10 Best Decisions For Single Moms

Okay, Dave, so most of our listeners know that your dad left when you were six years old, and now as you look back on how your mom raised you, if you had to pick just one thing that she did right, what would you say? I laugh because there's a hundred. Yeah. Does anything stand out like, oh, what's that one thing?

Yeah. And you know what it is, because she might have done it too well. She loved me and told me I was the greatest every single day, to the point where I actually thought I was the greatest. Welcome to Family Life Today, where we want to help you pursue the relationships that matter most. I'm Ann Wilson. And I'm Dave Wilson. And you can find us at familylifetoday.com or on our Family Life app.

This is Family Life Today. If you had to pick just one thing that she did right. She told me I was the greatest every day. She just believed in me and spoken, God's going to do great things in you. And at that moment, I was like, no, he's not. I'm not going to be the man I could be because I'm less than a man because I didn't have the man. When we first got married, I remember thinking, okay, that's enough. I kind of see now that he's not as proud as I am. It ended before we got married, please.

Maybe. But she was incredible. Because now looking back, wow, she had walked through so much pain.

She'd been married 25 years to have a son die within six months of the divorce. I don't even know how she lifted her head, let alone raised you in such a stable home. And you guys didn't have much money. You did with your dad. But when she left, you had very little.

And yet you never left. You never felt that. No, I didn't feel that.

Well, maybe a little. But what I didn't realize as a young boy is she was making decisions. And I think she made 10 decisions. Does that sound like a book we should read? It does sound like a book.

Yeah, we've got two authors here with us, Peggy Sue and Pam, who wrote the 10 best decisions a single mom can make, a biblical guide for navigating family life on your own. And this isn't just one book of a couple these authors have written. Together, you've written over 80 books. I mean, you wrote them together, but 50. Pam Farrell has written 52. And Peggy Sue, you've written 29, published. I've written a lot more.

You got to see my computer. But yeah, the published ones. Which is remarkable. And it isn't like these are little books that nobody read.

These are books that people are reading. Yeah. Mom is probably my biggest cheerleader.

Yeah. In fact, I'm pretty sure her handprint is on my back. Like you can do this girl. And that's the way I was raised. She counterbalanced the negativity that my dad and his drinking would bring into the house.

And I just credit my mom with persevering, putting one foot in front of the other. You know, that's sometimes the biggest victory of the day as a single mom is making it to the end of the day to be able to hug your kids, give them a kiss, pray with them and put them to bed and then have a sigh of relief and maybe crawl into a warm bathtub above bath and just have a little bit of quiet time with God. And Pam, you've been married how many years now? It'll be 42.

42 to Bill. And you have three kids. We do have three sons. They all love Jesus. We have five grandkids love Jesus. And so I credit my mom. You know, that goes back to the family tree where she chose to walk into that church and walk away from the belief system that was untrue, that she had been raised with.

And so it was something very courageous that my mom did not only just for us kids, but also for herself to walk towards the truth and towards the light of Christ. And Peggy Sue, you have seven kids, seven children. And for how many years did you raise them alone? It's been 20 years. The youngest was just a year old when I became a single mom.

So she has just she's just grown up. Yeah. Yeah. With a single mom.

My first thing that comes into my head is financially. You're raising seven kids, little children, by yourself now. Yeah. And actually, my children, because I have the older ones and the younger ones, they have two completely different families, because the older ones had that time with their dad.

Yeah. They have memories of that. And the younger ones do not. And so there's complete different upbringings and complete different memory systems.

And so that's been really interesting. There is a situation where I've got two children. statistic that three quarters of single moms have full-time careers and that the ones that do go on government assistance only do it for a short amount of time, just until they get their feet underneath them and then they go on to support their families.

One third live below the poverty line. So you know, it can be a struggle, but these women are determined and they want to give what's best for their kids and they're out there doing it and doing it and working hard. And so to come home after you've worked all day and then after like, okay, is there groceries do we have food?

Oh, there's that homework that we have to do. And then what do you mean you need a costume and cupcakes for tomorrow morning? I always say that single moms are like superheroes. They are. They have a cape. I mean, they have the big S on the front for single mom superhero.

