generalparenting

Web sites like these can be a real life saver to parents like me. I am on disability which means I am on an extremely tight budget. Subsidizing that budget is something many people in my position have to do. With me being a single parent that makes it that much more important. I know this site takes some time to get traffic to new blogs and I am finding it easy to constantly check on my status but I’m having fun with this thing. I wish I could get everyone to do this. Not just because I would earn that extra $5 which would be nice but also because I really do like doing this. It’s good to get paid to have people hear your opinion especially when you are a single parent like me that doesn’t have alot of other people to talk to. Even though the money is taking a little time to get going I can see great potential for earning here and I like it. I am going to blog my little heart out and hope that I get other people with similar or even opposite views to come visit and maybe leave comments or suggestions for my blog. Any way that’s my two cents on the whole thing, so if you are a single parent or anyone in need of some extra cash I hope you check out this site and get yourself an account and don’t be shy about using my name. 

As you know my son has ADHD. I have three ferrets, one mouse, and our newest member to the family a baby cockatail. I myself am allergic to almost every animal that has fur so that includes the ferrets. My daughters lost interest shortly after we got the ferrets so my son stepped up and started taking care of them. He is incredible with them. He holds them and pets them, calming them when they are acting crazy (as most ferrets do) and in the process it calms my son. I can’t believe the transformation in him when he is with them, or any of the other pets. He really knows how to take care of them. He is twelve years old and acts like an adult vet or vet’s assistant. He has never made any comments showing interest in that field of work but I think he would be excellent. I don’t know if things like responsibility and animal work this way for all kids with disorders like ADHD but it’s working wonders for my son.

We all hear about the teen parents and how terrible an epidemic it is but what happens to these teens when they grow up? I am an adult teen parent and I look around some days and wonder what happened? How did I get here? and When did I grow up? It’s true you miss your lost childhood and it is definitly hard to be a parent who started as a teen. I was in high school when I had my daughter, giving into pressure from my then boyfriend and having sex before I was ready. I got pregnant the second time I had sex and had my first child two and a half months before my seventeenth birthday. With help from my mom and daycare I made it through most of high school and due to moving I finished with a GED. I got pregnant again and by the time I was twenty one I had three children all with different fathers. While I was pregnant with my son (my youngest child) I went to college for graphic design and graduated with a 3.8 grade average. I was an excellent student and ready and willing to go to work. But let me tell you I was doing it alone and it was NOT easy. I remember the late nights with one toddler, one collicky baby, and a new born crying to be fed. I would sleep holding the youngest with my oldest in my lap while pushing my colicky child in one of those old fashioned swings that you have to crank. Going to school was my break away from the kids. I loved my children, still do of course, but sometimes I just had to get away. I was doing it alone because when the fathers found out I was pregnant they split, being young themselves and scared. I went on to become a CNA and worked hard but my mental illness hit full force when I got to be about 26 and it became almost impossible to take care of my children. I had to rely on my mother again, even though I got married the year before. (he wasn’t a good man) She took care of my kids for about six months while I went in and out of the hospital trying to get medications that worked for me, which didn’t happen quickly. Now I went through about a total of two years where things looked pretty dark but we got through it. Alone again I moved across country, it was a manic thing where I just had to pick up and get away not thinking of the consequences. I got here to Oregon and my life finally got settled. I have had my up’s and down’s with my medications and my illness but now I can focus on being a parent again. In all of that lost time though I tend to have lost my childhood which happens as a teen parent. I didn’t go to prom, I didn’t go to graduation, I didn’t go to formal’s, I didn’t even go to football games after I had my daughter. I missed a lot of typical teenage things the other kids took for granted. I didn’t realize all the work and worry being a parent would be and I had no idea all of the things I would miss out on. Now don’t get me wrong I love my children and being a parent is something I feel I was meant to do but looking back I wish it would have happened later in life. I just didn’t realize what it took to be a parent. Now I have a daughter who is the same age I was when I became a parent and I can’t imagine her having a child of her own. She is so selfish and immature, as most teens are. Was I like that? I wonder. How did I do it? I don’t know, but am taking every precaution to avoid my children making the same mistakes. I put my daughter on birth control the year after she started menstrating and will do the same with my younger daughter and I have been very open and honest with all of my children from a young age about sex and the consequences of having sex as well as what it was like to be a teen parent. I want them to be informed and I want them to be able to talk to me about the pressures they are facing. It wasn’t long ago that I was in their shoes and I want them to make wiser decisions. I know it’s hard being a teen, it’s still fresh in my mind since it wasn’t that long ago that I too was a teen, and I want them to think before they act not to let emotions take over when they need to think and I want them to have the opportunities that I didn’t have.

