I was having a serious heart to heart with my friend Miranda this morning, and I feel like I need to have a serious heart to heart here. With you, SCL-ers.

In our chat I typed out the sentences: “If I’m being honest, I don’t feel like I’m raising her. I don’t feel like I’m teaching her or molding her or leading her.” and “I have nothing to give, and honestly, I have to stop that.”

And I got tears in my eyes.  Because the bare bones fact is for over a year I’ve been keeping her safe and alive.  And I haven’t done much more.  Yes, I play with her. Yes, I make sure to take her to do things in life.  But I feel like I haven’t been actively raising her as much as I’ve been actively growing her, physically.  Feeding her, cleaning her, keeping her physically safe and healthy and alive.

A few months ago Sophia received the official diagnosis of PDD-NOS.  She is on the super high functioning end of the autism spectrum.  I’ve known for roughly a year and a half that there was more to her speech delay, to her outbursts, to her quirks.  The road to a diagnosis wasn’t easy, and throwing in a move and some insurance changes and doctor changes, and anyways…here we are much later. And me just keeping her alive and safe. Avoid triggers as a way to cope with PDD-NOS, not only for her sake…but honestly a little bit for mine.  I want to raise her to learn to cope and be able to live life where a walk through the mall isn’t cause for a breakdown, or where too much eye contact makes her shut down, where she can be with multiple peers and actually interact with them.  I need to actively be a participant in teaching her how to cope with life, in ways that are effortless for other children.

I don’t want to make excuses, yes I am a single mother. But that’s a fact of life. I refuse to allow either of my kids to not be raised, truly raised, because I am tired and have so little to give.  I spent part of my childhood raised by a single mother, I know how that felt as a child.  To not feel like I was being raised, or led, or taught by my parent.  This is not an attack against that time in my life, but an observation that after having lived it myself I will not let my children live it.

I have to find more.  It’s not an option to continue with the minimum.  I have to shut down any excuses about being tired, about feeling empty, about not knowing what I’m doing.

And let’s talk about the not knowing what I’m doing. Because I don’t.  But let’s be real, do any of us? Do any of us really know what we’re doing?  I mean I’d venture to say, probably not.  I have some awesome friends who recommended a few books to me, and this morning my Mom recommend a few more. And I’m going to learn, because I feel like I need to know more skills and ways of parenting than what I have in my arsenal.  I want to be the parent that shows grace, but also making a concise effort to raise my children to be loving, compassionate, good, honest people.  Because I think that’s what it’s about.

When we all decide to be parents, while we’re pregnant with our babies, this isn’t the part of parenting that weighed on us.  This isn’t the part of parenting that people warn you about, or tell you to prepare for.  It’s the sleepless nights from feedings, and the endless bottles to wash or breast feeding issues.  But to be honest this part of parenting is turning out to be the most difficult, the responsibility to make a focused effort every day to teach and mold and grow a small mind.  The responsibility is heavy, and I know that I find myself losing sleep over it.

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