Struggling Single Mother Quotes

She left someone she loved so that her daughters would never think that kind of relationship was okay. She wasn’t rescued by another man—a knight in shining armor. She took the initiative to leave my father on her own, knowing she was about to embark on a completely different kind of struggle with added stress as a single mother.

For a long time, I was trapped in this struggle with my emotions about the single person in the world who was my family.

Dear Fathers of the Fatherless Children, Heads of households nowadays are being run by a healthy percentage of Chief Guardians. The Chief Guardian takes up multiple roles and wears many hats. She’s a leader and a groundbreaker. As she makes her struggles appear effortless, so she can gain strength to survive the next minute of the day.

Every single time I get sent to her, she asks me questions that sound like they came from some “How to Talk to Statistical Black Children Who Come to Your Office Often” handbook. How is your home life? (None of your business.) Have you witnessed any traumatic events lately, such as shootings? (Just because I live in the “ghetto” doesn’t mean I dodge bullets every day.) Are you struggling to come to terms with your father’s murder? (It was twelve years ago. I barely remember him or it.) Are you struggling to come to terms with your mother’s addiction? (She’s been clean for eight years. She’s only addicted to soap operas these days.) What’s good with you, homegirl, nah’mean? (Okay, she hasn’t said that, but give her time.)

Dear Fathers of the Fatherless Children, The Chief Guardian dives deep and pulls strength from all the hardships and struggles that are thrown at her, yet she is blamed for everything that has gone wrong. Not only is she blamed for everything, but she is also always judged by her actions. As she’s being blamed and judged she’s always given a shitty stick and dealt an unfair hand. How is that fair to the Chief Guardian? She is the one who has to carry the load when she doesn’t have any fight left. She is the one who has to figure every burden out, without any help from the fathers of the fatherless children. Yet she finds the courage to figure it out as she keeps pushing and moving on through the pain.

And I am proud, but mostly, I’m angry. I’m angry, because when I look around, I’m still alone. I’m still the only black woman in the room. And when I look at what I’ve fought so hard to accomplish next to those who will never know that struggle I wonder, “How many were left behind?” I think about my first-grade class and wonder how many black and brown kids weren’t identified as “talented” because their parents were too busy trying to pay bills to pester the school the way my mom did. Surely there were more than two, me and the brown boy who sat next to me in the hall each day. I think about my brother and wonder how many black boys were similarly labeled as “trouble” and were unable to claw out of the dark abyss that my brother had spent so many years in. I think about the boys and girls playing at recess who were dragged to the principal’s office because their dark skin made their play look like fight. I think about my friend who became disillusioned with a budding teaching career, when she worked at the alternative school and found that it was almost entirely populated with black and brown kids who had been sent away from the general school population for minor infractions. From there would only be expulsions or juvenile detention. I think about every black and brown person, every queer person, every disabled person, who could be in the room with me, but isn’t, and I’m not proud. I’m heartbroken. We should not have a society where the value of marginalized people is determined by how well they can scale often impossible obstacles that others will never know. I have been exceptional, and I shouldn’t have to be exceptional to be just barely getting by. But we live in a society where if you are a person of color, a disabled person, a single mother, or an LGBT person you have to be exceptional. And if you are exceptional by the standards put forth by white supremacist patriarchy, and you are lucky, you will most likely just barely get by. There’s nothing inspirational about that.

Single Mothers Your shoulders are heavy, but you stand tall and raise your head high, knowing that you are raising kings and queens, future leaders of the world. You are pounding the pavement, kicking butt, making it look easy but we know better; we know the struggle, we understand the pain. The road feels lonely but you are not alone.

Agape doesn’t necessarily involve high heroics, and it certainly doesn’t involve syrupy sentiment. It’s practical. It makes a difference. And it matters. It’s evident when someone cooks a nutritious meal for his children after an exhausting day at work. It’s seen when a mother takes on three or more jobs to do what it takes to keep her family clothed, housed, and fed. It’s donating blood on a regular basis to the local blood bank. It’s risking looking un-cool, and perhaps far more than that, by interrupting people as they’re telling a racist or anti-gay joke. It’s when someone decides to use the year end bonus that he received from his employer to repair the car of the struggling single mother down the street, or purchase a burial plot for someone without means, instead of buying that boat or motorcycle he’s been wanting.

