The upbringing of a child depends on what kind of family he grows up in, where he will develop, where his personality will be formed.
It is no secret that even a full-fledged family cannot always fully provide a child with emotional and psychological comfort, but it is obvious that in full family There are many more difficulties with upbringing than with full-time education.
An incomplete family is considered to be one in which there is one parent, most often this parent is the mother. In such families, there is a lack of male attention, difficulties of a domestic and material nature arise, lack of finances, lack of emotional support and psychological protection etc.
Recently, a single mother is not uncommon, in modern world Such families, where the mother raises the child independently, are becoming more and more common. Some women doing definite choice, become a single mother of their own free will, but the majority, nevertheless, by the will of fate (after a divorce or because of the cowardice of a man). But raising a child on your own (alone) is difficult; single mothers will face serious challenges. Raising a child alone requires a lot of effort, work and patience. But all this is nothing compared to the first word “mom” that your baby says. Let's see what difficulties a single mother will have to face, because as they say, informed is forearmed.
Difficulties in parenting that a single mother may face:
1. Economic problem
A woman-mother is obliged to be responsible for the well-being of her small family. As a result of the fact that there is nowhere to wait for help, a single mother is forced to independently ensure material well-being, and as a result of this, she devotes most of her time to work, leaving very little time for the child. Due to extreme busyness and work overload, the child is left to his own devices. Such children appear very early bad habits.
2. Problems in the formation of a child’s personality
A mother raises her child on her own, and sometimes her methods may not be correct, she makes serious mistakes in upbringing, and there is no one to correct her. As a result of such limited upbringing, serious disturbances in the formation of the child’s personality often appear. In such children preschool age Most often, hysteria and capriciousness in behavior are encountered, negativism and stubbornness appear without any particular reason for this.
3. No example of masculine behavior
The difficulty in raising a child in an incomplete family is also revealed in the fact that there is no example of male behavior and gender relations, and the image of parents is disturbed. As a result, the child begins to have problems with social adaptation, psychological insecurity and vulnerability in interpersonal communication.
Raising a child in a single-parent family is also normal, ordinary upbringing. But it happens in difficult conditions. Because of this, a single mother who understands the situation, comprehends it, and only then looks for the right ways and exits to overcome the existing obstacles acts smartly. First of all, a single mother should be happy, because an unhappy parent will not be able to create for the child the conditions that are necessary for him to develop joyful emotions and positive feelings! Be happy and if you complete this task, then your child will also be happy next to you.
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A single mother has many more problems than a woman with a husband. The decision to give birth to a child without a father is a conscious choice of a woman. She is ready for this from the very beginning, and forewarned is forearmed. This mobilizes a woman to systematically prepare for life in a single-parent family, primarily in material terms. However, difficulties may lie in the moral and ethical perception of one’s status, especially in cases where the child’s father abandoned him in the early stages of pregnancy.
Benefits, rights, and subsidies for single moms have a place in our society, and that's a great thing. It is also good that single-parent families are often registered with the guardianship and trusteeship authorities. But the woman still carries her everyday life and holidays, joys and sorrows alone with a double burden: for herself and for her dad, who is not nearby.
Where do these pitfalls and difficulties lie? And how to learn to bypass them?
1. How to survive financially?
Clearly define your budget, including benefits, maternity and other stable sources. One-time income does not need to be taken into account. This will help you get away from illusions once and for all, learn to allocate your funds only to what is necessary, relying only on yourself. Plan your child’s diet, and then your own. You can buy things at a good second-hand store or, at first, take them as gifts from friends whose children have grown up.
2. How to make money? Where can I get money?
At first you will have to live on benefits, and then look for a good kindergarten for your baby and a job for yourself. While sitting at home, you can earn extra money online even without qualifications. Do not refuse the help of relatives if they offer money sincerely and do not impose any conditions on you.
3. How to do everything alone?
Don't be lazy and keep a notebook for notes. Organize your day, guided by the principle of prioritizing the “most important” against the backdrop of “important” and “not so important” things. Do only the “most important” and some of the “important” ones; the rest will “fall away” by themselves. If possible, involve your relatives: grandmother, mother, sister, if you feel that this is not a burden for them.
4. How to explain to a baby that he doesn’t have a dad?
Of course, it is necessary to explain according to the age at which the child asks this question. At first, learn to distract him from this topic; later this “trick” will no longer work. Reassurance that dad will return from a business trip next month is a stupid and cruel method. Try to explain to your child that not everyone has dads, and if the child is unlucky with the presence of a dad in the family, he will definitely be lucky in something else. You will start making up stories about your astronaut father, then you will “disentangle” these ridiculous fantasies, wondering why the child is lying to you.
