As single parents, we often find ourselves in uncharted territories, grappling with life's unexpected twists and turns. Education might have taught us a lot, but nothing equips us better for parenting than personal experiences — the life lessons we glean from making decisions and enduring the consequences. We're not aiming for perfection, just progression. This episode is all about sharing those valuable lessons, the triumphs, the struggles, and even the occasional blunders, to inspire and educate others sailing in the same boat.
Ever found yourself thinking about the impact of your past experiences on your parenting decisions? Or wondered if there's more to be learned from personal experiences rather than formal education? In this episode, we tap into those thoughts and help you realize that your experiences are not just your own but serve as an irreplaceable guide for others. We also share some enlightening tips on how to ask the right questions, make informed decisions, and transform your experiences into invaluable lessons for other single parents. So tune in, and let's navigate the beautiful chaos of single parenting together.
As single parents, we often find ourselves in uncharted territories, grappling with life's unexpected twists and turns. Education might have taught us a lot, but nothing equips us better for parenting than personal experiences — the life lessons we glean from making decisions and enduring the consequences. We're not aiming for perfection, just progression. This episode is all about sharing those valuable lessons, the triumphs, the struggles, and even the occasional blunders, to inspire and educate others sailing in the same boat.
Ever found yourself thinking about the impact of your past experiences on your parenting decisions? Or wondered if there's more to be learned from personal experiences rather than formal education? In this episode, we tap into those thoughts and help you realize that your experiences are not just your own but serve as an irreplaceable guide for others. We also share some enlightening tips on how to ask the right questions, make informed decisions, and transform your experiences into invaluable lessons for other single parents. So tune in, and let's navigate the beautiful chaos of single parenting together.
It's not how you arrived at the title, but what you do with it.
Speaker 1:
Hey ladies, welcome to the Single Moms United Podcast, where we cannot spell United without you. Hey, if this is your first time joining, welcome If you are a repeat listener. Thank you for your loyalty. It means so much and for all the people from around the world that's been tapping in and listening. Thank you, and I hope you are finding some value in this podcast as well, even though you're not located here in the United States, but I see you, so thank you so much for joining in.
Speaker 1:
Today I want to talk about experience versus education when it comes to parenting. As a single parent, we really aren't given the foundation of where to start as far as being a good parent not a perfect parent, but a good parent. Right, there is no perfect parents. You can't make me believe that if they don't exist. But you can be a good parent and you can be a bad parent, so hopefully, we're all striving to be a good parent. Even good parents make mistakes and that's why you can't put perfection on parenting if it doesn't exist. But today I want to talk about experience versus education and the difference between the two and why you would want to gravitate more to the experience, linking with someone who's been through the experience. So I guess I'm kind of putting a plug in for this podcast, because that's what this is designed to do is to share with you my own personal experiences related to single parenting. There's many, many episodes out there since this has been going on for over a year now 18 months, different experiences I've gone through and trying to pay it forward to you, single mom, so that you can embrace and understand some things that you may go through. Bringing you guidance and again, as a guide it doesn't mean it's a one size physiology, it just means here are some things to think about is to provoke thinking versus just saying, hey, go do it this way, and I can't tell you to go do it a certain way, because everybody's environment is different, right, but I can say this is what happened to me, this is what I did to try to help get through this. This is what I did back then. This is what I know now because, again, being young, I didn't have a lot of knowledge in this area. I know some things now that I wish I knew back then and so hopefully I can pay that forward to you and that you will find some value as you're raising your children or your child.
Speaker 1:
Again, we're talking about experience, and what does it mean to go through an experience? Well, that's a personal encounter and you're not going to find this in a book. You're not going to find this with a teacher. You're not going to find this with a therapist, you're not going to find it with a pastor. This is your own personal encounter with the situation and that equates to an experience. Right, you're gonna have to make decisions, and not every decision is going to be a right decision. Ladies, unfortunately. Ask me how I know. But the good news is you learn from it, even good decisions. You learn from it because those you want to kind of continue down that path of making a good decision or the right decision when it comes to some things you want to embrace. That right, it's going to save a lot of stress later.
Speaker 1:
You know, on one of my podcasts or one of my episodes early on, I talked about decisions, decisions, decisions. I made a lot of decisions, but I didn't ask a lot of questions. Hmm, well, how can you make a decision and not ask questions? Easy, don't think about it Kind of shooting from the hip per se, as it relates to what you want to do Relationships right, ladies, a fellow walk by and say, hey, beautiful, how you doing. And all of a sudden you're like hey, I'm good how you doing, and he look halfway decent. All of a sudden, next thing you know, you're exchanging phone numbers, or giving him your phone number and whip bamboo, right. You don't ask a lot of questions about him. So whose fault is that? That's right, it's your fault, it's my fault. And then when we get into this relationship, he goes left. When you think you're going right or straight Well, ain't nobody's fault with yours, because you missed an opportunity to ask questions versus, oh, somebody's paying attention to me, hey, and he looks decent, he's cute and all of this. You get distracted by that and, as a result of that distraction, you forgot all about asking critical questions, especially if you're looking for a long time relationship. So that's what experience is all about and how we get distracted from that. That's all. Also, you know making bad decisions. It's because we don't ask enough questions. So, ladies, if you have time and you want more information about decisions, decisions, just look up that episode. You know there's some good stuff in there, pretty decent stuff. So I encourage you, if you want to learn more and get guidance. Listen to that episode as well, all right. So experiences also shapes our expectations and judgments, right. It has a long term emotional impact. That's what an experience does.