For those of us who were female, the body was also defined by its role as a potential mother. That’s true in every class but becomes more problematic in the context of financial struggle. Poverty makes motherhood harder, and motherhood makes poverty harder. Single mothers and their children are, by far, the poorest type of family in the United States.

He stood hat in hand over the unmarked earth. This woman who had worked for his family fifty years. She had cared for his mother as a baby and she had worked for his family long before his mother was born and she had known and cared for the wild Grady boys who were his mother's uncles and who had all died so long ago and he stood holding his hat and he called her his abuela and he said goodbye to her in Spanish and then turned and put on his hat and turned his wet face to the wind and for a moment he held out his hands as if to steady himself or as if to bless the ground there or perhaps as if to slow the world that was rushing away and seemed to care nothing for the old or the young or rich or poor or dark or pale or he or she. Nothing for their struggles, nothing for their names. Nothing for the living or the dead. In four days' riding he crossed the Pecos at Iraan Texas and rode up out of the river breaks where the pumpjacks in the Yates Field ranged against the skyline rose and dipped like mechanical birds. Like great primitive birds welded up out of iron by hearsay in a land perhaps where such birds once had been…..The desert he rode was red and red the dust he raised, the small dust that powdered the legs of the horse he rode, the horse he led. In the evening a wind came up and reddened all the sky before him. There were few cattle in that country because it was barren country indeed yet he came at evening upon a solitary bull rolling in the dust against the bloodred sunset like an animal in sacrificial torment. The bloodred dust blew down out of the sun. He touched the horse with his heels and rode on. He rode with the sun coppering his face and the red wind blowing out of the west across the evening land and the small desert birds flew chittering among the dry bracken and horse and rider and horse passed on and their long shadows passed in tandem like the shadow of a single being. Passed and paled into the darkening land, the world to come.

Life sometimes is like tossing a coin in the air calling heads or tails, but it doesn’t matter what side it lands on; life goes on. It is hard when you’ve lost the will to fight because you’ve been fighting for so long. You are smothered by the pain. Mentally, you are drained. Physically, you are weak. Emotionally, you are weighed down. Spiritually, you do not have one tiny mustard seed of faith. The common denominator is that other people’s problems have clouded your mind with all of their negativity. You cannot feel anything; you are numb. You do not have the energy to surrender, and you choose not to escape because you feel safe when you are closed in. As you move throughout the day, you do just enough to get by. Your mindset has changed from giving it your all to—well, something is better than nothing. You move in slow motion like a zombie, and there isn’t any color, just black and white, with every now and then a shade of gray. You’ve shut everyone out and crawled back into the rabbit hole. Life passes you by as you feel like you cannot go on. You look around for help; for someone to take the pain away and to share your suffering, but no one is there. You feel alone, you drift away when you glance ahead and see that there are more uphill battles ahead of you. You do not have the option to turn around because all of the roads are blocked. You stand exactly where you are without making a step. You try to think of something, but you are emotionally bankrupt. Where do you go from here? You do not have a clue. Standing still isn’t helping because you’ve welcomed unwanted visitors; voices are in your head, asking, “What are you waiting for? Take the leap. Jump.” They go on to say, “You’ve had enough. Your burdens are too heavy.” You walk towards the cliff; you turn your head and look at the steep hill towards the mountain. The view isn’t helping; not only do you have to climb the steep hill, but you have to climb up the mountain too. You take a step; rocks and dust fall off the cliff. You stumble and you move forward. The voices in your head call you a coward. You are beginning to second-guess yourself because you want to throw in the towel. You close your eyes; a tear falls and travels to your chin. As your eyes are closed the Great Divine’s voice is louder; yet, calmer, soothing; and you feel peace instantly. Your mind feels light, and your body feels balanced. The Great Divine whispers gently and softly in your ear: “Fallen Warrior, I know you have given everything you’ve got, and you feel like you have nothing left to give. Fallen Warrior, I know it’s been a while since you smiled. Fallen Warrior, I see that you are hurting, and I feel your pain. Fallen Warrior, this is not the end. This is the start of your new beginning. Fallen Warrior, do not doubt My or your abilities; you have more going for you than you have going against you. Fallen Warrior, keep moving, you have what it takes; perseverance is your middle name. Fallen Warrior, you are not the victim! You are the victor! You step back because you know why you are here. You know why you are alive. Sometimes you have to be your own Shero. As a fallen warrior, you are human; and you have your moments. There are days when you have more ups than downs, and some days you have more downs than ups. I most definitely can relate. I was floating through life, but I had to change my mindset. During my worst days, I felt horrible, and when I started to think negatively I felt like I was dishonoring myself. I felt sick, I felt afraid, fear began to control my every move. I felt like demons were trying to break in and take over my life.