It's a synonymous term. They're amazing. So how did you two decide, okay, of all the things you're going to write about in single moms, you decide the 10 best decisions. How'd you decide? The 10 best part was kind of handed to us because Bill and I had written 10 best decisions a couple can make a parent can make a single can make a graduate can make. If we do 10 best decisions, a puppy can make you just stop us.

Okay. And so that 10 framework had worked really well for helping people of all walks of life kind of just get handles on what's the next right thing was the next right step to take. But when Peggy, Sue and I compared notes about how we raised our kids, it was like so similar.

We're both very proactive. So I'll kind of hit the highlights of the 10 best decisions, you know, it's decide to thrive. So are you going to have that positive attitude or negative attitude? Decide to be decisive, more decisive that you are, the lower your stresses, the higher your life satisfaction will become. Decide to create a nurturing home. Both Peggy Sue and I, that was a priority that we wanted home to be at that safe place. Decide to be a proactive parent and Peggy Sue will share some of her secrets and I will share some of my parenting tips, but we found that the more proactive we were, the less reactive we were to our baggage that we, like Bill and I say, when we got married, we had more baggage than a 747. Thank God helped us unpack it.

So that's the next one. Decide to partner with God, like bring God into the middle of the equation. Decide to introduce your child to Jesus. And Peggy Sue is like, honestly, a gifted evangelist. And so she wrote some really awesome things about really how to cultivate your child's faith and then decide to live in community. You need a safe space around you, a great church.

What does a great church look like? Peggy Sue even launched Single Moms Circle, which is a community for single moms now where they can meet each other and then decide to date or not date wisely. If you become a single mom early in life, then that's a big decision you'll have to make. And women, there's no one right choice. My mom decided, you know, I'm just going to wait till the kids are out of the house and I'll start dating when everybody's launched.

And because, you know, we were in high school, she said, we have, we have enough drama. We don't need that to, and then decide to respond in healthy ways. And so choosing to not react, but respond and decide, lastly, to embrace your happily ever after. And that will look different for every single mom. You know, some God says, I'm going to provide a spouse for you.

Some say, you know what? You're doing so great solo. I'm going to use you as a light of encouragement to other single moms. Well, I listen to these 10, I think those aren't just for single moms. Those are for every mom. We all need those. They're so good.

And I don't know if we'll be able to hit them all, but let's start with number one, because that's a great one. Decide to thrive. Yeah. And that's a choice because I can tell you of the times that I laid on my bathroom floor, curled up in the fetal position going, I have no idea. Or the time I would get up, walk around my bed, lay back down because it's like, this wasn't what I planned and I'm not sure how to do this. What did you feel like? Is it a feeling just overwhelmed? Absolutely devastating. I mean, broken and crushed. The overwhelmed part is kind of like, ah, you know, I mean, we're moms, you got stuff to do. You know, the dog throws up and the kids, you know, have to get to school and the cupcakes up.

That's different. The brokenness is the crush. It's the betrayal and the crush because you know, your spouse is the person who knows you the best. There, you know, there's, there's a relationship in there and when you've had children and stuff, I mean, you've, you've experienced things and then when you have somebody that's like chooses out, you're like, no, wait, wait, no, wait.

You know, is it, is it me? Is it something I said and, and so just that feeling of, of just not being valuable and then it's like, okay, where do I go from here? And so that was hard.

That was, that was definitely the hard part. And then, you know, you have brokenhearted children at the same time because they're feeling the same. So then it's like, okay, how do I take this and even in the hurt and even in the brokenness, how do I then start moving forward? Well, earlier we have talked about just your stories and the trauma. You had mentioned the trauma of the brain, even of what's happening.

So talk to us of like, you're crushed, you're in a fetal position, your brain is in trauma. How did you thrive in that? And you're taking care of your kids who all have needs and they're broken as well. And one of the things that absolutely was my reason for getting up and moving forward and doing Bible time every single night and having good dinners and making sure that we had our chore list and everybody did one chore day. We called it service to our family because everything we did, but it was because of my children. I valued them.

