When I talk to people who are relatively new to single parenting, one of the things I often hear is “I never really expected I would be doing this alone!” This has led me to a personal philosophy that anyone who considers parenthood should consider whether or not they are able to be single parents, but that is another article altogether. What I have learned from talking with other single parents is that “acceptance” is the first step on the road to becoming a great and present single parent.
Sure, some of us choose single parenting as a first choice, but most of us come to it by some other route. While grieving is normal, getting stuck wishing that things were some other way does not help us adjust to the challenges and joys of being a single parent. Whether we started out on some other road or whether or not we did everything we possibly could to make another version of family “work” becomes irrelevant. Our job is to process the grief and get to a place of acceptance so that we can be available and present to live our lives as they actually are.
I know that it is impossible to get to a state of acceptance overnight, but the longer we wallow in the way we wish things could be, the more time we are not there to truly enjoy our child or children and truly appreciate the life we DO have. Each of us has our own process and grieving can take time, of course, but by simply accepting that our life is where it as and accepting that whether we planned to or not, we are now—today—single parents, we can get down to the business of living the life we are actually given.