Speaker 1:
While we want to gravitate, look to books or other methods to gaining parenting skills, you really want to gravitate to someone that's already been through this. Because why is that important? You want to link with someone that knows what it's like to not have enough money, but yet your child needs school supplies. You know you don't have lunch money this week, but they got to eat or a special circumstance happens. Your money is just not there and your child support isn't coming through. Your public assistance hasn't gone through and here you have an immediate emergency related to your child. You can't go to a therapist and ask them about that. A therapist only guides you through the emotions that you experience, right. Whereas when you talk to someone that has the experience, they're not only going to tell you some of the emotions you're going to go through, but they're also going to say this is what I did, this is how I got through this and that's who you want to lean on. That's who you want to identify and have in your life.
Speaker 1:
Is someone that's gone through this parenting, single parenting, on their own, without the child support, without them emotional support. Because if he leaves and you're sitting there and you can have a pity party, I just say don't stay there, right, because he left or he did XYZ, pdq, whatever the situation is that he's no longer in the child's life. Yeah, you can like, okay, you can be angry, you're going to experience all kind of emotions, right, but you don't stay there. You say I, this is what happened and now I'm moving on. I'm moving on. Now I need to gravitate to someone that also has gone through this. I know that I can get guidance. Now I hear you some of you probably saying well, let me go to my mom. Well, if she's gone through that, then absolutely, she's going to help guide you through getting that resolution you're looking for giving you that advice.
Speaker 1:
However, sometimes moms are too close and, depending on the situation, you might want a third party, someone from the outside, looking into giving more neutral Response. Moms can be biased right as far as giving feedback, because sometimes they may just say I told you so. Is that really what you want to hear? At a time of crisis, you really want someone to say, yep, this happened, but try this and sometimes, sometimes moms don't go that route because you're the child right and they tried to tell you. They try. Mom tried to tell me. You know, this is the manner To go in, and if you don't follow that manner, then they say I told you so, and sometimes you don't want to hear that when you're in a crisis, you need someone to come back and say you did that, it was wrong, you made a bad decision. Now this is what you should consider. Look at this. This is what I did when it happened me. And that's the other thing too.
Speaker 1:
If you gravitate to an older, senior mom, a senior right, someone that's retired, I remember I got a lot of great advice from a mother from my church and at that time she was in her 90s and she gave me some great advice, as well as my kids grandfather on their dad side. He treated me like a daughter and I felt like he was a father figure to me, so he gave me a lot of great advice. And those are the type of people you want to gravitate to, because, number one, they were neutral and number two, they're not out trying to gain anything. You know some people. They have alternative motives to helping you, whereas when you gravitate to someone older, much older, you know they just want to see me do. Well, they've already gone through it, right. What do they get out of seeing you fail? Absolutely nothing. So that's why you would want to gravitate to someone Senior age, retirement age and, you know, maybe over their 70s let's just put a number to it right, they have nothing to gain, absolutely nothing to gain, but to see you get through your situation, your situation, and you want to embrace that.
Speaker 1:
Here's a nice fun fact that you may or may not know our identity is a collection of experiences. Absorb that. Our identity is a collection of experiences. It affects how we think, what you do and how you do it. Experience improves your abilities, skills and knowledge while you get closer to success.
Speaker 1:
Now again, you define success. Don't you look that up in Webster's, because a lot of people think success is defined based on money. No, sometimes it's peace of mind. Sometimes it's peace of mind, sometimes you can get up and still be independent on your own and your children are on their own. That's success. And they're not knocking on your door talking about gimme, gimme, gimme, or you see them prospering. That's success. So it's not linked to money all the time, ladies, while it's nice to have knowledge and education, but education is just links back to academics studying and turning in papers and taking tests and passing those tests. Therefore, you know your work for your resumes. This is what I've done, this is what school I've attended, this is what I specialize. So you're just learning stuff that someone else's experience has been outlined and you're trying to link that back to who you are. Get further in life. Education when it comes to parenting, I would say, is limited. You can incorporate some education into your parenting skills, but I would not rely on books. I would not rely on books.
Speaker 1:
Find you someone has gone through the single parenting experience. Ask them how they got through it. What did they do? How did they handle their emotions in certain situations? And trust me, ladies, especially when it comes to apps and fathers, many of us there are many of us out here has already gone through it. We've already gone through it so we can say when he doesn't show up to birthday parties, what did you do? Or special events at the school, or make false promises, what did you do? How did you handle that with your child after he made the promise, or he was once in a life or prominent in her life, and then all of a sudden disappear and then, when you see him again, he's with some other chick and they got another baby. Hmm, what do you do? You're not going to find that in a book? You're not going to find that in a book. Find you a mentor. Someone will guide you through those situations of disappointment and how you handle that. And again, there's plenty of us out here that have already been there, and I'll just be for myself.
Speaker 1:
I thought it was the end of the world. Oh my God, what do I do? What do I do? Only to find out that it wasn't as bad as I thought it was. Hmm, I'll say that again. Ladies, I'm trying to encourage someone. It wasn't as bad as I thought it was, and you all encountering some of the same situations. All right, ladies, that's enough for me for today.
Speaker 1:
I hope that you enjoy today's episode experiences versus education. I hope I came through loud and clear and I hope this episode ends. You will take it on you to say let me find somebody that's gone through this and link up with them, and then, of course, come back to Sing a Mom's United for more tips and encouragement, because that's what this is all about. That's why I started this podcast. I'm trying to pay it forward to you, sing a Mom to you, because I've already been through it. I've been through it. I want to just be there for you and encourage you and remind you. You can do this, because it's not about how you arrived at the title, it's what you do with it. Okay, you have a fantastic day, a marvelous week and an exciting month. Take care.