Parenting Alone
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Unknown
I'm going to sit down and I'll give you a thumbs up. When I read.
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Unknown
My guest today is a very dear person today. I don't like that. We started all that. My guest today is Judy Persons, who is a very close friend of mine and has been for a long time. Jenny and, both went through a divorce when we had very young children, and we wanted to spend some time today just talking about what it was like to go through the divorce.
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Unknown
what it was like to be a single parent, a couple of three decades ago. Yes. And, really look at what's important in terms of, maybe being a single parent. Now, we have, over half of our marriages in this country are not making it. And so there's a lot of children who have only one parent in the family, and God has not a whole lot of, instruction and compassion about how to make that work.
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Unknown
So, Jenny, welcome to making Peace and Beyond. Thank you. Jamie, I'm really glad to be here. You've been instrumental and walking along side of me during those years as a single parent. And up until now, and I'm grateful to be here to share my story with you. You did so much better job of being a single parent than I did.
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Unknown
If we don't talk about the differences in that because, it was really, in 1969, that I became a single parent. My child, the children's father, left with my best friend in 1968. And, as our son was being born and I had a four year old and baby and had no place to go, I wasn't equipped to be a single parent.
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Unknown
I was in the generation that when we were supposed to grow up and get married and have children and stay at home, and so I had no idea what to do. And I remember just bouncing around with a suitcase from my parents to his parents to my sisters to. Yeah, and to not knowing what to do and just being totally overwhelmed.
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Unknown
just very depressed. I drank a lot and, I don't know how my children survived, and it really communities all along. I distinctly I mean, God is amazing in terms of how he takes care of children. but, Barney landed an apartment in in Raleigh, and, it was a long story from there. So what was what was it?
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Unknown
How old were your children when you. So I was, divorced in 1994, but the whole scenario started in 1992, when I was seven months pregnant and had a two year old at home. And when we were divorced, it was. He was 18 months and two and a half now, three, three. So they were very young. It was a very scary time.
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Unknown
My husband had been financially abusive and led another life. I had been caught up in my corporate job and I was very alone and afraid. I didn't have the challenges you had in terms of bouncing from place to place to live. I had a home, but it was uprooted and I really was empty and did not know how to push forward.
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Unknown
And my journey began then to find a way for my kids and I to be accepted, to find healing, and to start a new life. But I didn't know the way there was. There was no instruction. And and I think still, it's it's almost worse than death because when somebody dies, it's permanent. If you don't have that sense of failure.
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Unknown
you you have rituals around death. Everybody has a lot of compassion for them. A widow, a widower, or someone dies. but there's nothing for single people. Sometimes there's a lot of judgment. what did you do wrong? And I think even internally. What what did I do wrong? I was not good enough. Why did this happen to me?
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Unknown
What do I do? And, And I think that's changed to some extent, but not much. You know, I would agree with you, Jamie. I ran into that same thing. Even my story talks about finding a church that was willing to embrace me as a divorced woman with young kids, which in 1992 was difficult. And it's the church I still attend today.
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Unknown
Grace. But there were pockets of judgment in that church. I mean, I remember times, even in classes I was in, that they would say, you know, parents of children, of single parents are always troubled people who are divorced. There's something wrong. and it's challenging. And I think that judgment is still there today. I think there's this kind of Pollyanna kind of myth that, there's always a way to work it out.
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Unknown
And in fact, God can heal if both people show up for the healing in a real way. but I've seen churches tell women who are being abused or whose children are being abused, go back in love. Your husband wear negligee when he comes home. yet there's so many, just simplicity, simple kind of thoughts and comments about what's working.
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Unknown
And and sometimes it's just not possible. And sometimes, like in my situation, he left and, did not pay child support. I paid for a little while and then stopped. in those days, it was really even more difficult because I couldn't even get credit for women who had to have a male cosigner to get a credit card.
