AskHal

Dear Hal,

I am a single mother of 4 young boys. I really need to know how to talk to my children about their dad. He doesn’t have much to do with them, and I don't know what to tell them. Help?

Single-parents are some of my heroes, because this parenting thing is hard enough for my wife and me together. Even during the short times I'm doing it on my own (say, when my wife goes out of town for the weekend), I feel challenged to grow in new ways.

But as you've expressed here, it's not just doing it on your own most of the time, it's also having to deal with the absent parent still being a relevant factor in your children's lives, sometimes exactly because they're absent! So that leaves you dealing with your kids' hurt feelings and disappointed expectations, as well as leaving you as an easy target because you're the parent who's actually around. It's easy for them to take out their incredible emotions on you.

And it's easy for you to take yours out on them. I know it sounds impossible, but the best thing single parents can do is make it clear to themselves and their children that they do not exclusively belong to one another. Your kids do not exclusively belong to you, and you do not belong exclusively to them. That means creating space for everyone to own their own lives. That means listening to your kids' pain about their father without trying to defend, accuse, or make up for him. That also means listening to their anger towards you realizing that some of it is directed at you, and some is really aimed at their father.

Above all, it means focusing on yourself and your own emotional processes so that you don't add your mess to the one already there. And this means learning to care for yourself without needing your kids' or your ex's cooperation.

You are the only one that depends completely on you.

Take care, Hal