One of the questions we SMCs often ask ourselves is whether we are being selfish by bringing children into the world without a father. There are risks associated with bringing children into the world, whether the family is a traditional one or not. But it is clear to me, from meeting with so many of our moms and kids over the nearly twenty-one years that SMC has been in existence, that our children have a great deal more in the way of positives in their lives than do many children. If anything, I worry that some of us maybe going overboard in our concerns.

    I regularly get calls and questions from SMCs about whether their child's anger or sadness or sleeplessness or whatever might be, as the typical SMC asks, "caused by our being a single-parent family." Nearly every time, after discussion of the details and specifics, I've concluded with the mother that it is not. These matters are child development issues, not single-parenting issues, and children from all kinds of families go through them. It may be that our children's development is shaded a particular way because of there being one parent, rather than two, but that is not what is causing a two year old to behave the way s/he is behaving.

    What does cause a child to behave in a healthy or nonadaptive way? Good question. I wish I could find some dramatic way to say this so that the the media would think it's a good headline (they seem to prefer "Children from Single Mother Families All Become Criminals"), but to put it simply, parenting skills are all-important in shaping the way a child develops.

    Parenting requires skills. This is true whether you're a single or a married parent. If you have or acquire those skills, your child will do better than if you don't. These skills can be learned and are not based on the number of parents in the home or whether or not the parents are married. Some parents, for a variety of reasons, let their children run the family. Others overmanage every little detail, not giving the child any room to make decisions and choices at age-appropriate levels. When you get right down to it, being a good parent involves knowing your child, understanding what is best for your child, and being able to act accordingly.

    Sounds easy, right? No way. In practice, that sense of what is really best for your child can be distorted by your own needs (do I really have to give an example?), society's pressures (the love of learning vs. achievement tests, for instance), and particularly by our children's demands ("If you don't take me to the zoo today, I won't love you any more").

    A wise man I once knew said it was important to differentiate between a child's wants and his needs. We have to be unselfish enough to be sure to meet the needs for security, consistency, trust, love and respect, but the wants are not very important and are often fleeting. How many of us have bought something that we felt our child really, really wanted and realized two weeks later that it was no longer of interest and never would be again? But if you give your child what s/he needs, that gift will last forever and even live on into future generations. Read a good book on child development or parenting. There are several good ones on the list of recommended reading that comes with your membership packet, and a similar list is in the back of my book, Single Mothers by Choice. If you're not a book person, join a parenting group. You will enjoy raising your child so much more if you feel secure in your parenting skills. I promise.

"Dear Ms. Essie" is a feature in which the wisdom of our very smart and together SMC, Ms. Essie Emcee, is tapped to answer some of the universal questions that we as SMCs all face at one time or another. Other sources of extraordinary wisdom can also be found on the SMC e-mail lists at SMC-Thinking@yahoogroups.com and SMC-Mothering@yahoogroups.com — and it is from these lists that these questions and answers are shamelessly stolen.

Dear Ms. Essie,

   I would appreciate feedback from anyone who forged ahead with pregnancy with the faith that everything would work out, even though they did not have all their issues worked out.

   I'm almost 41 now, so I don't feel I can postpone trying to conceive any longer. (Currently, I have no problem paying my mortgage and have no credit card debt, but I also have no financial cushion because I am spending it all on fertility treatments.)

   As I think more and more seriously about being inseminated, all kinds of "worst case scenarios" pop into my head: (1) if I stay in my current job, all of my retirement savings will go for daycare. (2) If my doc puts me on bed rest, who will pay my mortgage? (3) What if I lose my job? (4) How am I going to handle having no one but me to depend on emotionally, when I see married pregnant women around me depending so heavily on their husbands? (5) What if I have a special needs child? (6) What if I have twins?

   I don't know what to make of this growing panic. I just don't want to scare myself away from single motherhood and end up regretting it.

                              Signed,
                              Tortured Thinker

Dear Tortured Thinker,

   I did not have all my ducks in a row either. But I felt that even if unexpected bad things happened, I would still be happier dealing with them and being a mother than having a smooth, easy life and not being a mother.

   While I was pregnant, my perfect work-at-home job disappeared. (They had a budget cutback and decided to cut back on me since I was pregnant and freelance.) On top of that, I was on bed rest for the last two months.

   It hadn't even occurred to me to worry about any of this.

   I did worry about birth defects, traumatic labors, C-sections, cerebral palsy, stretch marks, a permanently ruined body, being lonely while pregnant, being forced to go back to work before I wanted to, not ever working again, going on welfare, not being eligible for welfare, and never having sex again.

   As it turned out, none of these fears, some of which were contradictory (please God, don't make me work; please God, what if I can't get a job), came to pass. On the other hand, other things that I thought would be a breeze were huge problems.

   From this experience, I've drawn the conclusion that chances are that whatever I worry about probably won't happen, and the thing that sandbags me will be something I didn't even think about. And that life is unpredictable, for good and bad.

   Someone once said, a problem is something that has a solution. If there's no solution, it's not a problem; it's a reality you have to live with.

   The chances that every bad thing you can imagine will happen are pretty slim. So at the very least, I think it's irrational to worry about all of them at once — at least worry about them one at a time, which will be less scary.

   I'm not being flippant — I'm serious. It's scary to do this alone, so we all find things to worry about because of the general anxiety. But most of the time, nothing bad happens and anything that does happen, you'll deal with at the time.

                              Signed, Ms. Essie MC, mother of Max, age 4, and now worrying about preschool and getting into kindergarten and what if he's always short?