Who is really in charge in your household? While most families wrestle with authority and structure, for a single parent family it can be a bit more ambiguous than normal. If our children go between houses or we have been through a particularly tough time, the boundaries can get confusing. A child may have taken on more of a “parenting” role or if your former spouse made all the rules and had most of the authority before a separation or divorce, there may be a void now. As single parents, we do need to get control and make sure we are sending a clear message that we are the ones in charge.
I know that this creates some confusion—after all, there is a difference between being in control and trying to be controlling, and if we share custody with another parent, we are technically both “in charge” of our child’s parenting. Still, we can become the one in charge of our own household, and we can take charge of our lives in such a way that the message is clear: I am in charge.
For single parents, if our children spend time in day care of with a babysitter, this can further complicate things. I don’t know how many times I have heard single parents complain that a babysitter has overstepped his or her bounds, or that the child will mind the sitter but not the parent. It is up to us to take back our responsibility and accept the role of parent—no one else is going to hand it over to us. This does not mean that we need to be forever bossy, controlling and desperately saying “no” just to prove we can. Authority comes not from bossiness, but from responsibility, trust, security, and maturity. We have to be the grown-ups and take charge and the sooner we do it, the more secure our children will be.