Ah! you cliques of the city!—don’t you know you had forebears with handlebar mustaches, who came down to the river in the morning bearing masts and booms on their shoulders? who killed their own bulls with a mighty club? who made their own clothes and tilled their own earth? For a million of your clever fashionable phrases, would you exchange one single such accomplishment? I know I would—and Oh God but I’m just as futile as you are, you city vermin; I too am vermin, vermin trying to struggle back to manhood, with small success. Here is our second illuminative nugget, with no emotions this time: that the fear of the family album is pursuant to the city’s general fear of time and particularly of the past (“Oh the stupid Victorian 19th Century!” they keep crying, as though Victorianism were the whole sum of that great century). Fear of the past is in the city, thus a love, a frantic need of the present—with all the hedonistic overtones involved, the psychological doctrines of “alertness” and the so-called liberation of sexuality: in other words, giving the moment over to the dictates of sexuality (divorce is such a dictate) and leaving time, the future—which is to them equivalent to the past, as a moral factor rather than a hedonistic factor of the “pulsing present”—leaving the future to the dogs, childless marriages, or one-child “families,” broken-up families, and thus leaving the future of mankind and the race to the dogs: to the destruction at the hands of a society’s inward atom bomb of organic-familial-societal disintegration: in short, the end of a race, as in Rome. This fear of reaching back into the past, into lineality and tradition, and of extending similarly forward into the future, is like a plant drying up, dying. Where I say this, they speak of the “reality of the moment” and the danger of suppressing the urges of the moment for any reason—but I find good reason if it is to spell the continuation of our own cultural mankind. Perhaps that’s what they don’t want, like children who resent all brothers and sisters burgeoning in their mother’s womb, resenting the future after them, feeling they should be the last, final men, that none must follow—a childish emotion. But to give oneself over to childish emotions is the aim of these city intellectuals, they abstrusely find much to “scientifically” substantiate this desire in the cult of psychoanalysis and its sub-cults, the Orgone “Institute” for one splendid example, and so they go ahead blithely, and I am not the one to oppose their concepts, their march off the ship’s plank—since I am marching to a plank of my own, since I do not wish to be reviled as a neurotic and an atavistic neo-fascist, since the other night, when mentioning these objections of mine, a city intellectual had apoplexy right before me. Oh

