The Story of a Single Dad
This is the final part of a five-part series. If you haven’t read the earlier posts, start with Part 1 and work your way through.
I have heard horror stories of divorced dads and single moms. Many didn’t end well. Many still struggle today. Up to a point, I got lucky. I did an admirable job on my own. Yes, I had help, but the most important help came from the kids themselves. Once they got older, we split the chores. A quick dust, a vacuum, a load of laundry here and there freed up time for vacations, weekends away, dinners out and movies.
The most amazing thing in my story was teamwork. The family chose to make things work instead of dwelling on being a broken family. That mindset changed everything.
How to Survive as a Single Dad
Survival was not the hard part. The legal side, the passports, the paperwork for lawyers, that was far more stressful than the actual single dad part.
The hardest thing to deal with was explaining constantly how I ended up with full custody of two kids. It wasn’t bad intention on my part. It was the complete lack of action on my ex’s part.
I don’t mind telling the story. When people hear it, they usually feel bad because they expected something darker. My survival came down to sacrifice. I did what needed doing. I was not selfish. The kids came first and I came second. More single dads need to hear that this approach works. The Child Welfare Information Gateway notes that children of single parents who maintain consistent routines and open communication thrive just as well as children in two-parent households.
How to Manage Time for Kids and Friends as a Single Dad
It all rolled into one. I was lucky that many of my high school friends had settled in the same area. When the kids started school, I bumped into quite a few of them at the school playground with their own kids in the same grades.
That was a strange and funny turn of events. Reminiscing about high school while our kids played together felt surreal. But it worked. Friends and kids came together naturally. Soccer nights, birthday parties, playdates. My social life and my kids’ social life overlapped almost perfectly.
If you want to read more about the broader picture of family, priorities and what really matters, check out my post on where your priorities should really be. It ties right into everything this series is about.
Conclusion: None of this was easy. But being a single dad is not a death sentence. It is a series of compromises and a daily commitment to putting the kids’ needs before your own. Do that consistently and everything else falls into place.
