Single Mothers Vs Healthy Eating

Single mothers vs Healthy eating

The Balancing Act

RaSeana Sherman

12/14/12

Being a single mother can be a persons worst nightmare.There are so many obstacles and chanllenges that come along the way. Raising a family along is fulltime job, with other parttime factors. Then comes the daily neccesties of providing a roof over there heads, clothes on there bodys and most important providing meals.

Being a single mother can be one of the most rewarding but tiring jobs you will ever face in your lifetime. You are required to constantly balance home, kids, and work with little or no gratitude or thanks for all of your hard work. Worst of all, you have no backup (husband, boyfriend or fiancé) to take some of the load off of your shoulders. The key to surviving single motherhood is effective time management. You only get 24 hours a day - you must use each and every one of them to their fullest. Getting a handle on time management can be an ongoing challenge, but today there are a vast number of resources and tools available online to help single parents streamline the process. A great place to start is by creating and maintaining a calendar to help keep track of everything important: work schedules, meetings, doctor's appointments, school activities and payment due dates(Lucas, 2012). Free e-mail services such as those offered by Google and Yahoo! offer easy-to-use calendar tools that also give you the option to set up e-mail or text alert reminders to keep you on track (Kodley, Rodley Irons, www.healthyfamilies).

Getting in the habit of making to-do lists can also save you both time and stress. Whether you prefer to do so electronically or by hand writing a list, outlining your objectives for the day can make it seem more manageable and help you keep your priorities in perspective. Start your list with the most important items you have to complete and round it out with items that you'd like to get to, but won't sweat too much if they end up shifting to the next day. Don't forget to make scheduling quality time with your family -- and personal time -- a priority as well. Treat this not as an option, but a necessity. This is where tapping into your support network may come into play. Is there a family member willing to provide free childcare so you can set up a lunch date with a friend? Does your employer allow telecommuting, and if not, can you approach your manager about creating a program? Can you establish a carpool group with other parents from your child's school? Seeking out these opportunities, even those that mightseem to make only a small difference at first, can prove to be great timesavers in terms of helping you create more time for yourself and your kids. Get yourself and your kids in the habit of doing certain things at certain times. Not only do things run smoother but kids, especially kids of divorce, revel in the idea of "this happens after this and this happens after this". Bedtime routines are a great intro to this - spend some quality time together, watch TV or read a book, brush teeth and then off to bed. It's been said it takes a village to raise a child, but for the nearly 13 million single-parent families in the United States, creating such a village of resources can be an incredibly daunting task. The responsibilities that come with parenting in general are demanding enough as it is, but they're even more so without the consistent help of another partner in the home.

In homes where there is only one parent, the to-do list can seem endless. What is usually a shared set of challenges -- from learning how to manage finances and making quality time for both kids and yourself to establishing structure and enforcing rules -- rests solely on one set of shoulders. On top of that, single parents who can't afford outside help also carry the burden of managing day-to-day household duties: cooking, cleaning and making sure everyone gets where they need to be on time.

However, this doesn't necessarily mean there's no help to be had. In fact, one of the most important first steps every single parent can take in terms of building healthy parenting practices is to consider who else they can turn to for help outside of a traditional spouse, including family members, friends, co-workers, other single parents, support groups and more.Being a parent in a two parent household is hard enough, having to play the mother and father role in a single parent family can be overwhelming and challenging. There is no reason to go through this alone. There are numerous support groups and other single parents that have or are going through the same thing. If you feel like you can't cope or if you need some assistance, make use of some of our articles and information we have on our site. Not only do we offer a sounding board for you on any of our comment threads, but we also help with many of the small things that can often make you feel overwhelmed and stressed out.(www.singleparentscenter.net) Remember, families come in all shapes and sizes and ultimately, what defines a single parenting family like any other family is love, commitment and care.

Another isue that comes in hand is when a parent wants to provide the correct methods in eating and the income is a challenge. According to nutritionists Lauren Slayton, MS, RD and Caren Tishfield, RD of Mindful Menus, a company on a mission to enable people to make health-conscious food choices, most single Moms don't have a lot of extra time in their days. However, there are relatively simple ways Moms can incorporate nutritious, low calorie food into their family's diet...on a budget! "Things are more challenging for a single mother who works long or late hours and when she gets home there she doesn't have that extra set of hands to handle homework duties while she cooks the chicken breasts," says Slayton and Tishfield. "Their best option is to create weekly menu plans." Talking to other mothers I learned a lot, I was talking with another single mother the other day who confessed that she "never had time to cook." Meals at their house usually