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Unknown
Wow. And and and that was that was bizarre. I was working for a bank before I went to graduate school, and, I couldn't get a credit card through the bank. I was, I said, I, I knew thousands of dollars worth of your money every day, but it was it was just a very difficult time. And and, I ended up somehow going to graduate school as a single parent.
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Unknown
And I think as I work with people today, I think I don't know how how that happened. I mean, it was God because. You know, I had no child support. I had a part time job and went to graduate school. And I think I probably totally neglected my children at some level. But I remember just trying to do all of it and how hard that is.
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Unknown
And, I unlike you, did not seek out a church. I did try to go back to church because I grew up in the church, and, I kept trying to go back to church, but man was in the late 60s and there was not a whole lot of divorce going on. And so there was nothing there for single parents.
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Unknown
And besides that, I moved a lot. And one of the things it took me a long time to really see is how detrimental it was for my children that not only did, they had no stability because I moved, every time they would get settled. and like, I paraded men in and out and, I was, I think I was looking for the guy looking for the guy, and, but it was, it was really, obvious you were mentioning about how people are prejudiced about single family, single parents and really non compassionate, of how very hard it is when you're single parent of a young child.
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Unknown
You can't run out and get milk at night without waking your child up. But you know it. It's it's. What was it like for you? You know, my my story's a little bit different. I had a corporate job, so I was secure in being able to provide for my kids. But as I said before, it was a really lonely path and I did not know where to go.
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Unknown
I will say that I initially did some of the things you did in terms of finding a couple of relationships with men to see if that would numb the pain of the divorce, and maybe I could bring somebody else and, help me raise my kids. But that didn't work. And that's where the journey into the church really helped me, because I found people who would come around me, even though I was in the midst of this mess, and they came around my kids and they loved on us.
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Unknown
And while there were pockets of judgment, they weren't everywhere. And I think that's true in life. We need to find our people, our community. And I found my people in in the church. And it is amazing to me how I got through that pain. And then on the other side, I was able even to minister to single parents.
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Unknown
So when I met you, you had a thriving single parent ministry going on. And it was it was amazing and I was just, amazed that we had divorce care. We had, single parent ministry and and we embraced and came around single parents for the most part. You know, that's always going to be a judgment. There's always going to be, who we talked earlier does.
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Unknown
That's the deal with my children went out to play with other children and they all got dirty. Their children were out play. My children were uncared for. And, people would say use the term broken family. And I remember, but as I became a course and I would go to professional training, I would stand up in meetings and, and when somebody use the term broken family and I would say, wait just a minute, I'm a single parent family.
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Unknown
I know families that have two parents at home that are much more broken than mine and, that, you know, that is so true. And one of the things that we would help shepherd other single parents in is to believe that they are a family. They are not broken. They can thrive, they can survive, they can heal. And the other piece I want to just point out is, I think in single parent ministry, we came alongside the kids.
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Unknown
So I think often what happens is you come alongside the parent, which is important, and there's pain there from the divorce. But you know, the kids, they're the innocent victims and kids who've gone through that and walk that road can so easily, easily believe I'm the problem. I'm the reason this happened. Mommy and daddy don't love me. I got in the way.
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Unknown
And so it's really important as you come alongside a single parent to also embrace their kids and show their kids love and speak truth to the kids, because there's those underlying messages that they can carry with them that aren't theirs to carry. I think one of the things that you mentioned, this is very important. I think there's two basic things that children need to be told if their parents are going to separate.
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Unknown
One of those is that they are not responsible. You're not responsible for the separation, and the other is that you're not leaving them, that that you are still going to be their parent. And, all too often, parents do leave their children. I mean, it's, you know, there was a time when only about a quarter of, of fathers were paying in child support because it wasn't enforced.
00:12:04:26 - 00:12:28:16
Unknown
And, and I was one of those parents that that did not receive it. but I remember when my son was, in first or second grade, he made up a father, I mean, and he took everything that he had ever heard about his father and made up a father. And the teacher called me and said that this was going on.
