mom life

Single Parenting Made Me Closer To My Kids

The sheer logistics alone built a special, lasting bond.

by Julia Williamson

21 hours ago

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My daughters and I are close. Like, really close. There are plenty of reasons we’ve stayed tight into their twenties, like temperament, shared interests, and parenting style. But I keep coming back to simple logistics. For most of their childhoods, I was a single parent.

Being the only adult in the house is its own kind of difficult even if, as in my case, the kids spend equal time at their other parent’s house. When my daughters were with their dad, I missed them terribly; when they were with me, I was often overwhelmed and rushing through life. It’s utterly exhausting, and it can change the way parents and kids interact. But over the long term, for us, it created a really strong bond that has endured into their adulthood.

Single parents depend on their kids in a special way. It’s hard enough to keep a household running with two adults there to manage it all. I expected my children to be in charge of their stuff, and while I was never organized enough to create an official chore chart, I expected them to help me keep the house from falling into ruin.