Finding your support network

A single woman thinking about becoming a Choice Mom emailed to ask about all the situations that can come up when we need a support network -- and what if we don't have a good one? Her family and friends lived far away. She was tied to a community because of her job, where she was the boss and thus didn't feel she had the work colleagues to ask favors of. What would she do if she needed emergency childcare? Or if her sleep was so impaired that she couldn't function? Or if the stress of life left her unable to cope with a child's tantrums? Where would she find help? Would it all magically work out?

It prompted me to work on the next radio show, about building our support networks. I've dealt with it on ChoiceMoms.org, with the "building support" package. And we've had several shorter podcasts about it on Choice Chat. But I'm devoting a full hour on the topic on the "Choosing Single Motherhood" show, to go up December 14.

Here is some of the wonderful advice that came from a fellow Choice Mom on the subject, which deserves to be available both for listeners and for readers, from Lily:

"While it is something to think about, I wouldn't get too panicky about any of it. You may have to not assume that your support network for the baby will be the people who will be the social support network for you. You may have to hire people to do things that need doing -- I have always said 'I do with a checkbook what other people do with a spouse.'

The answer to most of your questions about "what to do if..." is "you just do it." You won't be getting full nights of sleep for a long time. When your toddler has a tantrum, you just deal with it. When you get sick, you just handle it. There will be times when you will think 'I just can't take too much more of this,' but you'll get past them. I have a few numbers of people I could call, and 99 percent of the time, I get through it just by thinking I COULD call them if I had to. I almost never do.

In terms of work, you will be missing more days than you are now -- that's just a given. The child will be unexpectedly ill, your daycare provider will call in sick or will be unexpectedly closed, and you will have to take time off. If you're senior, I assume you've been working there for a while. This is when it is going to be time for payback for all the years when you took the late nights, worked all the holidays, or whatever. I view it as a bank -- when I had the freedom to work late, pick up the rotten shift, whatever, I did it. I figured at some point in my life, I'd need to take advantage of needing to take time off, and then no one could say I was a shirker, because I'd have years of going the extra mile at my back. And now I do have to take more time off, and I don't think about it at all. I don't feel bad about it, and I don't view it as revenge for all those times in the past (I'm not trying to 'stick it' to my colleagues), but as something I've earned both administratively and in the goodwill bank.

You will most likely lose contact or have much less contact with your friends who don't have kids. That's just the way it is -- their childless lives will continue on the path of what it is now -- it's only natural. They may come and visit once in a while or call you (although they won't understand why you really can't chat right then), but you will become less close. It's just the way of things and normal in the social life cycle.

When I lived in the U.K., I found the culture a lot "smaller" -- even in London -- than it is in the US. What I mean by that is that even in the larger towns, you had a local area/unit that you could fairly easily know who was around you. You also were far more likely to have access to "an older lady who does" or "a young woman who babysits" or the shopkeeper's wife/daughter who was looking for some work on the side.

Where I live in the U.S., my area is pretty homogenous, so it's very consistently upper-middle class professionals, and the pool of people out there who fill some of the support structure roles simply aren't there. We hire companies to do the cleaning, no one knows of a babysitter that isn't family, and the nannies/au pairs are imported from other countries. If I were in the U.K. now, I'd probably spend some time before having the baby finding something locally you like to do. Find a local pub that you enjoy, join a church, join a society, etc. In those places you will probably find people who know people and will probably come across a more broad spectrum of society than you would in a similar situation in the US. I know many will think it's not true, but in the U.S., we're actually far more likely to have church congregations, neighborhoods, etc., where everyone is very much the same. I'm quite sure that were I still in the U.K., I'd have had a much easier time finding people to babysit or do other things that I might need done through local contacts than here.

Here's the big one, though. Only you know how independent you truly are. You mentioned your fear of not being able to cope when a toddler has a tantrum or when you're ill. How have you handled things in the past -- are you someone who tends to walk away from things, or are you someone who tends to just get through it? Are you someone for whom it would be nice to have someone around to assist, or are you someone for whom this kind of assistance is essential and necessary?