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Unknown
But it was he was an incredible man. I mean, it was a super day. And then he made up. It was. But, but I remember on holidays and birthdays, both of my children waiting for thundering. Yeah, yeah, waiting to hear from their dad. And I think one of the things that a church can do, like you're saying, is, is to come around the kid, you know, if if a little boy doesn't have a role model.
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Unknown
Man. Yeah, that he doesn't know how to become a man. A woman can't raise a lamb easily, can her? You know, it's, you know, to have have a strong community around them that that some, you know that they're they're special in their precious and that they're not different. Right. And I would wholeheartedly agree with that. My situation was different.
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Unknown
My husband, her ex-husband now was still involved in their lives, but his values were so very, very different from what I believed. And so I also worked to get my kids exposed to men who carried the same values that I did. and but, you know, the other thing I'm going to say is I was at one point given the opportunity to move my kids away to another state, and I chose to stay in Cleveland so that they could still see their dad and have a relationship with their dad.
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Unknown
So I also think it it is important is not if the other partner is around, not to deny your kids the opportunity for that relationship. I think for me, the anguish came when my son, he was four, and his dad would pick him up and then drop him off, and he was so distraught when his dad dropped him off that he would try to run out the door after the car, and I would have to restrain him.
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Unknown
And as much as I didn't like the man who had done all of these things in our marriage, I realized that for my kids, even if he wasn't ideal, that that relationship was important. And so I didn't fight it. I think one of the saddest things I see in people who are separating is that children become the weapon that they use against each other.
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Unknown
Yes. And, the anger is funneled through the child, and the child is deprived. But having the right to love both parents and all children love both parents. I mean, regardless of how bad it was, they want that relationship with the other parent. And if they're made to feel shame or guilt because they desire to see the other parent because they're happy about that of the parent, and it's really, really sad for them to have to make a choice.
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Unknown
And, the fear of making your parent mad because you love the other parent is so sad. It's very sad. And kids taken on so easily. One of the things that I said I would not do, and I was certainly not perfect in this because I'm a human being like everybody else, is that I would not talk disparage about my ex-husband in front of my kids, and that I would be patient and allow them on their own with, you know, guiding from me to learn who is their father.
00:16:01:11 - 00:16:33:03
Unknown
I remember when I was in graduate school, I was struggling with that whole thing about what do I do with that? And then I asked several people who had grown up in single parent families, how did your parents handle the relationship with each other? And what, how did you how did that affect you? And, almost unanimously, they said with the parent, one parent, sort of calm down about the other parent, did it.
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Unknown
They resent it. But if they were left to have that relationship and ultimately they would come up with the truth about who that parent was, you know, and and very often it would validate, you know, topic. But it it was it's really interesting how children do, they have their own mind and they have their own relationship, and they can have a really good relationship with the parent that the other parent doesn't.
00:17:02:03 - 00:17:39:20
Unknown
And, I think it, I think it's you did a great thing there. You know, your, your children's father was a lot more involved with my children's father was they saw him periodically and they, and they wanted to see him. Yeah. And it was really hard. you mentioned how the value structure of the other parent is very can be very different and and how hard it is for a child to grow up in homes that have very different set of rules and standards or no rules at all, or, and it's it is confusing, can be very confusing.
00:17:39:20 - 00:18:00:04
Unknown
I have often thought of my son as being pulled in two different directions. At one point. Actually, when I was working with you, we started our family meetings, so it would be my kids and my ex-husband and his new wife, and we would agree upon things and value wise, I would say we have agreed upon these things. So that's what's going to happen.
00:18:00:07 - 00:18:29:04
Unknown
Well, he turned around and just did what he wanted to do with them and gave them what they wanted, despite what he had said in this meeting. And that was hard. Yeah. But I knew that I couldn't compromise and I do ultimately he's actually revealing who he is by doing that to my kids. So I encourage single parents who've got the other spouse involved or your former spouse involved to try to work with them.
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Unknown
Absolutely. But it's not always possible. And in your situation where they're just born, which is very, very, very different, it's it's, you know, children also, the tendency we have is to feel sorry for the children. I remember the first Christmas that I was a single parent. My children got four sets of Santa Claus. Yeah. I mean, my parents, his parents, he was still involved in to some extent.