I love them. It's like what your mom did for you when she just told you what a wonderful person you were and built you up and it's like, I wanted them to have the best that I could give them. I wanted to take and get myself to my highest place and then launch them from my highest place.

Because I told them, I'm going to launch you from my top spot, which means then you're going to way surpass me, which they did by the time they were 12, which was great. But then the hope is that then they get to their highest place and they'll launch my grandkids from there. And so if we can just keep feeding in and feeding in and get them to be able to have their full potential because God created each one for something.

We're here for a reason. And the biggest lie that I had to walk away from and actually have somebody help me with was that this was done to me and that God missed it or that he wasn't there for me or when I cried out to him and said, please, and he's like, no, you know, I'm not doing this for you. What I learned was that God withholds no good thing. He says that in Psalms. So if he withholds no good thing, then what I'm going through can't be terrible in that there has to be something that God is doing for me in it. And so every situation that he puts me in and every family that we're in, that family dynamic, he puts us in that because there's things in that setting that he can teach me about him. And he's going to teach me something about me in that setting. And so like even now, my kids are grown. You know, we have family ordeals that come up. I mean, weddings, you know, is there anything that can bring in more opinions than somebody getting married in the family?

And so we're bumping up against each other and we're knocking off edges, you know, those hard edges. And so I can either be in that setting and go, OK, God, what do you have for me here? And that changes the whole thing. Then I'm not so devastated. It's like, OK, you have me here because there's something here for me.

That changed completely how I looked at the situation. And you know, as her co-author, I can say that's how she approaches her whole life. You know, I'm an imperfect person.

And when something like since we planned something to do, you know, for the book or etc. And my side falls apart. She's like, well, there's God and there's good in this. So she brings me back to the truth of the word. And that is just one of the reasons I love co-authoring with Peggy Sue is because she's a great role model of like, walk out the truth like God is good. No good thing does God withhold from those who walk uprightly, Psalms 84-11.

She has lived out Psalm 68-5. God will be a father to the fatherless and a defender of widows. That is who God is in his holy dwelling. That is who God is. And so when single moms do what Peggy Sue did and say, all right, I can't change the circumstance, but I can change my reaction and I can change who I am.

That's where the power comes from. Because then you grab hold of God's hand and he walks you through to the good place. You might not be in it now, but he'll walk you through to that good place. And I saw in my mom's life, you know, financial ruin, single, wide mobile home, didn't have a job. People didn't want to rent to a divorcee from California, even people that knew her.

And so it was just like, this is hard place. But she grabbed a hold of God's hand and she read God's word and she listened to God's word. And she ended up being the financial consultant kind of in that city. They loved my mom so much at one point they wanted her to run for mayor. And she started this, you know, investment club that was super popular for a while.

And she helped all these women gain financial footing, including herself. Yeah. So it is incredible. And that's the good thing that God can do. Like I just picture some listeners just feeling like my whole life feels like it's in shatters and ruins.

They're sitting in that fetal position. I want to say your today is not your forever. Rise up, rise up, beautiful one, and hold on to your Heavenly Father's hand.

You know, it's also interesting as I hear you, I'm thinking of the children of those single moms that also have to choose to thrive at different ages. I can remember many times, but the one that comes to my mind is sitting on Christmas Eve mass with my mom. You know, I'm 10, 11, 12, 13. We go to the midnight mass and I was becoming a teenager and I was angry. I was hurt. And I'd look over at my mom with the candle and she's in tears and she's singing. And I just, I kept thinking, you believe in a God who allowed dad to leave and my brother to die. You know? And I look over at her and she did. She really did.

And I just thought this is ridiculous. And I wasn't a believer yet, obviously didn't come to Christ until my junior in college. But when I came to Christ, I think it's because I watched my mom choose to thrive when now I know the pain that she was feeling, the battles she had to be fighting to say, I'm still going to believe he's a good God, even though I've gone through, you know, double whammy of divorce and adultery via her spouse and then the death of her son. And I think in the long run, it was contagious.

