Andrea Engber - The Complete Single Mother: Reassuring Answers to Your Most Challenging Concerns

Praise for
The Complete Single Mother,
Third Edition:

Comprehensive and compassionate, The Complete Single Mother will guide you to make good decisions for your children and yourself. Each updated edition only makes it more relevant and reliable.

Barbara Meltz, parenting columnist for The Boston Globe, author, Put Yourself
in Their Shoes: Understanding How Your Children See the World

From conception to the teen years and from de-stressing to dealing with the ex from hell, The Complete Single Mother is the definitive guide to life for solo moms. Don't consider single motherhood without it.

Ariel Gore, editor/publisher of Hip Mama

The Complete Single Mother offers comfort, common sense, experience, encouragement and more than a few laughs. The sophisticated and psychologically savvy advice is invaluable no matter what the single mom challenge. This book is absolutely a must-get for all single moms.

Tammy Jones, founder of SingleRose.com, Resource for Single Mothers, and author of Single Mother Sentiments

This is the most helpful, empowering resource single moms have looked to for over a decade. Written in a friendly and supportive way; no question goes unanswered, no topic avoided. The third edition even includes mini-bios of notable single moms which offers added reassurance and inspiration for women who aspire to create balanced, well informed, confident lives.

Sheila Ellison, author of The Courage to Be a Single Mother
and founder of SingleMomsConnect.com

Single moms will refer to this marvelous book time and again. It offers practical advice on everything including pregnancy, special needs children, money issues, relationships and stepfamilies. And it does so with encouragement, intelligence, and humor. It's the Single Mother's Bible!

Ellie Slott Fisher, author of Mom, There's a Man in the Kitchen and He's Wearing
Your Robe: The Single Mother's Guide to Dating Well Without Parenting Poorly

As I read this new version of the absolute single mother Bible I couldn't believe how much incredibly important information delivered with heart, hope and laughter is packed in. If you are a single mom, toying with the idea, or know one you must get this book!

Patrice Karst, author of The Single Mother's Survival Guide

The book provides a much-needed service to single moms. It is extremely valuable for the authors' reassuring, common sense advice.Since the single mothers I encounter are always full of questions, I recommend this book as a practical guide to raising children of either sex. Engber and Klungness address these mothers' specific, often urgent concerns in a warm and conversational style.Inviting and nonjudgmental in tone, this guide draws readers into its wise counsel on what it takes to be a responsive, empathetic parent.The authors' gift to single parents is the strong message that they are not alone, and they can succeed as other single parents have done and are doing. The expanded third edition speaks with understanding to many circumstances of single parenthood, including those single by chance or by choice.The Complete Single Mother is a tremendous gift to women who are raising children alone, and I thank the authors for revising and expanding it to educate and reassure today's single moms.

Peggy Drexler, Ph.D., author of Raising Boys Without Men

The Complete Single Mother is just what it sayscomplete! There is no other book about single parenting like this one, which has an answer for any question a single parent would ask. Readers are sure to find their particular situations and interests within these pages, which can offer much-needed comfort to single parents who may feel alone and misunderstood. I can confidently recommend this book in my practice to moms and dads who are dealing with specific problems that are not typically written about in the parenting field. I especially appreciate the philosophy that Engber and Klungness promote regarding the importance of always putting kids' needs first.

Diane Chambers Shearer, author of Solo Parenting: Raising Strong & Happy
Families and publisher of The Peaceful Co-Parent newsletter

The Complete Single Mother
Third Edition

Reassuring Answers to Your Most Challenging Concerns

Andrea Engber
Leah Klungness, Ph.D.

Adams Media
Avon, Massachusetts

Copyright 2006, 2000, 1995 by Andrea Engber and Leah Klungness
Single Moms of Note sidebars adapted from
Single Mothers of Invention, copyright Andrea Engber.

All rights reserved. This book, or parts thereof, may not be
reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher; exceptions
are made for brief excerpts used in published reviews.

Published by Adams Media, an F+W Publications Company
57 Littlefield Street
Avon, MA 02322
www.adamsmedia.com

ISBN: 1-59337-490-9
Printed in the United States of America.

J I H G F E D C B A

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Engber, Andrea.
The complete single mother : reassuring answers to your most challenging concerns/
by Andrea Engber and Leah Klungness.3rd ed.
p. cm.
ISBN 1-59337-490-9
1. Single mothersUnited States. 2. ParentingUnited States. I. Klungness, Leah.
II. Title.

HQ759.45.E54 2006
306.874'32'0973dc22
2005021885

This publication is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information with regard to the subject matter covered. It is sold with the understanding that the publisher is not engaged in rendering legal, accounting, or other professional advice. If legal advice or other expert assistance is required, the services of a competent professional person should be sought.

From a Declaration of Principles jointly adopted by a Committee of the
American Bar Association and a Committee of Publishers and Associations

Many of the designations used by manufacturers and sellers to distinguish their product are claimed as trademarks. Where those designations appear in this book and Adams Media was aware of a trademark claim, the designations have been printed with initial capital letters.

Interior illustrations by Lynn Jeffrey and Jim Hunt.

This book is available at quantity discounts for bulk purchases.
For information, please call 1-800-872-5627.

To our children, Spencer, Sarah, and Andrew,
who taught us to live joyfully in the present.
And to our sisters, the single mothers who have
inspired us through their strength, hope,
and the community they have brought to
the new American family.

CONTENTS

THE MANY FACES OF
SINGLE MOTHERS TODAY

RAISING GREAT KIDS WITH
CONFIDENCE AND COURAGE

YOUR CONNECTION TO THE
REST OF THE WORLD

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Sometimes those to whom we are most grateful cannot be thanked enough. Often those who offered their deepest support and encouragement are no longer around to receive the thanks.

I thank my late mother, Florence, who released me from her hold, but only after seeing to it that her constant refrain, You can do anything you set out to do, had sunk in. To the spirit of Sherman Engber, the man who raised me, I owe deep gratitude for meeting the challenge by marrying my independent single mother and for loving me out of choice and not because he had to. As real a daddyif not more soas any birth father could hope to be, he taught me that love has less to do with blood than unconditional acceptance. My parents also taught me their roles were genderless, as my father, a tall, strong Bogart type, shopped and cleaned house while my mother, a former model, maintained the car and rewired our apartment.