parenting is when parents and other vested parties are involved in the parenting of the child. I will start with specifically the biological parents and the significant others of the parents. So the dad has a girlfriend/fiance/wife and/or the mother has a boyfriend/fiance/husband. These situations can be sensitive and complicated. The first thing that needs to be addressed is the feelings the mother and father have for one another. If they still have feelings for each other, it is not very smart to bring outsiders into the situation and you don't want to confuse the children. What you will learn is that ALL children fantasize about their parents being together and everybody being one big happy family, but what children do not understand is that when mommy and daddy get together, things are nothing but happy. A child is better off with parents who are happy and separated than with parents who stay together and are unhappy. Many people stay together "for the sake of the children." This is an unhealthy situation for a child to grow up in. Be honest with each other. If the two of you cannot get along, hate each other, constantly sarcastic and degrading to one another, do your child a favor and either get counseling to try to figure out what the issues are, address them in a healthy way and make it work OR separate. Staying together in an unhealthy relationship teaches your child to do the same. Would you want your child to grow up and be in an unhappy relationship? No, so why is that the lesson you are teaching them?
Next, dating and relationships when you have children are complicated. You do not want to involve someone in your child's life until you know that this relationship is significant and has the possibility to be permanent. Children get attached to people fairly easily and they need consistency. Parading different people in and out of your child's life is unhealthy for them. Choosing the right partner is also important. Your partner has to actually like children first of all. If they turn their nose up at your child or do not want to hear stories about them or have no interest in your child, keep it moving. This person will not be good for your child. Your child should not have to compete with this person for your attention. When you start bringing this person around your child, there has to be a sense of welcoming and integration, enjoying activities together. If your child is scared of the person, that is a sign. Please do not let your fear of being alone affect your judgement about who you have  in your life and around your child. You will find the right person who will love you and your child. If they love you, they will love your child because they love you then that love will grow and separate so that they love the child independent of their love for you.
With the other parent and a new significant other, it will take time for the other parent to get used to and you have to respect each others feelings. You were in an intimate relationship at one time, maybe in love with each other. There will still be some feelings that the other parent will need to work through. Ideally we all want to be with the person we have children with but it does not always work out that way. So we have to accept the situation and work through whatever feelings we have about moving forward. The relationship with the significant other and the other parent needs to be cordial for the sake of the child. The parent who is in the relationship is responsible for setting the stage for mutual respect. The introduction should be made and maybe a discussion needs to happen with the other parent explaining how serious the relationship is, how there should be nothing but respectful conversation and every one's expectations for the treatment of the children should be made known. What does not need to be present is childish behavior, name calling, or talking bad about the other parent to the children. Sometimes there were bad things that happened in the past and you can't stand for the other person to be happy; you may be justified in your feelings of hurt and pain, but reacting negatively will not alleviate your pain and only ends up hurting the child. No matter what role we play in this situation, we must be grown ups. We must set an example for the child. The child has to feel comfortable and loved by all parties. We have to leave our animosity, ill feelings, past hurts, and unanswered questions to the therapist. We have to come together to support the child. We can attend sports events, plays, recitals, and graduations without the tense atmosphere. Accept the situation for what it is and move forward. 
As a significant other, be understanding of the situation, be flexible and loving.
For the other parent, there is no need to "mark your territory" by not adhering to the parenting schedule or engaging in actions in hopes of letting the world know that you are THE MOTHER or THE FATHER. Your child knows and that's all that matters. You just focus on being the best parent to your child regardless of who's watching.
For the parent with the significant other, respect the other parent, do not think you have to say negative things about the other parent or make excuses for where he/she is lacking. You be the best parent you can be to your children.
It is not fair to make the child feel that this is a competition and they have to choose. Sometimes they feel that they need one parent over the other for different reasons. In contrast you don't want to create an environment where the child can play each person against the other. If communication is clear, the child will not be able to get over on anyone. Children know when things are not right. They are paying attention even when you think they are not. They are listening when you think they are sleeping. Communicate with the other parent. Make expectations clear and compromise when necessary.
When we work together as a team, everybody benefits. Children benefit from having as many positive role models in their life. We all have valuable knowledge and skills that we can share with our children, the more they are exposed to the more well rounded they will be. When the child's well being is our goal, it's easier to work together = Team Parenting.

Welcome to the Parenting Perspective

Acknowledging that parents are people before they are parents you have to first deal with the person. As a person we have many characteristics that affect how we parent our children. There is nothing about ourselves that we can leave out. One thing having a child does is expose everything about us. Look at it as a good thing. Sometimes there are things about yourself that you would like to improve. Some people don't realize until they use curse words as much as they do until their 18 month old uses one of those choice words in the supermarket in front of millions. So now you know, and now you can make the necessary adjustments. Adjusting your behavior is the same as baby proofing your house.

In the past I've worked as a social worker assisting parents with their adolescent daughters who were at risk for delinquency. Later I taught parenting classes to mothers, fathers, and guardians of children of all ages. With these two experiences I learned one great lesson, no parent sets out to be a "bad" parent. Parents do what they know based on their current knowledge and experience. Sometimes parents make choices that do not benefit the child. As I said before, parents are people first. Some people grow up in not so good conditions or find themselves suffering from illnesses or pain that spills into their parenting. Their education level, family experiences, relationship experiences, etc all affect how they make decisions about their children. Some parents get in over their head not realizing the consequences of their actions and need help. As a parent it is okay to ask for help. You will not find an operations manual strapped to the back of your child when you first become a parent or guardian. When you get a new job, decide to go back to school or buy a house, you get to do a little research to get some information. Because all parents are different, all children are different (even siblings) and family dynamics are different. So with that many combinations, it is hard for parenting to be an exact science. It is definitely on the job training. However that does not mean we can not be proactive about learning how to be the best parents we can be.

The first thing we have to do is look at ourselves and see what are our strengths and weaknesses that we bring into the parenting game. As cute as our babies are, they will not be babies forever, one day sooner than you think our children will be grown people. What kind of adult do you want your child to be? This is the thought that needs to be in the back of your mind when you make decisions about discipline, education, activities, bonding, etc. Many parents do not think past the day to day activities to think about the future and next thing you know your child is a teenager engaging in activities you are not happy with and you are attempting to backtrack to see what led to this behavior. Is it something you could have nipped in the bud, maybe, maybe not. We always have to stay steps ahead of our children and NEVER forget what it was like to be their age. We were not perfect children and we cannot expect our children to be perfect.

This blog will discuss many things about being a parent and I welcome your comments, questions and advice. All I ask is that your posts come from a place of love and desire to share with and help others and not a place of judgement and finger pointing. We are all in this together. Our children are the future leaders of this world, we want them to be the best and this is one way to help each other meet our common goal.

Thank you!