5. How to stop self-flagellation and get rid of feelings of guilt towards your baby?
The sages say that the most useless feeling on earth is the feeling of guilt. Instead of fueling pity for yourself and your child, do everything possible to make your child feel good with you. There are many families in the world in which children are born, but their fathers leave and do not return. Of course, this doesn’t make things any easier for you. But your option is more stable, you were ready for your mission, and loneliness did not take you by surprise, throwing you off track.
There will be difficulties, no doubt about it. Learn to treat them correctly, without psychosis, insults to the whole world and protracted depressions. Bear with dignity your honorable, best duty in the world, “to be a mother.” It costs a lot! Time flies quickly, all fears and doubts will be left behind. And this difficult time will seem to you the most happy years life, when you could always be close to your warm, dear baby!
I, probably, like many mothers who raise children alone without fathers, feel a bit uneasy about the phrase single mom. Now there are many women who have acquired this status. Some got married, gave birth to a child and were soon left without a husband. Others were left without the man they loved after a positive pregnancy test.
There are many stories, but one ending. You are a single mother. One of the main axioms says: “Only a woman needs a child,” so when you give birth and have a husband, do not reassure yourself that this is forever. Alimony, in the future, as an argument is very unconvincing. Unfortunately, in our country the law is on the side of men. And therefore, if ex-husband
I heard very often: “Why are you creating poverty?” And I always thought that you would never find yourself in this situation. After all, today you are a successful specialist with high wages who is valued and respected at work. And then the following happens in your life.
You got pregnant and went to maternity leave. And they conveniently forgot about you at work, and they weren’t going to remember you in 1.5–3 years. But you come back, because you need to feed the child, pay for the garden, buy clothes, and so on on the list. And they weren’t waiting for you anymore.
And you, from being a highly paid specialist, quickly become a burden with sick leave and a small child in her arms. Income is reduced several times. They constantly threaten to fire you and scold you at planning meetings. Appearance the twitchy, worn-out mother annoys everyone. Nobody wants to associate with unsuccessful people. But, in their opinion, you are “unsuccessful” if only because you are left alone. There is simply no one to protect you. How can a single mother survive?
And here comes the realization that you simply don’t know how to live on. You grab any job, hack work, your brain is looking for something else to do, how and where to earn money. Where can I get money? And very often your efforts do not produce the expected increase in money. But it definitely leads to a nervous breakdown. It's good if you are stopped by the first ambulance leaving your door. This is where despair and panic appear on the threshold. And behind them comes illness, because nervous overstrain will make itself felt sooner or later.
And then you got sick yourself. You cannot go to the hospital or devote as much time to treatment as necessary. There is no one to replace you. There is no way to just rest for a day or two. Naturally, there is no money for medicines and vitamins. And if the child is small, then there is no way to even lie down for a couple of hours. The future is yours and your child is left without any guarantee for tomorrow. Even if everything was fine with you before the birth of your daughter or son. You can only rely on yourself. You have no insurance, no guarantees. Fear begins to drive you into deep depression.
This is where you should stop and start breathing evenly, deeply and calmly.
His successes, his first funny phrases. Here he learned to sit, talk, here is his first tooth, learned to walk, and so on. But children are not always smiling and obedient. And not everything is going smoothly for them. And sometimes there is adolescence, hysterics, whims. And you're at a dead end again. Always and everywhere you will be constantly haunted by questions: “What to do?”, “How to live further?”.
Raising a child alone is very difficult. And although everyone says, “God gave the child, he will help put him on his feet,” but
This has never made it any easier for any of the mothers. And it’s good if your parents or friends are able to help you. Don't reject anyone's help. And be grateful for everything, even if now it seems to you that they are doing very little, but they are helping you survive now or closing another gap in your budget.
And even though society is modern now, don’t forget that you will always and for everyone remain a single mother, something so unacceptable to society. You will always be under the close control of neighbors, teachers in kindergarten, other parents, teachers at school. Very often they will discuss you behind your back. How you are dressed, how your child is dressed. Don't buy into the smiles of others. 90% of the time they are deceitful.
You will be angry with the child's father. It's normal to be angry, but you shouldn't take your rage out on your child. A quarrel with a child will lead to even greater depression, and it will only make things worse for him. Don't take your frustration out on the little man. He is definitely not to blame for this, even if in appearance he is a complete copy of his dad and in character too. This will not help you one hundred percent, and will lead to the child’s alienation from you.
