The Single Parent and the Empty Nest!

It occurred to me, just the other day, when my son mentioned for the 10th time in a week. “You know I’m going to be 18 in about a month” -- he actually only mentioned it once but I think I repeated it 9 more times to myself -- I wasn’t going to have a lot more time with him in the house. He is planning on going to college locally but since getting his job and his wheels he’s become very independent. He and his buddies are even talking about sharing an apartment while they are going to college.

You see I’m not his first stop when he needs a good meal or his clothes washed and since he’s making good money I’m not even getting asked for cash anymore. In fact he even offered to pay for dinner the other night, so it appears I am much less needed these days and soon I may not see him very much at all. This isn’t sitting well with me.

Most guys, I would think, look forward to the day the kids leave the house because it takes a little pressure off of them and they can start to enjoy themselves a little more. Moms of course don’t traditionally handle the empty nest very well and I’m expecting his Mom to have some difficulty with it. What surprises me is how I’m reacting. He has been such a huge part of my life and since I am not currently married or seriously dating I’m thinking I may actually get a little lonely.

I’m not going to stress out about it right now. I still have some time before he moves out but I think I may need to start planning my future a little. I’ve avoided serious dating relationships over the years because I didn’t want to complicate things with him – that is a topic for another post – maybe now is the time I should start looking for someone to spend my twilight years with – I think that scares me more then the empty nest. Yes, I have issues!

Divorce! - Put the Kids First!

When I got divorced I was so angry. I couldn't understand why this was happening to me. Anger and hurt are natural emotions when going through this type of event but when they spill over into your relationship with your kids they can have a major negative impact. In our case it only took a single incident for us to realize we needed to put our son first.

One night after we had separated and I had brought my son back to his mom's after a visit, we got into an argument. It was very heated, I'm sure the neighbors considered calling 911. The majority of the yelling was being done right outside of my son's room with his door open. He was just a little over 2 years old at the time and at some point during our argument he stood up in his crib and yelled as loud as a little 2 year old can yell (which is pretty loud) Stop It! and then he started to cry. Both his Mom and I immediately stopped yelling and with astonished looks on our face went in to comfort him. Though we didn't discuss what happened at the time we both realized that our anger towards each other would never be a benefit to our child and could only do damage.

Amazingly we both came to this conclusion separately and were able to make changes in how we reacted towards each other from that day forward. Sure we still had arguments but never in front of my son.

Here are a few things we were able to do to lessen the impact of divorce for my son that may be helpful for you:

• We stopped arguing in front of our son.
• We never talked bad about the other parent to our son. (We may have done that to other family members but to our son)
• We never forced him to take sides.
• We tried as hard as possible to be consistent with discipline even if it required us both to sit down and talk to him together.
• We made individual career, living, and school decisions with him in mind.
• We decided to reduce the turmoil in his life by having him go to private school through 8th grade so he had some consistency. We tried to have his stuff at both houses so he wouldn't have to live out of a suitcase when he changed houses.
• We also went to a week-on/week-off living arrangement.

I once heard a saying. "It takes 2 to make a good marriage buy only 1 to make a divorce" I would add to that "it takes 2 to make a workable divorce". I realize your situtation may be much different than mine but if you always put your children first in the decisions you make you can lessen the impact of your divorce on their life.

Discipline and the Single Parent!

When discussing parental discipline the topic can get very heated. A great many parents do not believe in spanking as a form of discipline while others believe if you take away spanking as an option you limit the effectiveness of discipline.

I’m not going to make any judgments about spanking in this post because methods of discipline are a parental decision. First off, reasonable people can differentiate spanking from beating a child and “Timeouts” are very effective for some children. My brother and I came from a household that used spanking as discipline. I don’t actually remember seeing my brother ever spanked but I got it a couple of times (and rightfully so). As young parents though we used different methods to discipline our children. I had to spank my son 2 times by the time he was 4 years old. The reason I remember it was because it hurt me to do it. From the time he was four I never had to spank him again. You see “Timeouts” wouldn’t work with my son, he enjoyed sitting in his room alone. My brother on the other hand used “Timeouts” because his children responded very well to that form of discipline. Now, many years later, his two kids and my son are all very well adjusted, respectful young adults. Parents need to treat their kids as individuals and discipline them when necessary with whatever method works best.

I’m no expert on this subject, but in my case because I clearly explained the rules and boundaries to my son and followed through with discipline that I explained would happen he quickly understood breaking the rules was counter-productive. Certainly, as kids get older the methods of discipline change. As they grow older it often is more effective to take away something that is of value to them, setting boundaries with clearly explained consequences is effective. What doesn’t work though is setting up rules that you won’t make stick. If kids don’t feel there will be any consequences to their actions no amount of yelling and threatening will work.

However you decide to discipline your child do it because you love them and want them understand proper behavior and that there are consequences to their actions.

Memories!

My son and I drove by our first apartment the other day, really the only place we lived as a complete family (except for a brief attempt at reconciliation). My son was only 2 at the time so I didn't expect him to remember much but I asked anyway. He said the only thing he could remember was that I used to take him up the street to look at the horses and throw rocks in the pond. I was amazed, we really only did that a couple of times and the pond was actually just a puddle left over from a big storm. That got me thinking! We only have so much room in our heads for memories, what made him select that memory over so many others?

