Search Results for: blog the experience of losing a parent

Transition from Parenting to Friend

One thing I am learning as a parent is that letting go is a process. Although a child may have physically moved out of the home, there is still an emotional separation that has to happen. In addition, you are navigating new waters when it comes to your relationship. You don’t stop being a parent but you definitely stop parenting. For eight-and-a-half weeks my son was in basic training. Although I no longer had control over him, his training instructors did. In the past few days I have come to realize that deep down I found a sort of comfort … Continue reading →

The Other Side of Single Parenting

There are many different ways one can come into single parenting. The majority of my blogs are focused on the divorce aspect of single parenting, but today I’d like to look at the other side. I teach Sunday School at my church. My class is full of five year olds, all of whom come from single parent families. I knew this going in, but hadn’t really thought much about how each child came into this situation. Most, like my own son, have experienced the divorce of their parents, which is difficult in and of itself, but one explained to me … Continue reading →

Prospective Parents Health: Possible Impacts on International Adoption

My last blog began to address a reader’s questions about whether health conditions would disqualify someone from adopting. In that blog I talked about possible impacts on domestic infant adoption and adoption from state foster care. This blog will talk about possible impacts a health condition could have in pursuing international adoption. For international adoption, someone with a serious health issue may very well be disqualified by certain countries. Other countries can set their own standards on who is eligible to adopt. They often do not have the same anti-discrimination laws we do. Various countries have set conditions that their … Continue reading →

100 Things Every Marriage Should Experience Before Dying

Have you heard of the book 100 Things To Do Before You Die? (Not to be confused with 101 Things To Do Before You Die, which, while the title’s similar, is an entirely different beast of a book and was written by a different author, Richard Horne.) Dave Freeman, one of the 100’s co-authors, died this past August. I’ve never read the book, but I certainly got a sense of the man. Here’s a snippet from his obituary in the Los Angeles Times: The “100 Things” approach later swept the publishing industry, said Neil Teplica, who wrote the book with … Continue reading →

Dealing With The Death Of Parents

Beth’s blog about parents and death prompted me to write about my experience. My father died when I was 16. It was sudden and left Mom and me reeling with shock. I didn’t have brothers and sisters to turn to but Mom and I had each other. My mother died when I was in my 30s. Hers was a battle with cancer that went on over a few years. Like Courtney, I pretty well put my life on hold. I dropped out of bible study, church and everything else I’d been involved in,but continued to read my Bible and pray … Continue reading →

My Experience with Hypnotherapy

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I was at a writing retreat in March 2007 in the Quinault rainforest in Washington State. Four days of nothing but rain and writing — no cell phone service and no internet. It was heavenly! (And productive — I wrote ten thousand words on a novel over the long weekend.) One of the writers there was a licensed hypnotherapist. While we were both taking a break from writing, he offered to hypnotize me. I’d never been hypnotized before, and said so. We chatted for a few minutes about what hypnotherapy could do, and how it worked. Curious, I agreed to … Continue reading →

When You Change Your Mind about Parenting Choices

Parenting choices are not written in stone—even if we do know that we need to be consistent and set firm boundaries, there are still those times when we change our minds. Experience teaches us a thing or two or we discover that what worked with one child does not necessarily work with another so we need to adjust. There is no shame and should not be any guilt, but it can be tough figuring out just how to go about changing our mind without losing face… If truth be told, in my two decades of parenting, I have changed my … Continue reading →

When Things Start Closing In

I know that for most of us it is a little too early for cabin fever to be setting in, but from talking with some other single parents, I think there are those times when it really DOES feel like the walls are closing in—the house is too small, there is too much disorder and chaos, and it seems as though one will never get things into a manageable state again. My words might not help when you are in the midst of one of those periods, but it is temporary—things will open up again. I live in a moderate-sized, … Continue reading →

Feelings About Countries Closing to Outside Adoption, Part Two

In my last blog, I wrote about countries that are successfully promoting domestic adoption, with the ultimate goal that all of their children will be taken care of within their country, at which time they will close to international adoption. I wrote that this is in many ways good news for the country, the birthmothers, and the children, and I gave reasons why. Today I will look at the closing of countries to adoption from another angle. The closing of countries to international adoption is not good news if it means that embarrassment or outside pressure is leading countries to … Continue reading →

Mixed Feelings about Countries Closing

This month, Korea released figures showing that sixty percent of adoptions of Korean children were domestic adoptions by Korean families, rather than overseas adoptions. This is a large increase, and a big step toward a goal which the Korean government and Korean agencies have been working toward for a long time. Korea has for many years been gradually reducing the number of overseas adoptions, leading some adoptive parents to worry about Korea “closing” to adoption by parents from other countries. China also has changed policies to make it easier for Chinese residents to adopt children. Last winter China also announced … Continue reading →