Recently I was reminded again of how many tough decisions we have to make as single parents. A friend of mine posted on her Facebook about how guilty she was feeling because her daughter had to have a tooth pulled because she had to keep putting off getting it fixed.
As she said, sometimes the decision was between feeding her daughter or going to the dentist. So why does she feel like a bad mom? This woman works hard and takes wonderful care of her children but because their father doesn’t help her there isn’t always money left after the basics are paid for.
We make choices every day, usually due to our financial situation, that may not be in our childrens best interest but they are the only choice we can make at the time. It’s not even really a choice, but we still look at it as if we are lacking because we didn’t do what needed to be done.
I remember when Hailey was in the emergency room and I was so upset that my baby was in pain and I couldn’t fix it but still, in the back of my mind I was worried about money. Hailey didn’t choose to get sick, and it’s not her fault. Just like it’s not my fault that once I paid the co pay for the emergency room we ate a lot of ramen noodles until I got caught up again.
I still felt like a bad mom, if I had planned better, if I made more money, if, if, if. Isn’t it funny that her father was at the hospital, reminding me of his empty wallet but able to go home and not worry about how he was going to feed his daughter.
Sometimes it makes me so mad that I have to push things off, I’m just grateful that there haven’t been any real emergencies that I couldn’t pay for, that’s really the blessing in all of this.