In Search Of My Father In All The Wrong Places

She was married, twice at least as far as I know, however you may as well say my mother was a single parent.

According to her story, it was my paternal grandmother's 'fault' why she had to leave my father. I have had neither the interest nor opportunity to check the veracity of that story. All I knew was that my father was a mysterious, alcohol-loving man who I saw less times in my life than the number of fingers on my hands.

When I turned two or just before, my mother would marry for the first time. This husband was  a presence in my life until I turned 14 or thereabouts and we had a cordial relationship but never warm enough for me to call him anything but "Mr. H..... ."

There was a second husband but by then I was well into my 20's and living in the former Soviet Union. My mother had met him through, and this is weird, my boyfriend. He was in fact my boyfriend's older brother and interestingly enough, my mother was a few years older than him. I can hear my friends saying as they read this, "Cougarism runs in your blood, Claudette!"

That was about all I got from my father actually - blood. Well, I got his name for what that is worth. 

If you asked my mother she would insist that she was the innocent 'victim' in their failed relationship. You cannot ask my father as he died from the complications of diabetes and, in my opinion, alcoholism in the early 1980's. The 10th, if that many, time I saw him was lying in his coffin.

Strength, tenacity and drive are the lessons passed on to me in the single parent home where I was raised. My 'stepfather', I was told, did not really care for me. He tolerated me. That much I could feel. Sometimes he would bring home a candy or a token from his frequent road trips. He never brought home love nor affection.

My mother's strength as a woman was very vivid. She would do whatever it took to keep a roof over our heads. Whatever. She was tenacious and sure as hell she was driven. The problem was the "whatever" included turning a blind eye or offering me as 'sacrifice'. Her tenacity and drive were too often heading down a road that led us deeper and deeper in poverty consciousness.

Unfortunately, this story, my story of being basically raised by a single parent is not unfamiliar to many, too many I might add. It was with great difficulty that I read the book, "Precious," and later went to the movie for even further punishment.

My journey as an only child, raised by a virtually single parent, was too much on that screen!

There are many children today being raised by single parents around the world. In the United States, there are over 13 million according to 2011 statistics.  In Canada, 15.9% of all families in 2006 were lone-parent families, i e. "one out of four Canadian families with children.

My formative years and most of my childhood were spent in a single parent home in Jamaica, where in 2011 it was reported: "About 45 per cent of all Jamaican households are female headed. Female-headed households, according to 2002 data from the Planning Institute of Jamaica, also have a larger number of children and adult females, but have a lower per capita consumption than those headed by males."

This same article in the Jamaica Gleaner stated that one sociologist, Sara McLanahan, reported that "children from father-absent homes manifest a number of internalising and externalising problem behaviours, including sadness and depression, delinquency, aggression, sex role difficulties, early initiation of sexual activity and teen pregnancy, as well as poor social and adaptive functioning and low self-esteem."

So she was strong, tenacious and driven, my mother, but I was riddled by and plagued and scarred with several of these issues reportedly among children of absentee parents.

Disclaimer: Not all children from single parent households present with such issues NOR are all children from two-parent households automatically "immune" from them.

For a while I too raised my child as a single parent. What that experience taught me was the true strength, drive and tenacity that any such parent must have. Those qualities are grounded in Love, respect and high regard of self first and foremost, child(ren) and community.

Those single parents today who have been or are grounding themselves in these principles, in my opinion, stand ahead of any two-parent dysfunctional family.

Counting you as one of those life-enhancing and nurturing single parent. Should you want to share your story with me, submit a comment here, on our Facebook page or follow us on Twitter.

Enjoy the rest of #SPD if you are one. If not, still enjoy! Namaste