Ok so as you know I have two teenage girls and a preteen boy. My younger of the two girls is only thirteen and is in the beginning stages of puberty, lord help me. Now I have one teen girl who is dating and dealing with peer pressure, and trying to get good grades for college, and of course she is dealing with the emotional issues of being not only a teenager but a teenage girl, which personally I believe to be a major feat to over come. Now I have my other daughter who is just starting this crazy hormonal stuff and any of you who have girls in the beginning of puberty know that the can be awful wicked things at this stage. Attitudes are flying everywhere and emotions are so unstable that they can be laughing and having fun one minute then they are crying about school to suddenly crying over their favorite shirt not being clean. It’s a tough time in everyone’s life when a girl hits puberty. I remember how emotional it can be as a girl but geeze I had no idea I put my mom through all of this and even apologized to her recently because I genuinely feel bad and can’t believe she survived me. Now I have to learn to deal with the emotional roller coasters and I may have a little more experience being Bipolar because I know all about the up’s and down’s of a roller coaster ride. I just kind of go with the flow and take the punches as they come. I know that she doesn’t mean the hateful things she says and I know she just wants someone to put their arm around her when she is crying. I even know she just wants to be understood when she is screaming because something didn’t go right. So my big answer is “do you want to talk about it?” or “So are you feeling —-? How can I help?” Don’t get me wrong I still get frustrated and we still have our full blown yelling matches where I want to shake her but I try to breath and remember not only did I go through the same thing but this too shall pass.

Well it’s time to wake up and get ready for the day… 5:45 comes early on a Monday. Make my bed and wake up the kids, feed the baby bird with a syringe, feed the ferrets, make breakfast and send the girls off to school. Cleaning up for breakfast I spend a little time talking to my son catching up on anything he may have missed telling me about his weekend then it’s time to get to work. I turn on the computer and as I wait for it to load I get school books ready. History first, figure out what we are going to learn today… I say we because History was never a good subject for me so I’m learning right along with my son. I figure out all of the work for History and then move right along, Science, Math, Reading, Social Studies, Latin, Spanish, and Sign Language. My son starts his work and I get on the computer. I check my mail, make necessary responses, and pull up my work as a poet. My son reads to me his work as he does it asking questions when he needs help. I go over each subject with him as he completes it. It’s time for lunch and we practice home living as we call it. He helps, or makes himself depending on what we are having, with lunch then it’s time for chores. After all of the chores are done we work on Sign Language. He’s getting pretty good too. We spend about twenty minutes with that and he finishes up the rest of his school work. By 1:30 sometimes as late as 2:30 he finishes up his school work for the day, usually ending with his writing and research projects. It’s a busy day Monday mornings for me but it’s one of the best day’s of the week also. We get to learn new and exciting things and making school about learning not about homework and pressure makes it fun.

Well it’s the Sunday night line up on Fox so the kids and I are watching the Simpsons, King of the hill and American Dad… American Dad is not one of my favorites for the kids with all of the inuendo ect. but they seem to like it. It’s nice to spend the time with them even if it is just watching T.V. I remember when I was a kid curling up on the couch with a blanket watching the Simpson’s I loved that show when it first came out and now my kids love it too. I unfortunately will probably go to sleep after the shows because I have to get up early to get the kids up and off to school and start my son’s home schooling. I love Sunday nights because the kids are in the house early so that they can get up for school Monday morning. So I get them all to myself.

Well if you read my about me page you know about my son, but if not here goes.. He is a very bright kid who has recently learned to love to read and is soaking up as much as he can learn as fast as he can and is the model student. This wasn’t true when he was in public school. See my son had a learning disability limiting his ability to read. He just couldn’t get it no matter how hard he tried, he even had trouble remembering the names of letters and their sounds. He was in third grade when I pulled him from public school. He became depressed while in there, crying every time he had to read something and constantly telling me kids were making fun of him. He was in a reading class that of course the other kids all knew about and would often be teased about it. He also had problems in his regular classes because he couldn’t keep up. The reading made it impossible for him to do the work the other students were doing. When he would ask for help the teachers would often pon him off on other students telling him to look off of their papers and ask them for help. Now I don’t know if this is a common practice in all schools but this continued through each grade he was in so this happened with four different teachers. Imagine my surprise when I learned that other 1st, 2nd, and 3rd graders were trying to teach my son!! Needless to say I pulled him from public school. I was terrified I couldn’t do him justice but figured I couldn’t do him any harm either. Within a few months not only did he know his letter’s and sound but he was reading, not Dick and Jane books mind you but chapter books. He has become an excellent reader and longs for the next second he can pick up one of his stories to read another chapter or two devouring 300-400 page books in a matter of days. He has grown so much since he started home schooling and I have to give all of the credit to him. If he didn’t have the desire he wouldn’t be succeeding the way he now is. I know home schooling isn’t for everyone but for a child like mine who is ADHD, Obsessive Compulsive, Depressed and has a learning disability I can’t imagine a better way for him to be taught. I do have two other children who both go to school, one in public middle school, the other in an alternative high school. So I’m not knocking public school, though I do have many complaints. I know not everyone has the ability or the desire to home school and I understand why. I just know that for my Joey it is the best way to go!!

