I am just the Mommie. I can't be the Daddie.

The thing that no one ever asks, though, is what was it like to raise 2 children completely alone?. How did I explain to two children that their father wasn't ever coming into our life? How did I manage to stay level-headed enough to feed them every morning and put them to sleep every night when my whole life had crumbled to bits around me and there was no one else to step in and do it?

No one asks, because it’s too hard to explain. No one asks, because either you've done it yourself and you know how hard it is, or you've never even contemplated such a reality and so you don't even know how or what to ask. No one asks, because it’s just a given that a mother will always be there for her children, even when the father is not.

And when they do ask, I don't even know how to answer. All I know is that when I had my kids— a miracle of its own — I felt like my whole world began and had ended, and so I had my kids’. I remember thinking, How am I ever going to do this on my own? How can I possibly do this alone? And what’s going to become of my kids without a father?

I had decided in my mind I didn't want anymore children. Lots of reason why I explained but simple fact is. I don't want to raise yet another child without a father. However difficult my life was, at least if I knew that my child had a father. There was someone besides me who loved them as much as I did and looked forward to their progress each day. There was someone to coach them through the first-bottle stages and the learning-to-sleep-through-the-night stages, and someone to give them their first haircut. There was someone to assemble their cribs, and later their tricycles, and someone to teach them about cars and trucks and building blocks. There was someone to take them to their babysitter every morning and to read them stories at night. When people asked me how I'd managed to hold on to a dysfunctional life for so long, I said, “I do it for my kids.” And it is true



But there was no choice. Everything is left up to me. Diapering. Toilet training. Shopping for Lego's and Pokemons. Deciding when to start teaching blessings.. Buying the first bike, and realizing the blatant truth at every birthday for my children. All on me. There was no one else around to help out, to coach and to teach, to make decisions with me. It was all, and I mean all, on me.

How am I supposed to do this all by myself, and do it right, too?
Left up to only me to make the decisions about when it’s too much dessert and when it’s time to start going to school.. And there are so many decisions to make, so many things to figure out. I sometimes feel like saying, I’ve never been a mother before. I never had a motherly role model. How am I supposed to do this all by myself, and do it right, too?

There are so many days when I'm just putting on an act, pretending that my heart is not crying out in pain and that we’re a normal family like any other. There are so many days when I don't know how I'm going to make it through till bedtime, when I feel like I've reached my saturation point and I can't possibly last another moment. Yet I keep going. I make it through the day, and I make it through the night, and then I make it through the next day and the next night.

I do it for my kids, because I know that they have no one else. Without a father, they need a mommy. They needed the sense of stability I provide, and he needs the sense of normalcy. Day in, day out, I teach my son to follow rules and to behave nicely, to treat each other respect and to treat Mommy properly. Day in, day out, I make supper and hug him at night, I do the laundry and I pick up the toys. I do it because it needs to be done, and if I don't do it no one else will. And I do it for them, because if I don't it won't get done.

I can't provide the other half of the parenting equation. I know I can't, because I've tried, and it doesn't work. But I can be a mommy, and I am a mommy. And I do the best I can, every day, to provide son with what he needs with everything I have.

Yes, it’s all on me. It’s a job that requires superhuman effort, this job of single-parenthood, but he need's – and I need him too

and that’s why I work so hard to achieve normalcy, for all of us. Because as long as our home life carries with it a sense of normalcy, of stability, I know they'll be okay.

Note: My daughter has not resided with me for the past 5 years now. So, while I write and Include her in my thoughts. She has not been part of our day to day household and activities for some time now. So if my writting confuses you sometimes... this is an explaination. I miss being able to raise her to adult hood, but sometimes our best efforts to be do the very best ...it is not enough.