00:19:06:16 - 00:19:30:12
Unknown
And me, and, you know, it was everybody felt sorry for them, you know. And I remember my daughter was, four and one day she went to do something and I said no. And she looked at me with the most tearful eyes and said, but my after all, you should let me do that. After all, I don't have a daddy.
00:19:30:14 - 00:19:59:15
Unknown
Oh my goodness. And it didn't work. You know, it's but it was, it was I mean, it doesn't take children long to know if they're if people feel sorry for them and pity is the worst possible thing because pity is always condescending. It says you're not as good and you're not okay. And so pity is a really not good thing to have.
00:19:59:18 - 00:20:35:14
Unknown
It's like, yeah, we have a different family structure, but you're still expected to do the things that you're supposed to do. Yeah. It's interesting that you say that. I have a couple of dear friends who have been single parents along with me, who I met on this journey, and one of them and I were talking about the fact that we actually, as single moms, felt so guilty ourselves for the circumstances and the fact that the dads who were around were either not there or not what we would want them to be, that we just gave our kids too much.
00:20:35:16 - 00:20:56:21
Unknown
You try to overcome, you overcompensate. And so today we say to ourselves, why do our kids see us in the way that they do? Like, you know, moms, they're for everything. She'll do anything for me. I don't even have to ask. And, you know, as I look back, it's because I, I overcompensated. It's one of the the lessons I learned on that journey.
00:20:56:21 - 00:21:21:08
Unknown
And I, and I would tell other single moms, don't do that. They need the structure and the discipline as, as every other child needs. I call it the mama bear syndrome. Yeah. It's like somebody has hurt my cub and nobody is going to ever hurt them again. And they're not going to have to have any pain. I think we do that in two parent families a lot, that our children aren't supposed to suffer.
00:21:21:15 - 00:21:47:13
Unknown
Our children are supposed to have pain. And yet we know that in in growing know, pain forces us to grow. And it's an opportunity to to learn how to weathered life. And we've made children very fragile with, you we first we had the helicopter moms and then we now we had the bulldozer moms and just go bulldoze everything and and and it handicaps the children in the long run.
00:21:47:13 - 00:22:10:13
Unknown
I mean, I know and my son would be the first to tell you that I enabled him well into his adult life, that he wasn't going to hurt, that that was nothing going to happen to him. And I think because he was, their father was actually out with my best friend when he was born. You say it was right on top of that.
00:22:10:13 - 00:22:39:27
Unknown
And I think I became so protective of him, you know, that, that it almost destroyed me. And he'll be the first one to tell you. Yeah, yeah, we we do things that that we believe are best for our kids. And sometimes we're overcompensating, for things. And and we're doing it through our own sadness. we are it is through our own filter, our own sadness, our own brokenness inside.
00:22:39:27 - 00:23:00:27
Unknown
And, I mean, the thing is that, my journey as a single mom, one of the things I really needed to do was take care of myself. So I, I went to counseling and I looked at what was it that I contributed to this relationship. And for me is what what the Lord used to draw me into a relationship with him.
00:23:00:27 - 00:23:35:01
Unknown
But there's healing there that we need to take hold of on that journey. We need to take hold of it for our kids as well. And I always have said to single parents, you need to take care of yourself because it's easy to give everything you have to your kids, but you've got to take care of yourself. It's it's, it's probably been one of the more common things we see in single parent and lives that, women and men often don't take care of themselves or they, they,
00:23:35:03 - 00:23:58:06
Unknown
And then the children grow up. It's hard for the children to leave. Yes. Everything has been focused on the children. And now who am I and what am I here for? And. And you find a lot of, pathology in that long business. The the whole whole thing of launching children, you know, that that we're really just glorified babysitters, whether we're single, married.
