The Single Mom Podcast - Single Parent Advice, Support & a Little Bit of Humor

I have to say that I absolutely love summer, it is by far my favorite season. After a Colorado winter (that lasted until late May this year) and a fairly dreary spring - all 2 weeks of it (it's been a weird year weather-wise for us in Colorado)... I am soooo excited to see the sun and be warm finally. I love spending time outside, going to the pool, grilling burgers and brats while drinking the occasional margarita and doing all kinds of fun things with my kiddos.

There are many pros AND cons though to being a work from home mom during the summer.

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Getting fired was the best thing EVER!

Wait, WHAT?

Yep you heard me; getting fired was the best thing ever.

This podcast is all about how I decided to work from home, my decision to become a VA and how I got started down the path of self-employment. If you have been thinking of working from home and aren't sure if it would be a good fit for you I encourage you to download the free report I created "Is Working At Home For Me? 7 Things to Consider Before Starting A Home Based Business". 

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Today's podcast is all about STRESS and how important it is to find ways, even little ways, to manage it and de-stress - it's better for you and better for your kiddos! 

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I know that everyone has bad days, and times when they feel just terrible or are unhappy or sad, and that is normal - again we are human. What is important is that those feelings do not start to take over and become the norm. So in today's podcast I discuss some of the things that you can do to help you get back to your happy place when you find yourself becoming lost...

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My daughter just turned 8 and my boys will be 15 this year and none of them have a social media account of any kind. They also do not have cell phones.

I have had several people ask my if I worry about stunting them socially, to which I very quickly reply – no.

See what I worry about is my children being influenced by the idiocy that seems more and more previlant in today’s society. I recently saw images on my own Facebook page of young ladies who did physical damage to their faces by trying to plump up their lips. Have you seen this?!?! The Kylie Jenner challenge? Girls (and some guys too) sucking on a jar or glass until their lips are swollen, basically trying to get the plump lip look that this woman has. It’s asinine! And it is causing damage to people’s faces. Seriously?!?! Who decided this was a good idea? You can see an article done about this here.

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WARNING! THIS PODCAST IS ABOUT A SERIOUS TOPIC AND MAY BE HARD TO LISTEN TO.

Last week I received some horrible news. News that I hoped that I would never hear. A young girl, someone I had seen grow up and had been very close to, passed away. She died at the age of 21, not quite making it to her 22nd birthday.

Today's podcast is not a happy one. It is not funny or sweet, but it is something that I feel is so very important. Making sure that our children know, TRULY know, how much they are loved is important. Whether they are getting straight A's in school or are grounded for breaking curfew... they need to always know. Because I have seen what can happen when they don't...

And if you or someone you know is struggling with addiction please please find the help that you or they need. It is an awful disease that kills people, breaks up families, destroys lives... and most importantly causes major trauma for the children in our lives.

Visit Recovery.org for help.

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As a single mother I believe that there are many different things that contribute to feeling overwhelmed. It's not just the fact that we are single parents, there are often more contributing factors than that. The first one being that we feel like we have to be all and do all... that there is no one else to do it so we have to be the one to make it all happen. It's up to us to keep 8 million balls up in the air at all times. And we can't ever drop any. Ever. That's a lot of pressure to put ourselves under.

The next thing that adds to the state of overwhelm is expectations. Having expectations that are not realistic can lead to a feeling of overwhelm because you aren't meeting them. Trying to live up to some idealistic idea of what a mother should be doing or how your house should look or the things you should have accomplished is going to always make you feel like you aren't doing enough. That you aren't enough. And it will often cause you to try and do more and more than you are able to at this moment. Some days I can do a million different things and be completely successful at them all. Some days the only success I have had is getting the laundry out of the wash and into the dryer before it starts to smell. I realized long ago that I would never be June Cleaver - and I'm totally ok with that.

There are many other factors that contribute to that feeling of overwhelm and in today's podcast I discuss how we can create those feelings by setting unhealthy or unrealistic expectations on ourselves. By not accepting help when available or offered... and more.

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There is a lovely woman who's blog posts I follow because she is on the same mission as I am to help and empower other single moms in the world. I have chatted with her online a few times and really think she is fantastic. I enjoy reading her articles and the things that she puts out because they align so much with my thoughts and mission for single moms. However, recently she posted an article on her blog that I fully disagreed with and to be honest got my back up a little bit.

Originally when I saw her post "I Love Being a Single Mom" - I thought to myself oh great I can't wait to hear why she loves being a single mom, because I know I do... the article was not what I thought it would be at all! She starts off the article saying she hates it when people say that they love being a single mom because they are in denial.

DENIAL!?!

I am in denial stating that I am happy being a single mom and that I love it? Um... I don't think so.

Basically she states in her article that if we were truly honest with ourselves we would admit that we want to have a relationship with someone, that we aren't really happy with our lives or we can't possibly love our lives as a single mom because we don't have a man.

Excuse me your honor but I object!

Today's bonus podcast discusses why I actually DO LOVE LOVE LOVE

being a single mom and my differing opinion on this article. You can find the article written by Jessica Rector on The Single Mom Movement by clicking here. Once again, I do love most of what she puts out and think she is a fantastic woman but on this particular topic, we definitely do not see eye to eye. (Doesn't mean she's not awesome though.)

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Ok let's be honest ladies, baby mama drama - are you guilty of it? Have there been times when you made more of an issue than needed? I know that I have been guilty of it many times! After many years of working on myself and how I deal with my ex I found a few things that I believe were at the root of my personal baby mama drama....

1. I was still hurt/angry - causing me to want to lash out

2. Ego - the belief that I knew more than him, was a better parent than him

3. Other people's input - allowing others to cause drama in our relationship as parents

In today's podcast I dive into how these things increased the drama that I was bringing into our co-parenting relationship....

Have you ever caused drama? Have you been guilty of it? Have you been able to realize when you were causing more drama than needed and were able to adjust?

Like it or not, if your ex is involved with your child's life then you will always need to have a relationship of some kind with them - wouldn't it be nice if it was at the very least civil? And let's face it, we already have enough drama in our lives to bring any more into it.

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Learning how to deal with toxic people, or simply cutting them out of my life completely, has been one of the best ways that I have improved my life as a single mom.

We all have those people in our lives that just suck the life right out of us! Whether it is our ex, our mother, or friends and co-workers... there is always those few people who are just draining to be around. Or worse the ones that push our buttons on a regular basis in order to bring us into their misery.

Today's podcast discusses several ways that were identified in this article on Entrepreneur.com - '12 Ways Successful People Handle Toxic People' written by Travis Bradberry. I happened to stumble across this article today on my Facebook feed and I simply LOVE it.

I decided to go into a bit more depth on how I believe his points relate to me as a single mom and the people in my life. I had to learn in order to be successful I needed to distance myself from those who were toxic AND how to not turn into one of those people myself!

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