When you become a single parent you quickly learn that there is never enough money. Your kids learn this lesson too, much earlier than you want them too. It’s hard for your kids not to have the things everyone else has, it’s also hard when you are the one who always has to tell them no.
Many studies that are done on single parents focus on income as a reason children from single parent households struggle. This may be true, but not having everything handed to you and learning the value of hard work gives our children life skills they may not have had otherwise.
It’s easy for many two parent families to give their kids cell phones, computers and Ipods, not so for most single parent families. I wanted Hailey to have all the things that other kids had but I was unable to do it on my income. We had to get creative.
Hailey was offered the opportunity to spend two weeks with my best friends parents in California, they even offered to pay for her plane ticket. They wanted her to have a wonderful vacation, going to Disneyland and Sea World, I wanted her to earn it.
The two of us got a paper route to pay for everything other than the plane ticket. It was hard. We woke up at 3am, seven days a week to get the papers delivered by 7am. We went to bed before it was dark. We ate lots of sandwiches for dinner and really didn’t do anything fun for two months.
At the end of that time Hailey had the money for California and felt good about her part in earning it. I think that trip means more to her than anything we’ve done because she earned it.
Yes it is hard financially as a single parent, but our children need so much more than money. You can’t put a price tag on a parent who is present and involved in a child’s life.