00:23:58:06 - 00:24:20:26
Unknown
Yeah. Yeah. You know, it's like in 18 years just to get out the door, you know, we don't equip them to do that. If you look at parenting as a the purpose of parenting is to teach your child to live in a world that does not care about them without you. Yes. And if they can't do that, that that has been a failure in our relationship.
00:24:20:29 - 00:24:48:03
Unknown
And it's so it's so, it means they've got to learn how to, to do things, to take care of themselves, to, to weather the, the pain and suffering that comes from life, unfortunate relationships, to work hard to contribute to the world that they're living in and that sort of thing. They're not there for us to, the little prince and princesses, you know, that we tend to make them into.
00:24:48:05 - 00:25:13:00
Unknown
And, but I do think it's it's really hard and tiring to be a single parent. And I know one thing for me, because I didn't do it well, my kids the 1013 when I went into recovery and, because I was, partied and and and, and I did those things, then I felt really guilty because not only had my children father left, I was not who I needed to be.
00:25:13:02 - 00:26:01:00
Unknown
And I jerked them all over the place and, Yeah, they're they're in their late 50s now, so it's so we've we've survived it and but it's, it really is. Looking back, I realized that I did not have a healthy social life, you know, and how important it is for people to do more of what you did to seek a loving church community, to help them to know that when they leave God, kids go with them, that they're not going out there by themselves, that God's with them, and he's got to go with them and to to teach them to have that is the central support and the central source of strength in
00:26:01:00 - 00:26:34:02
Unknown
their life and not make it yourself. Yeah, that is so important. I found on the journey and I, I tend to be more of an introvert, and I was raised in an environment where it's not okay to ask for help. And one of the things I needed to learn as a single parent, and I think you said it earlier, you know, you're carrying the full load that two people normally carry is to find community and to make my needs known and to allow others to walk alongside of me.
00:26:34:02 - 00:26:59:11
Unknown
So I mentioned two friends. There are two friends that I met on the journey. We've been friends for 25 years and we helped each other. walk that together with our kids and and you're still friends. We're still friends. Very very good organizations. Yeah. And and it's, it can that makes it easier for everyone. It's easier for your sons to leave.
00:26:59:11 - 00:27:27:01
Unknown
It's easier for, for you to have a life after they leave. There is life after children. It turns out there is. Although, I will say, as a single mom, I had a lot of focus on my kids. I chose not to date or pursue another relationship while I was raising them, because I felt like there was enough noise and enough other things around that I wanted to focus on for them.
00:27:27:03 - 00:27:52:18
Unknown
And so when they left, I felt like my right arm was torn off and yeah, that's another story for another time. But yeah, it it is. I think it's a little bit more traumatic when you're single. But I remember when my daughter got married, it was such a, it's such a good marriage. I was so happy for her because she, the man she married is amazing.
00:27:52:18 - 00:28:24:10
Unknown
And it was a good summer. She was home for college and and over the working. That's, she was a teacher, and and, she was really, excited. And we went through all of the wedding preparations and the parties and the everything else, and I was, And we had the wedding and we had the beautiful reception, and then they got in the car and rode off without me.
00:28:24:12 - 00:28:51:12
Unknown
and I remember just feeling very left. you know, like, oh, my, you know, that she's going to go into her family and, and it was just it was very, very, physical. Almost. Yeah. Like a physical reaction to that because that's a that's a huge transition. It is for two parent families as well. But for single parents in particular, it's even harder.
00:28:51:15 - 00:29:17:23
Unknown
I mean, it's hard enough when they leave to go to college, but when they leave to get married, it is it is the done deal. You know, if you are no longer the most important person in their life. No, that's a big transition in itself. My sons are 34 and 31, and still some days it's hard to acknowledge that I'm not the most important person in their lives.
00:29:17:25 - 00:29:50:08
Unknown
But I do think, you did so such a good work with helping our church embrace a single parent. And it's so important that that, that people hear that. How important it is to embrace that single parent, how important it is to come around the children, to give them a sense of normalcy, a sense of family, especially if there's no family around, you know, I mean, the.
