Single Parents: Be Loud When Celebrating Your Child's Accomplishments

     When you are a single parent and your child has an accomplishment, you celebrate just a little louder than other parents.  You are excited about that accomplishment not only because your child, did it but because you, as a single parent, helped get your child to that point by yourself!

     Last year when my son received The State Assembly's Award for Outstanding Academic Achievement, I wanted to do back flips through the auditorium.  First of all, I had no idea that he was even receiving that award and second, it was the highest award that you could receive!  When they called his name, I wanted to act like I was Dominique Dawes at the Olympics and do a triple somersault to the stage, pump my fist in the air and scream, "YES!  That's MY baby!  HE DID THAT!!"  I could not have been more prouder.
     I can not explain how much validation came from my son receiving that award.  All the hours that I worked as a retail store manager, yet coming home and making sure that his homework was done correctly and that he read 30 + minutes a day, plus, the workbooks that we did on the weekends and during vacations to improve his skills, all paid off.  Although TJ had earned that award, I felt like "WE" had earned it.  My son, the product of a single mother, who worked 50+ hours a week, who had to depend on sitters and family members to care for him while I worked nights and weekends, won The State Assembly Award.  It all was worth it, at that very moment.
     As I walked up to the stage to take a picture of my son, the genius, I smiled with pride and with tears in my eyes because I knew that although I was all alone on this road called parenthood, I was doing a good job and we were going to be alright!!