In most cases step parents become parents by marriage but in my case that just isn’t true. See my kids never knew their real fathers. The men who fathered them were never interested in being a part of their lives. Occasionally they would show up and pretend to be a parent for awhile but it never seemed to last long, breaking my childrens hearts every time it happened. My son was the last straw to this pattern. See his father had not been in his life at all since he was 6months old and suddenly showed up without any warning saying “curiosity got the best of me”. I can think of many reasons to want to be in your childs life but curiosity never entered my mind. Anyway, he talked to my son a couple times on the phone (only when my son made the attempts to contact him first) but eventually the contact stopped. He forgot my sons birthday. That was heart breaking for him. Now through all of this and in the past 6 almost 7 years I had become friends with a man who also became friends with my children. They have grown to love each other and on more than one occasion my friend expressed his feelings of being a father to my children. After my kids saw what my son’s father did and how he acted with such disreguard for my son my younger children, who are 12 and 13 came to me saying that my friend was more like a dad to them. My middle child said she was going to ask him to be her dad. I had never thought my kids would reach out to him like this, most kids when they get to a certain age, don’t want bothered with step parents but here it was not only did they want bothered but they chose who that step parent was going to be. They, later that week, approached my friend with the idea that he be their new father. He of course agreed having loved them as his own for years. So now my children have a father of which they have chosen and they couldn’t be happier and my friend has stepped up to the plate being a part of everything in their lives. All of the decisions pertaining to the kids are decided by him as well as me. We have a unique family still with mom, dad, and kids but mom and dad aren’t together nor were they ever and the kids got to choose who their dad is. It may be unusaul but it works for us and my kids couldn’t be happier.

As a single parent I have a few fears about dating someone new. How will it effect my kids? I have to wonder how my children will respond to someone new and wonder whether or not a new significant other would try taking an active role in parenting. Do I really want that? I happen to like the way things are right now and I don’t know that I want things to change. I have my routines as do my children. Would someone new interfere with those routines or would it be a partnership that my entire family could learn to accept and love? I have been divorced since ‘03 and haven’t done much dating since. My main reason is the kids. I don’t know if I can trust a man with my kids. I know there are more good men out there then bad, BUT is it worth taking the risk that I could end up with a bad apple? I don’t want my kids to see me in a relationship with someone who isn’t good and I really don’t want them seeing me with man after man trying to find the right one. Of course I miss the companionship of a partner and would love to have that again but maybe waiting until the kids are all grown up is the way to be. My middle child wants me to start dating and is constantly pointing out men who flirt, although she has one in particular she wants to see me with, and I know she wants me to be happy. My son would only be happy if I was with my best friend, he is a good guy who my children have adopted as dad, but other than that my son would be happy if I didn’t date anyone until he didn’t have to be involved in it. I know all of my kids want me to be happy and they would be happy for me if I found someone that I had a meaningful relationship with but I still don’t know if it’s fair to disrupt their lives for my happiness. I guess if I met mr. wonderful I would take the chance but how often does it happen that you meet someone and just know instantly? Without just that happening I guess dating for this single mom is just going to have to wait a few more years.

I have been divorced for several years now and my ex-husband was a step parent. Now I had some difficulty with this subject when I was married and for a long time had to pay for my mistakes. My ex for some reason or another became sole disciplinarian, but it always seemed that I felt the punishments were to strict. We would often fight about whether or not he was being fair, after the punishment was handed down. I would always be the one to let the kids off of punishment early making me the “good guy” and him the “bad guy” I know now that wasn’t fair to him and in the long run caused problems for me. The kids began to believe that they could get over on me and that I wouldn’t stick to punishments so when it came time for me to be the “bad guy” they believed I would fold, giving in, and they would make life miserable until I did. It took me a long time and many punishments for the kids to realize that I too could be a disciplinarian and they began to listen. I know now that this was my mistake and my ex and myself should have discussed punishment before it was handed out, sticking to the punishment at all costs. I now have a kid chosen father (another time another posting) in their lives and we work together when it comes to the discipline of the children. Things are working much better this way and the kids try less often to weasle out of punishments.