{"id":3192,"date":"2014-05-13T10:00:17","date_gmt":"2014-05-13T15:00:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lovingonme.com\/?p=3192"},"modified":"2017-05-09T10:25:56","modified_gmt":"2017-05-09T15:25:56","slug":"i-am-a-single-mom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lovingonme.com\/2017\/2014\/05\/13\/i-am-a-single-mom\/","title":{"rendered":"Do You Try And Do It All By Yourself?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"robin-single-mom-blog\"<\/a>The first question people ask me when they learn that I’m a single mom and my children\u2019s father is not involved in their lives is \u201cHow do you do it all by yourself?\u201d<\/p>\n

Well, my answer is that I don\u2019t do it all by myself. I learned right away after being on my own how to take help that is offered to me because, really, I had no other choice.<\/p>\n

These are the things I remember learning growing up that helped me be independent but also taught me that to be helped was not a good thing.<\/p>\n

-God helps those who help themselves.
\n-Don\u2019t make a problem for anyone else.
\n-You don\u2019t need my help, you got this.
\n-You know how to take care of yourself.<\/p>\n

Those are all great things to teach kids and I say these phrases often to my children. But it took me until I had no other choice to truly understand how necessary accepting help really can be. Below shows a typical busy day for me. I do not know how I or my kids could build a life of fulfillment (not to mention food and shelter) without some truly remarkable individuals helping us every day:<\/p>\n

5:30 a.m. \u00a0\u00a0 Wake up to exercise; wake up son to start getting ready for school
\n6:30 a.m. \u00a0\u00a0 Send e-mail to babysitter about wrapping gifts for a graduation present that needs to be shipped today.
\n6:45 a.m. \u00a0\u00a0 Wake daughter to get ready for school; make breakfast and lunches (thankfully, babysitter bought food for breakfast and lunch)
\n7:00 a.m. \u00a0\u00a0 Pay bills for the week online. Text cleaner to come clean the house while we are at school and work. Text neighbor friend to ask to take daughter to swim practice because of a late work meeting.
\n7:20 a.m. \u00a0\u00a0 Daughter leaves for school. Shower and get ready for work.
\n8:00 a.m. \u00a0\u00a0 Leave for work to make an 8:30 meeting. Send message to Mom to see if she can watch kids when I go out of town for work later in the week.
\n8:30 a.m. \u00a0\u00a0 Meetings and phone calls begin.
\n10:00 a.m. \u00a0 Forgot that my work travel includes one weekend overnight due to an awards show. Call sister (children\u2019s aunt) to see if she can stay overnight with the kids during the weekend.
\n11:30 a.m. \u00a0\u00a0 Take neighbor friend to lunch to thank her for all her help with the kids. And to get adult time that is not work-related.
\n1:00 p.m. \u00a0\u00a0 Back to work. E-mail babysitter to see if she can start dinner for the kids since I will be late. And if she has a chance, could she drop off my dry cleaning? I can pick it up.
\n3:00 p.m. \u00a0\u00a0 Oops! Not looking like I can get home for dinner or to pick up daughter from swim practice. Call best friend.\u00a0 Ask if he would mind picking her up from swim practice.<\/p>\n

And it continues from there, but you get the idea. I spent a lot of time coordinating all the help that I need for my kids to be fulfilled and for me to keep a paycheck coming in. And I am eternally grateful for the people who love my children and want to help. And they always have a smile and a “yes” waiting for me.<\/p>\n

So, this Mother\u2019s Day 2014 I gave a big thank you to all of my children\u2019s other mothers.<\/p>\n

To my mother: Thank you for always opening your life and your home to loving my kids and helping me raise them.<\/p>\n

To my sister: Thank you for being my kids’ best guide for how to have fun and live life to the fullest. Thank you for always jumping in last minute when I need you and when they need you.<\/p>\n

To my best friend: Thank you for helping me parent these two crazies. \ud83d\ude42 And for giving my kids a guiding light, the benefit of your experiences and for loving them.<\/p>\n

To our babysitter: Thank you for always asking, “What else can I help you with?\u201d and that you are willing to follow up on that answer with a happy spirit and in the kids’ best interest.<\/p>\n

To all my neighbor friends: Thank you for parenting and loving my children. They know that you are always there for them no matter what.<\/p>\n

To the teachers and spiritual guides: Thank you for taking time out of your lives to steer and lead my children to be caring and intelligent members of society.<\/p>\n

I always say that there should never be a shortage of people who love my children. We will take all the love and support we can get. So, no, I don\u2019t do this alone.<\/p>\n

Gratefully, we don\u2019t have to.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The first question people ask me when they learn that I’m a single mom and my children\u2019s father is not involved in their lives is \u201cHow do you do it all by yourself?\u201d Well, my answer is that I don\u2019t do it all by myself. I learned right away after being on my own how […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":11818,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sharing_disabled":false,"switch_like_status":false,"spay_email":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":""},"categories":[204997548,114917237],"tags":[14560,128713,4089,204997407,204997576,204997692],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/lovingonme.com\/2017\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/robin-single-mom-blog.jpg","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4eAxC-Pu","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lovingonme.com\/2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3192"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lovingonme.com\/2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lovingonme.com\/2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lovingonme.com\/2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lovingonme.com\/2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3192"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lovingonme.com\/2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3192\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9125,"href":"https:\/\/lovingonme.com\/2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3192\/revisions\/9125"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lovingonme.com\/2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11818"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lovingonme.com\/2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3192"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lovingonme.com\/2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3192"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lovingonme.com\/2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3192"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}