On Saturday (04/03/17), I travelled to another town to conduct a workshop for single mothers following a request from someone who had read my book. I left the house that morning in high spirits, excited about my plans for the day and what would come out of the workshop.
When I arrived at the venue, the first thing I noticed was that a large portion of attendees were old women and that scared me a bit. I don't know what it is about a crowd of people older than me that always sends me into panic mode, probably the thought that they by virtue of their age know so much more about life than I could ever teach them. I mean most of these ladies have probably been parents long before I even thought about having a child.
Excuse me, I've deviated from the topic. So the workshop commenced with a word from the scripture in true older generation format and it was now my turn. We started off with an ice breaker, two main activities that I had prepared - one on problem solving and the other on building trust with the people amongst you. Activities work well in situations where a sensitive issue is going to be discussed, the trick is to let participants let down their guards and share in an open and safe environment.
When the time comes to really go into the nitty gritty stuff everyone is already comfortable with each other and can hopefully express themselves freely. However no amount of preparation could have made me ready for the stories that came out of the session. It was a struggle to hold back the tears as one by one these women broke down as they told their stories.
Each one with different reasons for the position they found themselves in, the loss of a partner or spouse, a break up or divorce, a man who ran away from his responsibility - who had rejected not only his child/children but the woman who brought them into this world. The common thread was they were here, raising children on their own when this was not how they had imagined their life would be. The pain of a single parent. The pain of a woman who had no choice but to deal with the cards that life had dealt her with.
These women were my grandmothers, my mothers, my aunts, my sisters, my friends. Their different age groups showing that no one was immune to life and it's blows but also calling on each of us to ask ourselves what we were doing now to ensure that we were not raising children who would suffer the same fate. My message was simply that we needed to make peace with where we were because we can't keep the knife in the wound if we hope to heal but more importantly it was a willingness to forgive that would ensure we raised a better generation of adults who wouldn't need to be sitting in the same position in 10/20 years crying over the same things that their parents cried over.
I left the workshop on Saturday burdened and emotionally drained, not because I was feeling sorry for these women but because I realised the amount of pain people live with. What they are hiding behind their smiles and what the burden of showing up even when we didn't feel like it was doing to women. I wondered when it would all end? I wondered who was talking to the men and addressing their pain so both sexes can heal and thereby be in a better position to raise children better than they were raised.
But I also understood in that moment that we had to be accountable and that means taking responsibility for our own healing and making a decision that we wouldn't be victims forever. Not taking anything away from the pain of these women and knowing that it took more than one workshop and half an hour individual session to address years of pain, they had to make the decision to be better for themselves and the children they are raising. They need to come to a point where they acknowledged they cannot change the actions of another but they had the power to decide how they would handle those actions.
"Mothers - especially single mothers - are heroic in their efforts to raise our nation's children, but men must also take responsibility for their children and recognise the impact they have on their families' wellbeing"
Evan Bayh
Side Notes:
1.Next week I will write about the difference between being a single parent and a co-parent and the challenges of being a single parent.
2. Part 3 of this series will deal with how to explain to the children the absence of a father and watching how you speak to your children about the other parent.
3. Copies of my book Stepping Out Naked are available. Order yours: rlglenkoe@gmail.com
RLG Lenkoe
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