I thought back to my own childhood and the memories that stood out from my earliest days were related to emotional moments. Some of the memories were nice and some were not so pleasant but almost all of the early ones involved some type of emotion. I remember telling my Mother that I wanted to be a writer when I grew up and her saying "honey, you have to read something first" I remember thinking "I don't like to read so I guess I can't be a writer" I also remember walking home from school with my 2nd grade girlfriend and spilling milk on a girl I really liked in first grade and a crush on my 3rd grade teacher.

I asked my son to think about what he remembers from his early childhood. In addition to the memory I mentioned above, he remembered his Grandma taking him to see the construction workers building homes (when he was around 4 yrs. old). He remembered the cockroaches at his mom's house when they lived with her parents and he remembered me being late to pick him up from school one day (he was the only kid left). I remember that event also, I can still see the hurt in his face. Fortunately there were several more positive memories that involved me. I was struck by how much these events had apparently impacted him but I had to think hard to remember most of them.

It appears our deepest memories are made from emotional events; not from all the fun things we did while growing up but often from the everyday mundane things we did. They come from living and sharing an emotional connection. If you are a parent, my suggestion is to ask your kids what they remember from their early childhood and work on making those types of events a regular part of your relationship -- if they were positive. I’m no expert on memories but I do know we remember them for a reason.

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The Struggle to be Dad First then Bud!

When I first thought up this blog I was going to steer it toward a discussion on how to be a good Single Dad unfortunately that's not really what it’s become. It's more of a Memoir of a Single Dad. So, hopefully I won't bore you with my musings on parenting and you will be able to pick out some nuggets of truth from my experiences.

A great many of the single Dad's I know and in fact some of the divorced Dad's who've remarried struggle with the idea of being an authority figure for their kids. I only have a son so I can only imagine how it would be with a daughter but for me it is much easier to be a buddy then it is to be a Killjoy. I know in my case I felt guilty that he wasn't going to have the childhood like mine so I would often lean towards doing the fun stuff rather stuff that needed to get done and I didn't push him to do much around the house, which ticked off his mom and will probably tick off his future wife. Sorry!

Fortunately, in my case, something I did worked well and I've got a great kid. Of course his Mom ended up being the Killjoy, which I'm sure had a lot to do with it.

Resources for Single Parents!

My Little Boy is all Growed Up!

It seems like just yesterday I was watching my son standing in my shoes like they were boats, looking out the window pointing to the people as they walked by and saying "truck"(I can't remember how old he actually was but he had just learned to talk). Now today, roughly 16 years later, he has just been hired for his first job (he plays football so this was his first opportunity to look for a job). I was very proud and happy when I heard the news but the happiness quickly turned to melancholy (for dramatic effect). It hit me like a ton of bricks; he really doesn't need me for much these days. He has his own car, (a 1969 Camaro he got from his step-dad) he will soon be spending his own money (yeah!), he’s fortunately not serious with any of his girl friends and now he has his first job. It appears I’m not too far away from the empty nest, which sucks by the way.

Wow, has time just flown by?! Questions started popping into my head. Did I teach him enough about life? I’m sure I overlooked something, what was it? Why is my toenail black and blue? I came to the realization that I did what I knew how to do at the time. I passed on the lessons I had learned from my dad and made some adjustments and he’s turned out to be a happy, responsible, well-adjusted and employed kid. I shouldn’t stress about it. I’ve still got a couple of more years before he goes away to college so I should just soak it all in.

A Single Dad on MySpace!

I just added a post to my MySpace blog. Check it out if you get a chance.

I'll give you a little snapshot on my life as a Single Dad. My wife and I split up when Jameson was 2. We tried a couple of times to make it work and eventually divorced when he was 4. Like most divorces it wasn't pleasant but to our credit we both decided to put our differences aside and put his needs in front of ours. That made for some interesting choices.

We had joint custody and agreed that if at all possible we would live within 15 miles of each other. We also decided that we would trade off having him each week rather then the traditional weekends and holidays. This was one of the best decisions we ever made, because it forced both of us to be parents. I didn't want to be just the cool weekend dad. I needed to be part of his life during the week when schoolwork and daily living needed to get done, etc. That didn't mean I stopped being a guy (to this day he still eats much healthier at his mom's). It also provided him with some stability.

The key to making this work has always been that we put his needs in front of our own. That has made all the difference. There is an old saying that "it takes 2 to make a good marriage" I think the same goes for divorce, especially if you have kids. If you are both willing to think of the kids first, they can have a stable and fulfilling childhood and before I forget, much credit goes to Jameson’s mom for the sacrifices she made. She turned down 2 very well paid promotions because she didn’t want to move him away from me. I owe her a debt of gratitude.

In the future I’ll try and sprinkle in some funny stories to lighten the mood. My son and I share a rather unique sense of humor. Hopefully you will think its funny too.

Thinking of How to Start!

I've been mulling around the concept for this blog and as you can see haven’t come up with much just yet… I just know I want to talk about being a Single Dad. I currently have 2 other Blogs as well as a new MySpace profile and I'm working on a book so that's a lot of writing.

The Single Dad is really going to be about my experiences raising a son. I became a Single Dad when he was 2 yrs. old and he turns 18 this April, so you can imagine I have a few stories. So come back again and see what I’ve posted. Hopefully the posts will be of interest or help to other Single Dad’s and Single Mom’s out there.