It finally got to me. My mom's choice to thrive ended up being my choice to thrive and realize God is good. So I'm wondering how that was for you, especially with your kids. And you were the, you know, I was the kid. You were the child because, you know, Peggy Sue, you write that your daughter said everything I thought was true of our family was a lie.

Yeah. So she realizes, you know, this is all not even true, what I thought. And so she has to make that, how did that work as a single mom to help your kids choose to thrive?

Because you can't make that decision for them, but. And there's so many things that came about in just walking through the what is a lie and what is truth, because I was able to say to her, and I don't know if she even heard it at that time, because sometimes we're not ready to hear something, but it's like, it wasn't all a lie. You know, I mean, as a kid, we have this idea of what things look like and then when it blows apart, you're like, well, you know, so there was like, no, there, there was love there.

There was a commitment. There was some things that are true. And then there was things where it went in a particular way. But what happens is there are facts, there are things that happen and where I got into trouble and where the kids have to wrestle through it is when we take those facts and make up a story about it in our head.

Oh, this is so true. And that's the story then that I have to take to God. And I have to put the story down that says, you abandoned me. You allowed this to happen. You weren't here for me. Well, I took the facts of, I have a parent that left.

I have a husband that left. I can take those facts. And then I made, I made a story out of it. So one of the best examples that I have to tell about this is there was one Saturday morning, my daughter Hannah got up and she was just grousing around the house. And so I do the mom thing. Oh, let me make you tea, let me make you pancakes, let me tell you a few jokes.

And Hannah didn't respond. So I'm like, okay, you know, I've done my thing and you're not, you know, coming into this. So that means I'm feeling very rejected right now.

You haven't liked any of my things that I've tried to do as a mom to cheer you up. So I feel rejected. Well, I don't like how that feels. So now I'm getting resentful. So then we sit down to eat and she pushes her pancake around and doesn't drink her tea. So she's not making eye contact with me, so I'm not going to make eye contact with her. So now I'm in resistance. You've ever given each other the silent treatment? Yes.

That's the one. And so then from there I'm into like, well, I really don't like any of this. You know, you can see these R's, you know, the first, the rejection and then the resentment and then the resistance. And then the next one is revenge. This doesn't feel good. So I'm going to do something to make you feel the same way I feel.

So hey, if you looked at that room lately, when are you going to clean that room, right? To see the stilettos that come out of a mouth. And if you watch women, that's where our anger comes out. It comes out our mouth and those stilettos.

We use our words as weapons. Yeah. And so I've noticed when I hear that from other ladies and I hear them doing that sometimes with whatever relationship, whether it's with their husband or their kids, there's an unresolved hurt there. And that's what you're hearing. So then the next thing is repeat. First I'm hurt. Then I say something that hurts Hannah. So then Hannah withdraws.

So then I feel more rejected. So then I, you see, I withdraw, so then we do the cycle. So this is one of the things that God had been teaching me is that I'm taking facts and I'm making up a story. And so as I got to the revenge part where I was about to say something about her homework or her room or whatever, because God was teaching me, I stopped and I said, Hannah, the story I'm making up in my head right now is that I stink as a mom and you'd rather be anywhere else on Saturday morning than here with me.

Okay. I'm just going to stop us for a second. Like that is one of the great teaching points of marriage, of parenting, that we stop, we stop the story, we stop the cycle and we say, here's my story I'm making up in my head and you say it out loud.

That's brilliant. And we have to go back to the facts. But I said that to her because God was teaching me this.

And you know what? This happens with coworkers, with the people you go to church with, with your neighbors. It happens with world governments, you know, and there's that whole scripture about God, you know, as far as possible, God says, live at peace with one another. And I'm like, well, I'm doing my part, I'm just here to say it's clearly them, right? But as I'm watching stuff escalate, you know, over holidays, you know, where people emotionally abuse one another and have pie and I'm like, I don't want to do this.

So I'm like, God, what am I missing? And so he brings it back to what's the one common denominator in all my issues, in all my relationships? Me. It's me.

Yeah. So I'm like, okay, it has to be me. So I said that to Hannah, I said, I've taken these facts and I've made up a story in my head and the story that I made up in my head about the facts will always, always, always negative towards me. So that's the story that I've made up in my head. And so I told her that.

