Some of us come to the world of single parenting by choice, and others of us by accident or some unfolding path. We might be single parents through divorce or death and may have never in our wildest dreams imagined we would be parenting on our own. Even if it isn’t our choice, however, we and our children can benefit from our letting go of feeling like victims and actually behaving “as if” we are doing it by choice.
We’ve all heard of how acting “as if” can help us to visualize and change our feelings and attitudes about things happening in our lives. It can be extremely hard to do this with some of life’s hardest circumstances. And, I think for some of us, our process to single parenthood might be considered one of life’s hardest circumstances.
The gift we can give ourselves and our children by acting “as if” is that we can start to embrace the joys and pleasures of parenting again. By letting go of feeling like victims, or harboring resentments about the “raw deal” we think we have received, we can start to feel like our family has a purposeful intention and we will not be tempted to let other people’s definitions of the “broken” family into our world.
For our children, this frees them up to feel good about their family and not absorb our own attitudes that something has gone wrong. Now, acting “as if” we’ve chosen single parenthood may not be easy for some us—we may get hitched up on the fact that we do not really FEEL like we chose it—but the acting can help our attitude shift and create a more positive and joyful world for our kids. It might take time, but letting go of those resentments and feelings of victim-hood can be an incredibly positive healing step for our families.
See Also: Having Respect for the Past and Learning to Trust Our Own Judgment