Megan is a single mum, the sole parent of Josh.
For the past four years, things at home have been… lets say – pretty stressful. But today the police showed up. Josh was arrested and taken away for violent behaviour and is due in court tomorrow.
How it could get much worse!
Megan had done everything for Josh… and had given him so many chances. She had tried to be a good, supportive mother and had given him all he needed – she even bought his cigarettes for heavens sake! But he’d blown it again, and she’d had enough!
Looking back, Megan knew she had been overcompensating as a parent. She just wanted to be the mum she wished she’d had. And, on top of that pain, Megan’s mum still wasn’t interested in her… or her grandson for that matter, and that was deeply painful.
Megan had been living in a state of rupture, even agony, over her own poor relationship with her parents. It was like an oozy wound that never seemed to heal. Every time she did something for Josh, it was like she was trying to make up for the things that she wished her parents had done for her.
In our country, one in five families is a single-parent family like Megan’s. (1). In 2012–2013 sole-mother families outnumbered sole-father families, five to one and sadly Megan’s story is not an isolated or unusual one. (1). Parenting is a difficult task at the best of times, but facing the enormous task alone can take its toll – as it had with Megan.
If this is you, then perhaps it’s time to take a look at that wound and change the dressing. We can change our relationships today, by looking back to the past and changing the dressing on those old wounds. It might hurt (like ripping off a band-aid), but it is worth it to allow those wounds to begin to heal.
Reference
1. Australian Bureau of Statistics. (2011). Family Characteristics Australia June 2012–13 (Catalogue no. 4442.0). Canberra: ABS.