And Hannah's response, Hannah kind of blinked a little bit like she was coming to, and she looks up at me and she goes, mom, I just found out the boy I babysit for has leukemia. This had nothing to do with me, but I made it about me. And I found, okay, so if I'm doing that with Hannah and if I'm doing that with my coworker and I'm doing it with my neighbor, do you think maybe I'm doing that with God?

And so that's where I had to go back and go, this is my situation. The story I've made up in my head about this situation is God's abandoned me. He doesn't care. He's withholding. He's not the loving God. He says he is. Oh wait, he is for you and for you, but just not for me.

I'm the exception. And that's where we go back to the word and I go back to a mentor and I go back to church and it's like, help me to dig out the lies and help me to put in the truth. Yep. You know what I thought as you were sharing that was the thief comes only to steal, kill and destroy. And it took me back to Genesis of the liar who makes up these stories for us who said to Eve, did God really say you must not eat? And I thought, oh, he does that all the time.

He's just whispering those lies and those stories that are so untrue. And because you brought it into the light, you saw the truth. But it's a task that you have to take seriously. And I wish I would have done it sooner.

I think it would have been better. I did go work with a mentor on that exact thing. And a year later, one of my daughters who, um, she's grown and lives on her own. She came back for Christmas, went to church. My mentor was there.

She walked up, put her arms around my mentor and said, thank you for giving me my mom back because the bitterness and the hurt and the pain makes me into somebody that is not fun to be with. Now, do you think, I mean, we all do this. Everybody does. I mean, I'd love to sit here and say, I don't do that. But do you think single moms do it even more?

Twice as much. We walked into it already wounded. We're walking into it with, you know, one hand and one arm already tied behind our back. So I learned too with the kids is there's this possibility of being very negative because we're all hurt. And so we made up a couple of rules in the, in the family. One of which is because you have relationship issues, you have a spouse, you have a parent, you have that, you know, the thing, and each kid is processing it differently. And each kid has a different relationship with me at the moment that they have with their sibling at the moment that they have with their dad at the moment. And so we had to make up a couple of rules.

One is I want you to feel what you're feeling because if you shut those feelings off, we have no feelings. That's not healthy. Right. God made us to have them. Feelings are not right or wrong. You know, we have those bad ones. I don't want to feel the bad ones. Well they're a group.

They're like a bunch of grapes. If I shut off the bad ones, I don't get the good ones either. And then who made feelings? God. Does God make anything bad?

Okay. So those bad feelings, they're not bad. They're an indicator.

It's a thermometer that says something happened to my heart. So I would say to them, have the feelings and you cannot take your feelings out on another person or demand that another person feel the way you do or stop feeling the way they feel. Are we clear? This is just good relationship skill stuff right here that you're teaching us.

It is. And sometimes it's a really simple divide in the road. You mentioned the thief comes to kill, steal, and destroy, but Jesus says, I came to give life and life abundantly. And so when you hit that roadblock, you say, okay, God came to give an abundant life. Where's the good thing?

Where's the abundant life? How can I be a life giver in this situation? How can I breathe life into that person? How can I breathe life into this situation? And when we run to God with our pain and our problems, we gain hope.

When we run away from God with our pain and our problems, we gain despair. And so the question is like, who am I running to right now? Well, Pam, let me ask you this because you've been mentored and you've probably mentored hundreds, if not thousands of women.

And Peggy Sue, you keep talking about a mentor. Talk to the women who think I need that. I don't know how to go about finding one.

Great. I was the director of women's ministry and a pastor's wife. So like, this is where I dwell. You go get a mentor and here's how you find one. Get into a healthy church. Step one in that healthy church, there's going to be a life giving Bible study. Get in that small group.

In that small group, chances are there's at least one person who's walked some part of the same road that you are on, who's maybe just a little further ahead. Ask her to go for coffee and just ask her questions. And if you click and that relationship is solid and she speaks life and God's truth into you, then make the brave step of saying, would you be willing to meet with me once a month, once a week, throw something out there, just be bold and courageous.

