God Bless the Child or Children

Considering the fact that my children are probably as old as or older than some of the people who read my blog, the issue of bringing a family together that includes children of one the spouses is not an issue I have to really deal with. Sort of not deal with. I know that my two grown babies and my husband will need to find their way in a relationship unique to them, but, I can't imagine the possible challenges that may have existed if they were younger. I don't really know for sure how involved Ghanaian parents are with their children beyond the strong discipline level that was quite evident and impressive - reminded me of my childhood when children were seen and not heard. When children didn't participate in "grown folk" conversations. Ibrahim and I have had some discussions about the possibility of us bringing a young child into our marriage and I have share with him what parent life is like in the US. Just remembering those days when my grown babies were kids brings back both memories of joy and a lot of tired bones - my bones! Here's a view of how my life was when my babies were really babies.

With their Father

My kids were fortunate through the first half of their childhood because they had the benefit of both a mom and dad living at home with them. Still - life was very hectic! Their father's job was as busy and time consuming as mine was and still is. It was not unusual for either of us to work past an 8 hour day, sometimes bringing work home, and maybe working on the weekends. I would say on average, per year, we both worked 50 hours or more a week - and we were not paid for overtime hours! Oh yeah - almost forgot, we had two kids to take care of during our long 100 hours of work each week. I am going to talk about life past the diapers and milk years - that time period is a novel all to itself.

Once they were both in school our mornings started out with me getting up first and preparing breakfast for the kids. Then the kids got up and I would make sure they were washed (they bathed at night - thank God) and dressed. While I combed my daughter's hair, their father prepared lunch and made sure book bags were ready. Somewhere in between getting them ready we found time to bathe ourselves, brush our teeth, and get dressed - maybe eat breakfast. At that time we only had one car so everybody piled into the one car and all the drop offs were made. We had to put the kids into after school care program because neither of us could leave work early enough to pick them up when school was over. Now after school care didn't play - you better get there before the end of the care period usually around 5:30 or you were going to be pay extra for every 5 minutes you were late.  Twice a week one of them had an additional activity after 5:30 - karate class or Girl Scouts or something else. God forbid the events were on the same day at different locations. On a normal day we were probably all home by 6:30 - now somebody needed to make dinner. Their father and I would share in this responsibility - whomever had the most energy would prepare the dinner. As my job began to get busier and busier, their father eventually took over fixing dinner while I helped them with their homework while trying to do my homework from my job. By the time dinner was prepared it was almost time to begin preparation for the next day which included ensuring that all homework was completed, all school papers signed by me or their father, their baths were taken, and their clothes were ironed. We would do what we could do to squeeze in some quality time with the kids - you know, doing the stuff you were looking forward to doing as a parent - enjoying your kid. Then the weekend came - woo hoo! Housework, housework, and more housework. Running the kids to play dates with their friends or another scheduled extracurricular activity and again trying to squeeze in family time for everybody. Sunday was clothes washing day and there were always a lot of clothes to be washed, dried, folded or ironed, then put away. Sunday was usually the best day for finding family time together.  Hmmm - I haven't said a thing about finding time for me and their father (my ex-husband). Now why did we divorce? I digress.

Just me as a single mom

Let's just put it this way, everything I said was handled above between two parents fell totally on me when I became a signal mom. Actually, it increased because spending time with them became even more important so that I could stay close to them emotionally while they both went through the terrible teen years. Their extra-curricular interest changed to events that sometimes involved everyday after school activities such as when my daughter was involved with drama programs in high school. She had practice every day when there was a need to prepare for an upcoming show. By this time we had a computer and they were on the internet - horrible time trying to keep up with what they were doing on the net - and I did intercept a couple of not so good situations. Not only was I trying to teach my daughter how to be a lady, I was left with the unfair to my son task of helping him explore what it means to be a man. Unfair because I believe it takes a man to teach a boy how to be a man - I focused on helping him define values that would make him proud to be a man.

The world had changed in the US whereas children could no longer be viewed as "seen and not heard". If you lost contact with your children you may have been at risk for loosing your child to some of the evils of the world - ok, so everything isn't always the best in the US - name a place where it is always the best. Here I was raising two children, working a full time busy job, and trying to finish up some of my education. As for a social life - few and far between.

Back to the point of the blog - I can't even imagine how I would handle all the things that I needed to handle as a single mom while helping my new husband assimilate into his new role in our family while he works to find his place in his new home and with me trying to do what I can to make it easy for him and minimize the impact of his presence on my children. WHEW! I should have entitled this one God bless the Parent who is trying to make all this happen!

Ibrahim and I are not even sure if we are going to be able to manage having a child in the busy life we plan to have together. If we do, I still think it will be a lot easier than for those of you who are blending a family. One thing we have agreed to is that it must be a shared responsibility to raise a child if we have one which means he must be involved in ways differently than how many men in Ghana are involved since, just like my first marriage, we both have to work and we will both probably be in school.

God Bless you all!