Article April 8, 2002 Issue

Parenting on your own—how do you cope?

By Earline Shoemake

When I was a young single parent, I went to a pool party some church friends were having. The son of the hostess, who was maybe three or four, had hit his head on the side of the pool. He started screaming and yelling. My first inclination was to run to him and see how serious it was. But I noticed that none of the other parents were moving. I assumed they must be praying, and I just followed suit.

I was the only one who could hear what the boy's mother was saying to him. She just took him in her arms and whispered, "You're God's boy." When she said that, in that moment, I responded to it within myself. I saw the eternal identity not only of the little boy, but of myself, an identity that I'd never seen before.

Before this party, as I faced all the problems of parenting, I'd been wondering, "What's a poor parent to do with the responsibilities here?" What if I goofed up and made a wrong move? These were innocent little children. It wasn't like baking a cake, where you could do it better next time. And so, on that day, when I heard those words, it seemed that right away the care and the fears I'd had for my family—the responsibility and guilt—just left. I felt a love I'd never felt before.

Send a comment to the editors

NEXT IN THIS ISSUE

Article

A single dad puts together a family