When I first thought through this topic, I thought I would be writing about single mom’s and how they use the Bible.  But on further contemplation, I believe it’s about single mothers who are written about in the Bible. Who would care about those women from a time long ago?  This is a different day and age. The trials, tribulations and stress that we deal with on a day to day basis are surely quite different from those that these women lived in a few thousand years ago.

But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that they do face many of the same issues and worse than we do today.  And the one thing that we all have in common is ‘faith’.  The women who are written about in the Bible had a strong enduring love and faith for God.  There may be some who will read this and say to themselves that they don’t believe in God, or they don’t believe in MY God.  But that does not mean that they don’t have faith.  Or that they don’t have the strong love for what they do believe in.

So I went about looking for mention for single mothers in the Bible and I found that the bible barely addresses them. There are, however, many examples of God’s gentle interaction with women, mothers, widows and their children. These examples apply whether a mother is single or married or widowed or divorced. God knows each person intimately, and knows her situation completely. The Bible warns that sex outside of marriage is sinful and dangerous, and will bring troubles, one of which is that a woman might have to raise a child by herself, which is undoubtedly difficult. And if it is her own sin that has resulted in single motherhood, God is still just as willing to bring help and comfort.

Is it my job to preach to each of you single mom’s out there about pre-marital….or NO-marital sex?  No, it’s not.  But that seems to be the biggest part of what the Bible stresses in regards to single mothers.  I expected to find the stories of those mothers who lost their husbands and raised their son’s to adulthood despite the plagues and laws that came about during the biblical years.  How they raised those son’s to be God-fearing, and triumphant in the face of temptation.  But the writers of the Bible didn’t choose to write that way.

We know the story of Moses, but he was raised in a palace by the Pharaoh’s wife, and I don’t believe it is clear that his birth mother was a single woman or not.  Even later when he met her again, the children were grown and I still don’t find it clear whether a husband and father was around.  The one thing I do get from the Bible is that many of the women were very strong. And in some way managed to hold their family together or provide for them while their ‘men’ were out of the home.

Depression.  This is a topic that I can relate myself with, all too well, especially as a single mom.  It doesn’t matter how we arrived at being a single mom, whether widowed, divorced, or single after having a live in partner that resulted in children. We are at a 40% greater risk of becoming clinically depressed than moms who have a husband or life partner.

According to a few studies that I have read, it seems there are two common factors involved.  We have greater stress and less social support. I find this to be true in my own circumstances.  It takes a lot more daily work for one person to maintain a home and support a family than it does two. Even when the absent parent is financially supportive, we mom’s still have to work an outside job, as well as keep up our household chores.

I believe one of the greatest stresses we have on us is lack of sleep. We tend to save work for after the children go to sleep, so that we can be active in their lives while they are awake.  Add to that, all the other stresses that we are under, which include, financial issue surrounding maintaining a home, quality time with our children, broken dreams, visitation and child support issues, as well as the emotional feelings related to some of those issues, and it’s any wonder we make it through each day with a head full of hair.

Is there any hope in avoiding depression?  The answer I’ve found, yes there is. The first thing we need to do is remember that other people may not understand how we feel, and WE must not be offended by their lack of initial understanding.  One thing a single mom should do is immediately seek mental and medical help if she feels herself falling into a depression.  Even if she only suspects she may be depressed.

Aside from promoting good health and well being by seeing a professional, we need to develop a social support network.  If help is offered, take it.  Family and friends are often beating down the door trying to help and you need to swallow that pride and allow them. I’m not talking about letting them do everything for you.  But if your sister is over, let her help you fix dinner, fold clothes, run Johnny to his baseball practice, or keep the kids occupied and entertained while you run that errand to the grocery store.

Finally, if you are doing things for your children that they are obviously old enough to do for themselves. Stop it. Give them age appropriate chores, and guidelines.  Most children feel a sense of accomplishment when they have mastered something, and feel good knowing they have helped out.  Not to mention, it improves their sense of responsibility. While the kids are helping you out, one last thing you need to consider is “me” time.  Take ten minutes for yourself as often as you can.  It will improve your outlook immensely.

I write from the point of view of a divorced parent.  Keeping this in mind, it’s important to remember that you aren’t the only single parent in the family.  When you become single, there are a couple of options when it comes to the custody of your children.  You may have physical custody, with the father having weekend and holiday visits, or it may be reversed, you may be the one who is the part time parent.  You may have split joint custody with the year divided evenly between both homes for the children.  You may even have a situation where the father or yourself live far from the children and there is only limited visitation for a few a weeks a year and occasional holidays.

Whatever your custody and visitation situation is, the most important thing to consider is consistency.  I’m speaking of rules and disciplinary actions.  The major rules should be upheld in both homes.  I don’t mean that one parent can make all the rules and the other parent needs to follow them.  If possible, you need to sit down and discuss what are the most important, or the major rules, and which ones are not major.  Letting Johnny have an ice cream an hour before dinner is not going hurt him, but letting him invite friends in while you leave him home alone for 8 hours while you work may not be the wisest idea.

Deciding which rules are the most important depends on the responsibilities you want to teach your children.  They also depend on how much you want them to learn to respect rules in the future when they are grown.  And most of all, you want them to understand that they won’t get away with doing things in one home that they wouldn’t get away with in the other home.  Consistency in punishment, and carrying the punishment from one home to the other, needs to be agreed upon as well.  If Mom grounds Johnny for a week, and Dad has a visit with Johnny over the weekend during that week, he should up hold the grounding, if that is what you have agreed upon.  The same goes if the punishment comes from Dad’s home back to Mom’s.

The upside of a partnership with the father on this matter is that there is one less thing for the parents of the children to be at arms over.  This helps the children adjust to going from one home to the other. There will be some changes in the lifestyle of living with either parent, but knowing that both parents are in agreement over the rules and punishment helps give consistency to the children’s lives.  This holds true with dinner times, bed times, television viewing, video games, and computer time.  Whatever the rules were that help to form a child into the adult he will become while in a two parent home, should still exist in the single parent home.  In the best interest of the children, rules are good and should be consistent. Everywhere.

What’s so hard about cooking dinner for one?  We all started out our young adult lives cooking for just ourselves when dinner time rolled around.  That is, unless we were fortunate enough to have that few extra dollars allowing us to grab McDonald’s or Wendy’s, or maybe a small pizza from Pizza hut. Continue Reading