I Was A Successful Single Parent
You Can Be One Too
by
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Perhaps you've picked up this book because you're scared. Possibly you have recently become a single parent. You just don't know how you will ever accomplish it all alone. On the other hand, maybe you have made the choice to have or adopt and raise the child by yourself. You are excited and still apprehensive. Conceivably, you could be a grandparent or a relative who has just been given the custody and responsibility of raising a child by yourself. You want so much to do it right. It's a scary world out there and you wonder what you will do to make your child different from all the others about whom we read and hear so much negative. All these feelings and thoughts are normal. Even if the circumstances appear to be ideal, every new parent has these same concerns. I have never talked to a parent who didn't want to do the best for his or her child. We all start out with the best of intentions. Nevertheless, sometimes events appear in our lives that get us off the main track. The intention of sharing my personal experiences with you is to encourage you. For the majority of my child-raising years, I have been a single parent. I have had very little trouble with my children. I have enjoyed the girls -- particularly those teenage years. We have all had fun. My girls love and respect me. There is no doubt in my mind that it is easy to be a single parent. If your child is a baby, you might not notice this right away. However, when your child becomes about six or eight years old, you'll see the freedom you have in being a single parent. Now before I go any further, I want to tell you that I don't think it was intended for any child to have to grow up in a single parent home. It would be a perfect situation if a child had both parents living in the same house and everyone got along without dissention. I wish I'd had this type of family for my girls, but I wasn't that fortunate. Apparently you aren't either and you and I are going to have to do it on our own. Therefore, I want to tell you in this book how you can take the, not so perfect situation, and turn in around to be very positive. You need to think of the positive points in being a single parent. You will be able to find more of these points in the single parent home than in the double parent home. You must change your thinking for the sake of your child. You can't sit around and think you can't do anything because you don't have a spouse. You can be a great single parent and if you will really make the effort you will no doubt be better at being a parent as a single person than if you had a spouse. Just think about it: If you had a spouse, you would probably leave many of the decisions to him or her and much of the time with the child would be spent with the other parent. What if they don't do things the way you think are the best for your child? Do you remember how it was when you were growing up? Do you recall the times your parents would disagree and even argue about a rule for you? Haven't you heard many a parent say, "Well, his father says he can't do such and such. I don't really see what harm it would cause." Or you have heard the father say, "His mother is so over-protective. She's going to make a sissy out of him." Except for finances and in-laws, children are the next major cause for disagreement between married people. A mother thinks she should give in and allow the father to make the final decision. After all, dads and husbands are supposed to be right; they are the stronger -- the smartest. We have been taught that. Besides, if one parent doesn’t want to have an argument they often won’t even give their opinion as it would be in disagreement with the other parent. A wife might think ‘if I let my husband do it the way he wants and if the kid turns out bad, I won't be to blame.' Or often the husband is so busy trying to keep the family out of debt that he doesn’t spend any time thinking about what is best for the child and he leaves it to the wife. He thinks 'Well, I'm so tired from all the decisions at work. I don't want to fight with the wife. She is around the kids more than me. I'll just let her make the decisions. Then, if the kid turns out bad, she can't blame me. I'll tell her, 'It's your fault. I wouldn't have let him do such and such. You were just too lenient. (Or, you were just too strict.) Doesn't this sound familiar? The purpose of this book is to tell you how you can raise your children alone by taking the disadvantaged situation and turning it around to be positive. I will show you how raising teenagers can be fun. I will give you examples of the decisions I made with my girls, but the intent of this book is not that you have to do just what I did. The intention is to let you see how you can make your own decisions and be at peace about your child.
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About the Book
The purpose of this book is to let single parents know that they can raise their child or children alone -- without their spouse - and they can do it successfully. Many single parents, particularly mothers (since there are more of them raising their children alone) think, "I can't help it that my child is on drugs, their dad went off and left us." They say, "I can't raise this child all by myself so I quit." Single parents have a tendency to quit before they get started. If the child begins to fail in school or gets in trouble with drugs, alcohol, or friends, the single parent blames it on the fact that the other parent has left them. Society tells single parents, "Oh, you poor thing having to raise your child alone. I just don't know how you'll ever do it." I believe that this makes the single parent think that they will get a lot of sympathy so they might as well just give up and not really try. The purpose of this book is to reverse the thinking of single parents. I want to tell them of all the advantages they will have. They actually can do a very good job by themselves and after reading my book, they will have confidence and believe in themselves. Many families even with both parents have basically failed with their children. The reasons are usually the same reasons a single parent will have. They don’t seem to think that what they say or do with the child really matters. They seem to think it’s just a matter of chance. It isn’t chance! Whether you are single or married, you have to make a conscientious decision about everything you do with and for your children. However, I will say that I feel in many ways a single parent can do a better job with their children. With the new statistics saying that 2 out of 3 marriages will end up in divorce, I definitely believe that these parents need a book that will be optimistic and help them in this area. OUR KIDS DESERVE IT!!
About the Author
The author is a single parent who has raised three children alone, most of their growing years, and completed the task successfully. People, even families with two parents, would often ask her how she did it. One day she began to actually think about how she had done it and realized that she really enjoyed all those years raising the children, even with all the trials. She also realized that there were some basic guidelines she had applied to her parenting. Her desire is to share with you, as the reader, some of the things she did with the hope to encourage other single parents. All other books on the market that give suggestions for parents, whether they be single or married, have been written by psychologists, family counselors, or ministers. These professional people are giving you their theory of what they think will work. There are a couple of books, authored by an actual parent; however, their job is not yet done. Their children are still young and these parents are not able to prove to the reader how well their children will turn out when they become teenagers and later when they are full grown and out on their own. Ginger wants to tell what she did and how she has proven it works as her three children are grown - out of college, they show evidence of high self-esteem, are happy, not bitter, and very able to make a substantial income. Even though Ginger has written several articles, this is her first book. She wrote this book from a personal experience as a successful single parent. When she had her babies, she made a conscious decision to raise her children so they would grow up with high self-esteem, have the best education possible, and be happy people, caring about others. She thought of these things daily as she raised her children. She didn't just leave things to chance. Her way worked! Her children never took drugs, drank, sassed or failed to do well in school. They are all smart, pretty, feel good about themselves, and she says, "were fun to raise." When Ms. Lum married, she never dreamed she would be raising children alone. All she ever wanted was to be was a "good wife and mother." Desertion by her husband after seven years caused the marriage to end. She was 28 years old and had no college education. She had been a stay-at-home mom until the last four months when she began working as a teller at a bank Her husband left her with no money, no savings, no insurance, no assets, and the checking account was overdrawn. The car was repossessed one week later and she lived in low-income housing. However, she was determined that she would not let this tragedy ruin her efforts to raise her children to grow up feeling loved, secure about themselves, educated, and specifically not hating men because their dad had left them. She wants others to enjoy their children as much as she did and wants them to achieve the same excellent results. Often, she even feels guilty because her girls gave her so much joy and no trouble. Ginger thought that if she could just encourage other single parents then this book would be worth it. Ginger Lum is confident that it can be much easier than you think and that it can be so much fun raising children - if it is done right and with a little extra thought.