Staying hopeful and optimistic can be challenging for a single parent. With one foot firmly grounded in the “real world” and another reaching for a better future—many single parents work to build a healthy family and a great life. Some of us can get hitched up, however, when we are clinging to a fantasy of a perfect family; or trying to recreate an ideal that may have never really existed in the first place.
I must admit that I do think a certain amount of idealism and fantasy is a good thing. But, we single parents can drive ourselves crazy by trying to be perfect or attain some standard that is not reasonable. For example, if you have gone from a two-income family to one income and you are trying to maintain exactly the same living standard—you are probably being unreasonable and putting far too much pressure on yourself to attain a fantasy. Holding on to unreasonable ideals can cloud our judgment and we might make decisions and choices based on fear or clinging to fantasy that are not really in the best interest for our families.
One “story” comes to mind and that is of a single parent I knew who would go into financial and personal debt each Christmas trying to create a fantasy holiday and make sure that her children didn’t “notice” that they were now a single parent family. The stress she put herself under and all the financial precariousness put so much more strain on her family for the rest of the year—not to mention she was so tense that she couldn’t really enjoy the season with her children. She couldn’t see that her clenching on to the fantasy was actually making things worse for her family in both the long and short term.
What fantasies or ideas of perfection are you holding on to that are keeping you from being able to be fully present and enjoy your family as it is today?
Also: Try to Just “Do” Today
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