Soup for the Solo Parent


In her column, Parenting Solo, Angela Scott will share her journey of balancing parenting duties, work and downtime activities, while keeping up with her two daughters, Shani (9) and Samara (5). Parenting Solo will take you inside the home, mind, heart and soul of this working single mom who’s found the role as a single parent to be a rewarding mix of blessings and blues. “It’s an incredible blessing that calls for supernatural resources,” she says. Angela invites you to write to her at shaniadura@netzero.net.






"All of us single parents are experts at robbing Peter to pay Paul"
- Nancy Vogl, co-author of Chicken Soup for the Single Parent's Soul

How am I ever going to make it? Am I doing the right thing? Is this situation ever going to get better? Oftentimes, when suffocating in seemingly overwhelming emotions, a good book is the best remedy. For parenting solo folks, I highly recommend, Chicken Soup for the Single Parent's Soul by Jack Canfield, Mark Victor Hansen, Laurie Hartman and Nancy Vogl. Released this past February, this title is already a hot commodity.

I personally have been touched by many of the Chicken Soup books and this latest collection is no exception. In Chicken Soup for the Single Parent's Soul, you'll find 87 anecdotes covering nine sections; You Are Not Alone, A Fresh Perspective, Special Moments and Miracles, Overcoming Obstacles, Insights and Wisdom, Getting Along and Forgiveness, Going Forward, On the Lighter Side and Joy and Gratitude. Since 1997, the Chicken Soup for the Soul series has voiced the hope, healing and humor of many, selling more than 90 million books worldwide. Well-packed within the Single Parent's book is 300-plus pages of stories guaranteed to lessen feelings of isolation, despair and doubt.

The Perfect Recipe
If you're like me, you're also wondering what took the Chicken Soup folks eight years to publish a book about single parents. Chicken Soup publishers Jack Canfield and Mark Victor Hansen had felt that their previous books on parent's soul and single's soul addressed major issues, according to Nancy Vogl, author and a single mom of three since 1983. She says she approached the publishers while booking Canfield and Hansen for speaking engagements.

"I told Jack and Mark, 'do you realize how many millions and millions of single parents there are in the United States, not to mention the entire world?' Mark invited me to write a book proposal," Vogl explains. She says she did just that and included statistics showing how the book would be one of the publishers' better projects.

Vogl knows all about feeling despair, doubt and isolation. It was while pregnant with her third daughter that Vogl began going through a divorce.

"It was so hard, so tough. I was married to an attorney and it dragged out for three years," Vogl says. "I don't know how I survived." Vogl was a real estate agent at the time, trying to sell homes when interest rates were skyrocketing. "Meager child support came so few and far between. They were often months and weeks late," recalls Vogl.

The author was living in an affluent East Lansing, Michigan college community and started selling furniture and jewelry to pay for the family's food, clothing and mortgage.

"We struggled all the time. It was difficult because my kids had friends who had a lot of money and we were the poor kids on the block. For them it was tough. Not only were we the ones without money, but everyone else in our neighborhood had two parents," Vogl says.

Twenty years ago, when single parenting carried stronger negative connotations, Vogl says feeling isolated as a family, and as the only single parent was deeply painful. Today, according to Vogl, the higher population of single parents helps a bit in easing feelings of loneliness and despair.

"Now, chances are, you're not the only single parent on your block or at your child's school. There's a stronger support system to draw upon," Vogl explains. Throughout Single Parent's Soul, you'll find solo parenting issues that mimic much of what you encounter daily.

A Dash of Humor, Pinch of Pain
Recalling those times of digging for change in the couch cushions to buy milk, and feeling guilty for not having enough money inspired Vogl to write the Single Parent's story "I Love You Double." In "Bad Day, Good Life," writer Barbara Stanley offers her experiences where, "crying was no longer a solution." Again, Stanley exemplifies one who persevered through gripping days that appeared to have no release.
Topics such as getting back into the "Dating Game" are also addressed in Single Parent's Soul stories "Looking for Love(s)," "The Dating Scene" and "The Great Mate Hunt." Humorous, charming and thoughtful, each tale conveys the daunting emotions many of us face in the world of "dating with children." Even the subject of getting along with the other parent is addressed in among other stories, "In Times of War." This heartfelt anecdote captures how the 9/11 tragedy changed a quarrelling divorced couple's perspectives on childrearing. Vogl definitely has us in mind when she put this gem of a book together.

"The most important thing that I wanted to do with this book was to show other single moms and dads that they're not alone," Vogl explains. "Nowadays, if you're a single mom or single dad, there's so many places to turn to for support."

Chicken Soup for the Single Parent's Soul is a handy source when you don't feel like picking up the phone or chatting online. You can feel confident turning the pages within this book and seeing how someone - no many people truly understand and share your trials and tribulations.

Check your local bookstore for Chicken Soup for the Single Parent's Soul, HCI The Life Issues Publisher, ISBN 0-7573-0241-6, $12.95 US. For more information about this or other Chicken Soup books, visit www.chickensoup.com. If you have an anecdote to share, send submissions to:

Chicken Soup for the Soul
P.O. Box 30880
Santa Barbara, CA 93130
Fax: 805-563-2945

Angela D. Scott lives in the Los Angeles area and is the Special Sections Editor, L.A. Parent. This professional writer is a single mother of two daughters, Shani and Samara.