Dana S. Chisholm - Single Moms Raising Sons: Preparing Boys to Be Men When Theres No Man Around

Copyright 2007
By Dana S. Chisholm

ISBN-13: 978-0-8341-3129-3

Printed in the
United States of America

Cover Design: J.R. Caines
Interior Design: Sharon Page

Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are from the Holy Bible, New International Version (NIV). Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan Publishing House. All rights reserved.

Permission to quote from the following additional copyrighted version (s) of the Bible is acknowledged with appreciation:

New American Standard Bible (NASB), copyright The Lockman Foundation 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995.

This book is dedicated to

my two sons, Christopher and Nathan. You will be wonderful husbands and fathers someday as you model your perfect Father in heaven.

the boys and men I talked with who graciously shared your stories. You are awesome men of God. Your moms did a great job.

the mothers and grandmothers who are keeping your eyes on the Lord and know that with Him you can raise good men. Do not grow weary.

Contents

Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus (Phil. 3:13-14).

Moms can raise great sons. Even when others say the odds are against you, Im telling you it can be done. I applaud you, and I encourage you to keep going! According to the Census Bureau, 19.8 million children are living with single parents, and 83% of theseor 16.5 millionare living with their mothers.

Encouragement is very popular in society today. We encourage everything from weight loss and exercise to mammograms and colonoscopies. We encourage drinking more water, improving your diet, tolerance, even disaster preparedness. We encourage taking care of the earth, listening to your inner voice, and public service.

It seems to me, however, that encouragement for moms raising boys on their own is in short supply. Instead, it seems that societys attitude is that boys raised in homes without dads are somehow doomed. By choosing to encourage moms raising boys, whatever their situationdeath of the dad, divorce, military servicewe are, in fact, strengthening tomorrows men and fathers.

The Wake-Up Call

The lack of encouragement from society is subtle. It bothered me for a long time before I was able to identify it. It was just little things like the change of tone in ones voice when he or she discovers Im a single mom. Ohhhhh, I see.

What do you see? Just a moment ago my boys seemed normal to you, and now that you know Im a single mom, my boys are carrying baggage they werent carrying before. Its as if it is a given that morals are lacking in our home, that the boys are really rampaging hellions, and that the person must have caught them on one of their rare good days.

Or the look that goes with, Oh, your job is the hardest. I dont know how you do it! The look and the comment are tinged with pity.

I have caught myself trying to keep my situation quiet. As long as people think Im married and that there is a father in the home, they assume the best of my boys. There is no baggage for them to lug around. I guess Im hoping that if they get to know us and see that were normal and have plenty of moral fiber, their misconceptions about the failures of single moms raising sons can be dispelled.

Inevitably, when someone finds out Im a single mom, the first question is, Do you have men in their lives who can teach them to be men? You know, good role models for them?

I wasnt quite putting it all together until one day I was sitting in a lecture hall with 150 other people listening to a talk about why we should be teaching abstinence in our schools. I agreed with what the speaker said. I work with women who are experiencing unplanned pregnancies, and I teach abstinence to teens. The speaker began to quote statistics that supported her statements, and that also sounded reasonable.

I was still with her when she used statistics to prove why marriage is good for our society. I like marriage. I wouldnt mind being married again, and I hope I have raised my sons to be good husbands in good marriages in the future. Marriage is a good thing. As she continued, though, I began to hear what others in the room didnt seem to notice. She started using statistics to prove why every family combination outside of a two-parent family was a failure and would produce kids who were failures. I began to think: My sons arent failures. I know many single moms, so statistically I should know many single moms whose boys are failures.

Then the speaker brushed over a few statistics that jumped out at me. The study she was citing showed that kids from two-parent homes where both parents were involved in their kids lives did better at staying off drugs, remaining abstinent, not smoking, and steering clear of violence. The group that didnt do well was the group where neither parent was involved in their kids lives. Both the two-parent homes and the single-parent homes turned out kids who were likely to exhibit the behaviors described aboveif the parents were uninvolved.

And I said to myself, So its involvement that makes the difference. Even two-parent homes that lacked parental involvement did badly in this study. That said to me that I have a chancethe slightest hopeof raising boys who wont fail at life. I decided to search out other factors to give me hope for raising great sons.

What defines this involvement that proves to be the key to success? I started interviewing every unmarried mom I could findand they are everywhere. I met moms who are remarried (now in blended families), moms currently raising boys on their own, and even men who chimed in because they had been raised in what society calls broken homes.

A Broken Home

Broken home. Now theres a term I hate.

Labels are dangerous. During the 80s, when the bombing of abortions clinics and the shooting of doctors who performed abortions were occurring with some regularity, the local paper in Southern California called me for a quote because of my work with women facing crises such as unplanned pregnancies.

In the story they were planning to run in the paper, the reporter was going to refer to bombers as pro-life, and asked me if he could quote me as saying I was pro-life. I said No. you may not say I am pro-life. You may say that I believe abortion hurts women and ends the life of a child. That isnt what the reporter wanted. He wanted someone to say he or she was pro-life because in his story the bombers were also pro-life. But that label, especially for this particular story, carried baggage that was not part of the definition of pro-life to me. To the reporter, pro-life meant clinic bomber, doctor killer, and injuring innocent bystanders. I was not going to agree to that label.

My home will not be labeled broken if I can help it. Many people consider a broken home to be anything other than a father, a mother, and 2.5 kids. But to me, broken means dysfunctionalwhether there are two parents in the home or just one. If you ask me if I have a broken home, my answer is that I do not. But you can quote me as saying that, although Im not married, our home has a Husband and a Father, a Head of the Home. When God is in the picture, the home is always complete.

Healthy Home

When I started taking a closer look at the statistics and what was different about my home and all the homes that are successfully raising wonderful sons, I realized there was one common factor: faith. I even found a study or two that showed religion was a positive influence in peoples lives. I didnt find a study that compared and contrasted single and married parenting and how religion played a role. But my case studiesinterviewing successful single momscertainly proved to me that the secret to a healthy home is making it complete. That requires a Husband and Father, but I dont mean just finding a man. I mean finding God the Father who promises to be the defender of the widow and father to the fatherless.