The person you are now and your coping styles will not really change. You are not going to be going to some other planet where you change your identity. You will just be you, but with a child. Don't plan for the person you're not -- plan for the person you are."

What about you? How have you coped with the stresses of single parenting? Of parenting? Of emergencies and sleep deprivation and tantrums? Of friends and family who aren't really there? Where have you found your support network? Has it all worked out magically?

Owning the holidays

I have a major bugaboo about Thanksgiving. It's never been a particularly friendly holiday for me, ironically. Started when my childhood home was damaged by fire, and water hose, and smoke, the day before Thanksgiving and caused long-lasting emotional turmoil in our family for some time thereafter.

Then there was the annual bout of strep throat that typically left me unable to eat in subsequent years (psychosomatic or not) for the Big Dinner.

The many years feeling out of place at other family's dinners when I was transplanted to the East Coast and could afford only to come home at Christmas.

The dinner with friends when we didn't understand that defrosting would require days in the refrigerator, not a bacteria-brewing day on the countertop.

My own skewed perceptions that Thanksgiving is for giant cuddly family time with extended relatives arriving and filling up the house. My actual family always consisted of two parents (still together, which is an amazing blessing), one brother, one grandparent. My dad had one sister and step-family we never saw. My mom has one brother.

Last year the kids and I visited my grandmother in the nursing home. Not quite warm and fuzzy, but important. It was my last major holiday with her before she died.

The next day I marched into an Apple store to replace my three-month-old computer because of a hot chocolate spill. I was feeling highly stressed about that and other personal matters that could not be fixed....and within moments was sobbing uncontrollably in front of the Apple sales guy.

Many of us have our own stories of unhappy holidays that didn't fulfill our expectations. Sometimes we dread the holidays because it forces us to interact with family members who don't understand us, or our choices. Or we watch nieces and nephews joyous and exuberant and cute, feeling a bit invisible because we don't yet have children of our own to celebrate with them. Or it becomes the occasion for younger sister to announce her engagement to Perfect Man. Or it simply becomes an exhausting time of shopping, wrapping and traveling with our little ones, putting Bah Humbug into our already stressful life.

Of course, some of us embrace the holidays as an opportunity to do service in the community, to show our older children about what it means to give.

And many of us LOVE the holidays, as a time to celebrate rituals with loved ones.

I'm writing today to tell you how, this year, I OWNED my Thanksgiving.

The kids and I had a few invitations to dinners. I considered hosting. My Mom -- warm and toasty with Dad and friends in Arizona -- had that "sorry" sound in her voice when she heard that we intended to stay home alone.

But what the kids and I did with our Thanksgiving is create our own ritual. We stayed in our pajamas all day. We each picked four things we wanted to do.

The list was not the usual TO DO list that usually takes over. It consisted of: craft (flying paper turkeys on a hanger), puzzle (Transformers), cooking (chicken with beer can up its butt, sweet potatoes with marshmallows, fancy bread), manicures and massage (yes, my son is still sporting his pink nails proudly), Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium (all three of us cuddled together on couch with hot chocolate and popcorn), disco party (to Hedwig!), and more.

We had a three-member-family extravaganza. And it was deliriously brilliant.

And there's more: that Apple sales guy? He was part of this year's ritual as well. The kids and I made a gift basket to celebrate my store breakdown. Because since then, his cousin has been responsible for helping me get the Choice Chat podcast running smoothly, and for producing my first CD for Choice Moms, about answering the "Do I Have a Dad?" question. His brother has become my tech consultant and resident handyman. And the sales guy himself has recently become my webcast developer, currently working with me on a Choice Moms DVD about "building your support network."

OWN your rituals. Take the REINS. DO what you can. LET GO of what you can't. BUILD your network.

There is much to give thanks for, when we keep moving forward to create our own meaningful short-term and long-term communities.