The child will begin to strive to find a “good” father. And one fine day, God forbid, he will go looking for him. Therefore let better baby knows who his birth father is. Whether he is good or bad, he will later draw his own conclusions. And believe me, he will do them absolutely correctly, without your intervention.
All these problems are difficult, complex, but can be solved over time. Sometimes you have to live from hand to mouth, without new clothes, visits to solariums, fitness clubs, restaurants, cinemas.
But a lot of new and positive things have come into our lives. Your baby teaches you to live again, to see the world in a new way, from a different position.
You are given the opportunity to educate him, raise him, teach him something, give something, prolong your family line, etc. The opportunity to grow up, stop being an ordinary consumer, give the world the loan you received with interest from your parents.
Many things take on a completely different value for you. It's great to be a mother and learn to give your human warmth. This is often the main realization of a woman.
You begin to perceive the world completely differently. The word “Love” sounds different to you. You will learn a new real meaning of this concept. Love is the ability to give everything you have without expecting anything in return. Let go, even knowing that it is likely that they will not return to you. You forgive all hurtful words,
sleepless nights
, whims. You learn forgiveness. The world takes on other, more saturated colors. In men you will learn to value reliability and willingness to help. You will learn to see the real merits of a man. And where you previously saw shortcomings, you will see advantages. There is a misconception that a single mother will throw herself at anyone’s neck. It is quite difficult for a woman who is left alone with a child to find a partner again. Having created our little family (me and the child), we carefully look at who to let in and who not. And very often we are in no hurry to find a husband. After all, we already know the difference between promises, words and actions.
Every day you live is a small victory. We are becoming much more creative. How to make a new one out of an old thing, how to cook a delicious dinner out of nothing. Our thought process often finds a way out faster difficult situations than women without children. After all, we often need to be in several places at the same time, doing several things at the same time. We watch TV shows and feature films less often, more often cartoons. There comes an understanding that ideal figure
The number of women raising children on their own is steadily growing around the world. For some, this is the result of their own initiative and conscious choice, for others it is an unfavorable combination of circumstances: divorce, unplanned pregnancy... But for both, this is not an easy test. Let's figure out why.
Problem No. 1. Social pressure
The specificity of our mentality suggests that a child must have both a mother and a father. If the father is absent for some reason, the public rushes to put all sorts of labels on the mother: “Children from single-parent families cannot become happy,” “A boy needs a father, otherwise he will not grow up to be a real man.”
If the initiative to raise a child independently comes from the woman herself, the public begins to be indignant: “For the sake of the children, one could have been patient,” “Men don’t need other people’s children,” “A divorced woman with children will not be happy with her personal life,” and so on.
A woman finds herself face to face with the pressure of others, which makes her make excuses and feel inferior. This forces her to close herself off and avoid contact with the outside world. Social pressure drives a woman into distress, negative form stress, and further aggravates her already precarious psychological state.
What to do?
First of all, get rid of misconceptions that lead to dependence on other people’s opinions, for example:
“People around me constantly evaluate me and my actions and notice my shortcomings.
– The love of others must be earned, so it is necessary to please everyone.
– The opinion of others is the most correct, since “from the outside you know better.”
Such prejudices make it difficult to adequately treat other people’s opinions - this is just one opinion, and not always the most objective one. Each person sees reality based on his own projection of the world. And only you can decide whether someone’s opinion is useful for you, whether you will use it to improve your life.
Trust yourself more, your actions, choices and opinions. Compare yourself less to others. Surround yourself with people who don't put pressure on you. Separate own desires from the expectations of the public, otherwise, for the sake of other people's interests, you risk pushing your life and your children into the background.
Problem #2: Loneliness
Loneliness is one of the main problems that plague the life of a single mother. Both in the case of a forced divorce, and in the case of a conscious decision to raise children without a husband.
By nature, it is extremely important for a woman to be surrounded by close and dear people. She wants to create a hearth and gather people dear to her around it. When this hearth falls apart for some reason, the woman loses support under her feet.
Situations that remind her of her “loner” status aggravate and intensify her experiences. For example, in the evening, when the children are asleep and household chores have been done, memories come flooding back. new strength and loneliness is felt especially acutely. Or on weekends, when you need to go on “lonely trips” with the children to the shops or to the cinema.
In addition, friends and acquaintances from the previous “family” social circle suddenly stop calling and inviting people to visit. This happens for various reasons, but most often the former environment simply does not know how to react to the separation of a married couple, so it stops any communication altogether.
What to do?
The first step is don't run away from the problem. Denial in the spirit of “this is not happening to me” will only make the situation worse. Calmly accept forced loneliness as a temporary situation that you intend to use as efficiently as possible and to your benefit.
