“Being a single parent is the hardest thing, but doing it alone is much better than doing it with someone who doesn’t want to do it.”

Our Bollywood industry has a lot of examples of single parents with children, some are divorced with children, some are single but have adopted children or had them by surrogacy. Looking at them, single parenting looks like a cakewalk. But it is not!  Even they had to face bias from society when they took decisions about being a single parent. There is a lot of bias against single parents and a host of negative connotations that come along with it. They are treated like an incomplete units.

Parenting as it is challenging, but being a single parent is emotionally challenging and sometimes even overwhelming. Single parenting demands are nothing to ignore,  they can seem like insurmountable challenges and steep hills to climb on any given day; they should not be underestimated. 

If you are ever having a bad parenting day, you have no one to turn to. You have to do it all alone, and it’s not always easy. And the biggest doubt you have is, you do not know whether you are doing it right. So the best solution for this is to surround yourself with other parents and then observe where they are falling short and learn from that also. Accept that no one is perfect and so are you also not! Make mistakes and learn from them. When you have to make solo decisions, it can be kind of overwhelming. Try seeing the decision making as an honor and trust that things will be good. 

Always have a strong network of support systems. And do not shy from asking for help. Be patient with yourself. Give your best to your child, but also give yourself some quality time away from the child. If you make any mistake, do not beat yourself down.

Sometimes financial constraints also add up because bringing up a child single-handedly could be very expensive. You have to learn to balance work and home both because you have to take care of finances as well as the child. Single parent children become matured also early because they learn to share their parents' responsibility from an early age. 

A single parent has to be a strict disciplinarian and a fun-loving parent as well. They have to fulfill the dual responsibilities of both the parent. But with time they learn to balance both the roles.

Whatever comes your way, always remember to be strong and positive, you can handle it all. If there is a problem there is bound to be a solution, you just have to look at the right place.  If you are getting 200% worries, you are getting 200% love also.

“Don’t just be good to the others. Be good to YOU too!”

Everyone must receive a lot of relationship advice day in day out. But the best relationship advice that can be ever given is, “Before you love others, love yourself unconditionally. It can definitely be complicated, but it will be worth it.” Most of us are so busy chasing love from others, we’ve forgotten about the one person we need to love first- ourselves!

You are absolutely the most important person in your entire universe. From our childhood days, we’ve been raised to put others first, self-love often feels selfish. We are made to feel guilty if we self-love ourselves. But being this selfish, helps us connect with ourselves. When we love ourselves, we prove to ourselves that we deserve to be treated well. So we will not put up with other’s ill-treatment also. Secondly, everyone has different opinions about what we should do or how we should behave, so it is impossible for us to make everyone happy. And if we constantly put others before ourselves, it will keep us from living the life we desire.

Self-love isn’t easy, as we are our biggest critics. We can forgive and forget other’s mistakes but we do not allow ourselves to make mistakes. When you lose to manage a few kilos and look great- you like yourself. When you achieve something big- you like yourself. But when you have put on some weight or have failed or are at your worst, do you still love yourself. Self-love should be unconditional. We should love ourselves as we are right now!

We tend to compare ourselves and our lives with others. We make ourselves feel small by comparing to others. But that’s the biggest mistake because no matter how well we know them, we never know what they feel inside or how they perceive their life.

Before thinking about others, think about yourself, your likes and dislikes. Do good to yourself.

Have you ever looked in the mirror, stared in your eyes and said “I love you, with your own name.” Try it, it’s very difficult but worth it. It takes a lot of dedication, devotion, and practice to love yourself each and every day and watch your best self bloom! The epic dialogue of famous bollywood film “Me apni favorite hoon!” should be everyone’s favorite line.

There comes a stage in everyone’s life when we feel our kids have become strange, they have become teenagers. They are no more the cute kids who used to wander around moms the whole day and would ask us every small thing. Even if they would make a house mess or break things or gave us sleepless nights, at the end of the day we would just love them as they were our little angels.

Suddenly, things ave changed. They remain more in themselves. They want to be with friends more or remain confined in their rooms glued to their mobiles. There are more arguments, answering back and banging of doors. We blame it on the “generation”, “the friends” “the hormones”. But are these things really to be blamed?

What we don’t realize is that they are growing. No one remains the same throughout their life. We have also changed so much, so are they. We feel they have popped out of us, so they are indebted to us for their whole life. They will have to do as we ask them to do. They are our children and not our personal property. They are individuals with their own likes and dislikes, dreams and aspirations. It would be wrong of us if we want to see our unfulfilled desires and dreams getting fulfilled through them.

What they need is a parent, who is ready to move along with them, who allows them to make their own set of mistakes. We all have been a rebel in our own ways. They are also. What they need is someone who is ready to listen to them, who gives them their space, but still stands behind them without commenting “I told you so” or being sarcastic.  They need a parent who is ready to give them helping hand or a crying shoulder or maybe walking a mile with them, only and only if they need their help.

The teen years are very confusing years, they are not sure about a lot of things but still, they want to try new things. There are lots of mixed feelings and confused emotions, distorted body image and lot of peer pressure and also the pressure to fit in. They are trying their best to navigate these years smoothly. Instead of being an obstacle in this navigation, let us hold their hands, accept their limitations, encourage their efforts and praise them for who they are.

We need to definitely change with them, as we have to give them wings of imagination to soar and solid foundation so that they still remain grounded and stick to roots.

A professor in IIT held a bottle for a few minutes and ask students “What do you think will happen to my arm ?” Students unanimously answered “Nothing!” Then the professor asked, “If I hold this bottle for one hour?” One of the students said, “your arm will start to ache.” Professor further asked, “If I hold this bottle for 24 hours?” “You will feel extreme pain and your arm could fall off also”, answered the student.

Life is like that! This bottle of water represents our problems, stress, worries, and anxiety which we have bottled up in our mind. It shows that longer we hold onto these things, more damage and harm they will cause us.

What is the most important? Our “Peace of Mind!” It is more important than spending hours thinking about why someone did what they did to us or why life treated us in this manner. Let it Go!!! We don’t let go things because we want to control them, we want to change the situation and the people. We always want to brood in the past and make it right, but we cannot. It only saps us of our energy. A learned man had once said, “Anything that costs us our peace of mind is too expensive, just let it go.”

It needs a lot of courage to let go off things and people whom we cannot change, but undoubtedly it is the most life-changing experience. Don’t let anything or anyone stay in your mind for free. Some relationships leave us alone and we keep looking for closure. We should let them go because maybe they themselves have no answer. We have to search for our own answers and reasons. Let the past go, so we could enjoy the future. Regrets and bitterness hold us back, life is meant to move forward. So just let it go!