And chances are women who never saw themselves as mentors might be some of the best mentors that you'll ever find. And if they say no, then that means they're not God's will for you. There's something better. That's good. Yeah. It goes back to God has the best in mind for you. And a best, a really good book to ask them to go through with you is asked to go through the 10 best decisions a single mom can make. Exactly.

Go through those. I bet you can do it in like 10 weeks or something like that. You probably will end up making a really good friend that will last much beyond 10 weeks as well. I love it. And I will wrap this up saying this because one of the things I've heard both of you say and it's one of the things we didn't do real good in my family, my single mom family, is talk, communicate feelings in the family. Kids, what are you feeling right now?

Here's what I'm feeling. I mean, Peggy Sue, you just modeled for us. I remember we never talked. I didn't know any details of the divorce. I mean, my dad was much like yours in terms of he'd get drunk and it would be loud and mean and we'd go hide in a room and lock the door and we'd hear it out there. And your mom ended up drinking at night. She ended up drinking. She's so traumatized. But I'll never forget.

It's sort of funny now. But when my dad came to visit us as a newlywed, my dad sits down and she goes, hey, Ralph, tell us your side of the divorce. I literally grab her leg like, no. I mean, I couldn't say anything, but we never, ever, one time.

You gave me this look like, no. I just thought my dad is going to freak out and just go crazy. And he turns and goes, oh, you want to know what happened? He had never been able to talk about it. I've talked to Janiece many times, but I'd love to hear what happened from your perspective. Anyway, as I sat there and newlywed, I was like, this is really healthy.

We've never done this. You modeled for us today how it can look to make a decision, to communicate. I just want to say to our listeners, there's some of you that are like my family. There's a single mom, single dad, maybe even a couple been married 20 years. And you're like, there's some things we need to talk about. Today's the day. Let's have a discussion and let's see where God takes it.

It could be a beautiful, it will be eventually a beautiful thing. I know what Dave and Anne and Peggy Sue and Pam are talking about here can sound intimidating, and frightening, but openness, transparency, honest communication, having the right mindset as you walk through the challenges of being a single mom. These are all themes that are essential for single parenting to work.

And it's a part of what Peggy Sue Wells and Pam Farrell talk about in the book, The Ten Best Decisions a Single Mom Can Make. We are making that book available this week to every Family Life Today listener who would like a copy. If you can help with a donation to help advance the ministry of family life, help us reach more people more often with practical biblical help and hope for their marriages and their families.

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That's 1-800-F as in family, L as in life, and then the word today. One of the things we are wholly committed to here at family life is helping you strengthen your marriage so that your marriage can go the distance. Our team has put together this month a resource. We call it the Love You Better Kit, 30 days to strengthening your marriage relationship. It's a free downloadable kit that we're making available.

You can go to familylifetoday.com. It's simple, easy to download, easy to use in your marriage. Here's a little bonus. When you download it today, you're going to become instantly eligible for a drawing we're going to do. Somebody is going to win a cabin on the 2022 Love Like You Mean It marriage cruise in February of 2022. You're automatically entered in that contest when you download the Love You Better Kit.

Here's the thing. You've got to do it today or tomorrow to be eligible. You've got to be entered by the end of June. Go to familylifetoday.com for all of the information, all of the details, complete contest rules are available there, the void where prohibited, no purchase necessary, all of that stuff. You'll find that online at familylifetoday.com. Again, once you download the Love You Better Kit, you're automatically eligible to win a cabin on the Love Like You Mean It marriage cruise. I hope you do that. Hope to see you on the cruise in 2022. I hope you can join us again tomorrow when Dave and Ann Wilson are going to talk with Peggy Sue Wells and Pam Farrell about, among other things, how you carve out time to maintain a healthy relationship with Jesus, to build into your own soul spiritually when you're dealing with all of the other challenges that a single mom is facing. On behalf of our hosts, Dave and Ann Wilson, I am Bob Lapine. We'll see you back tomorrow for another edition of Family Life Today. Family Life Today is a production of Family Life, a crew ministry, helping you pursue the relationships that matter most.