The second step is to find the positives of being alone. Temporary solitude, the opportunity to engage in creativity, the freedom not to adapt to the desires of your partner. What else? Make a list of 10 items. It is important to learn to see not only negative, but also positive sides in your condition.
Third step - active actions. Fear stops action, action stops fear. Remember this rule and be active. New acquaintances, new leisure time, a new hobby, a new pet - any activity that will help you not feel lonely and fill the space around you will do. interesting people and activities.
Problem No. 3. Feeling guilty towards the child
“Deprived the child of his father”, “Couldn’t save the family”, “Doomed the child to an inferior life” - this is only a small part of what a woman blames herself for. Moreover, every day she faces a variety of everyday situations that make her feel even more guilty: she couldn’t buy her child a toy because she didn’t earn enough money, or she didn’t pick her up from kindergarten on time because she was afraid to once again take time off from work early. .
The guilt accumulates, the woman becomes more and more nervous and nervous. She worries about the child more than she should, constantly takes care of him, tries to protect him from all adversity and tries to fulfill all his desires. As a result, this leads to the fact that the child grows up to be overly suspicious, dependent and fixated on himself. In addition, he very quickly recognizes the mother’s “pain points” and begins to unconsciously use them for his children’s manipulations.
What to do?
It is important to recognize the destructive power of guilt. A woman often does not understand that the problem is not the absence of the father and not what she deprived the child of, but her psychological state: in the feeling of guilt and remorse that she experiences in this situation.
Is it possible happy man, crushed by guilt? Of course not. Can an unhappy mother have happy children? Of course not. Trying to atone for her guilt, the woman begins to sacrifice her life for the sake of the child. And subsequently he presents these victims as an invoice for payment.
Rationalize your guilt. Ask yourself questions: “What is my fault in this situation?”, “Can I correct the situation?”, “How can I make amends?” Write and read your answers. Think about how justified your feeling of guilt is, how real and proportionate it is to the current situation?
Perhaps you are hiding unspoken resentment and aggression under feelings of guilt? Or is this how you punish yourself for what happened? Or do you need wine for something else? By rationalizing your guilt, you can recognize and eliminate the root cause of its occurrence.
Problem #4. Same-sex education
Another problem that single mothers face is the formation of the child’s personality solely on the basis female type education. This is especially true if the father does not appear in the child’s life at all.
Indeed, in order to grow into a harmonious personality, it is extremely desirable for a child to learn both feminine and masculine types of behavior in the process of development. A clear bias in only one direction is fraught with difficulties with the child’s further self-identification.
What to do?
Involve male relatives, friends and acquaintances in the education process. Going to a movie with grandpa, doing homework with an uncle, going on a hike with friends - this will be a great opportunity for a child to learn Various types male behavior. If it is possible to at least partially include the child’s father or his relatives in the process of raising a child, you should not neglect this, no matter how great your offense.
Problem #5. Personal life in a hurry
The status of a single mother can provoke a woman to take rash and hasty actions. In an effort to quickly get rid of this “stigma” and tormented by a feeling of guilt in front of the child, a woman often enters into a new relationship that she does not like or for which she is not yet ready. It is simply vital for her that someone else is next to her, and that the child has a father. At the same time, the personal qualities of the new partner often fade into the background.
The other extreme is that a woman completely devotes herself to raising a child and puts an end to her personal life. Fear of what new man will not accept her child, will not love him as her own, or the child will think that the mother has exchanged him for a “new uncle”, can lead to the woman giving up attempts to build a personal life altogether.
Follow the main rule: “Happy mother - happy child”
In both the first and second situations, the woman sacrifices herself and ultimately remains unhappy. In both the first and second situations, the child will suffer. In the first case, because she will see the mother’s suffering next to an unsuitable person. In the second, because she will see her mother’s suffering alone and blame herself for it.
What to do?
Take a time out. Do not immediately rush to look for a new father for your child or try on the crown of celibacy. Be attentive to yourself. Analyze, are you ready for a new relationship? Think about why you want a new relationship, what motivates you: guilt, loneliness or the desire to be happy?
If, on the contrary, you give up trying to arrange your personal life, think about what pushes you to this decision. Fear of making your child jealous or fear of your own disappointment? Or does a previous negative experience force you to avoid repeating the situation at all costs? Or is this your conscious and informed decision?
Be honest with yourself and when making a decision, be guided by the main rule: “Happy mother - happy child.”
about the author
– psychologist, transactional analyst, dance-movement psychotherapist.