I was witness to events of a less peaceful character. One day when I went out to my wood-pile, or rather my pile of stumps, I observed two large ants, the one red, the other much larger, nearly half an inch long, and black, fiercely contending with one another. Having once got hold they never let go, but struggled and wrestled and rolled on the chips incessantly. Looking farther, I was surprised to find that the chips were covered with such combatants, that it was not a duellum, but a bellum, a war between two races of ants, the red always pitted against the black, and frequently two red ones to one black. The legions of these Myrmidons covered all the hills and vales in my wood-yard, and the ground was already strewn with the dead and dying, both red and black. It was the only battle which I have ever witnessed, the only battle-field I ever trod while the battle was raging; internecine war; the red republicans on the one hand, and the black imperialists on the other. On every side they were engaged in deadly combat, yet without any noise that I could hear, and human soldiers never fought so resolutely. I watched a couple that were fast locked in each other’s embraces, in a little sunny valley amid the chips, now at noonday prepared to fight till the sun went down, or life went out. The smaller red champion had fastened himself like a vice to his adversary’s front, and through all the tumblings on that field never for an instant ceased to gnaw at one of his feelers near the root, having already caused the other to go by the board; while the stronger black one dashed him from side to side, and, as I saw on looking nearer, had already divested him of several of his members. They fought with more pertinacity than bulldogs. Neither manifested the least disposition to retreat. It was evident that their battle-cry was “Conquer or die.” In the meanwhile there came along a single red ant on the hillside of this valley, evidently full of excitement, who either had despatched his foe, or had not yet taken part in the battle; probably the latter, for he had lost none of his limbs; whose mother had charged him to return with his shield or upon it. Or perchance he was some Achilles, who had nourished his wrath apart, and had now come to avenge or rescue his Patroclus. He saw this unequal combat from afar—for the blacks were nearly twice the size of the red—he drew near with rapid pace till he stood on his guard within half an inch of the combatants; then, watching his opportunity, he sprang upon the black warrior, and commenced his operations near the root of his right fore leg, leaving the foe to select among his own members; and so there were three united for life, as if a new kind of attraction had been invented which put all other locks and cements to shame. I should not have wondered by this time to find that they had their respective musical bands stationed on some eminent chip, and playing their national airs the while, to excite the slow and cheer the dying combatants. I was myself excited somewhat even as if they had been men. The more you think of it, the less the difference. And certainly there is not the fight recorded in Concord history, at least, if in the history of America, that will bear a moment’s comparison with this, whether for the numbers engaged in it, or for the patriotism and heroism displayed.

I was witness to events of a less peaceful character. One day when I went out to my wood-pile, or rather my pile of stumps, I observed two large ants, the one red, the other much larger, nearly half an inch long, and black, fiercely contending with one another. Having once got hold they never let go, but struggled and wrestled and rolled on the chips incessantly. Looking farther, I was surprised to find that the chips were covered with such combatants, that it was not a duellum, but a bellum, a war between two races of ants, the red always pitted against the black, and frequently two red ones to one black. The legions of these Myrmidons covered all the hills and vales in my wood-yard, and the ground was already strewn with the dead and dying, both red and black. It was the only battle which I have ever witnessed, the only battle-field I ever trod while the battle was raging; internecine war; the red republicans on the one hand, and the black imperialists on the other. On every side they were engaged in deadly combat, yet without any noise that I could hear, and human soldiers never fought so resolutely. I watched a couple that were fast locked in each other's embraces, in a little sunny valley amid the chips, now at noonday prepared to fight till the sun went down, or life went out. The smaller red champion had fastened himself like a vice to his adversary's front, and through all the tumblings on that field never for an instant ceased to gnaw at one of his feelers near the root, having already caused the other to go by the board; while the stronger black one dashed him from side to side, and, as I saw on looking nearer, had already divested him of several of his members. They fought with more pertinacity than bulldogs. Neither manifested the least disposition to retreat. It was evident that their battle-cry was "Conquer or die." In the meanwhile there came along a single red ant on the hillside of this valley, evidently full of excitement, who either had despatched his foe, or had not yet taken part in the battle; probably the latter, for he had lost none of his limbs; whose mother had charged him to return with his shield or upon it. Or perchance he was some Achilles, who had nourished his wrath apart, and had now come to avenge or rescue his Patroclus. He saw this unequal combat from afar—for the blacks were nearly twice the size of the red—he drew near with rapid pace till he stood on his guard within half an inch of the combatants; then, watching his opportunity, he sprang upon the black warrior, and commenced his operations near the root of his right fore leg, leaving the foe to select among his own members; and so there were three united for life, as if a new kind of attraction had been invented which put all other locks and cements to shame. I should not have wondered by this time to find that they had their respective musical bands stationed on some eminent chip, and playing their national airs the while, to excite the slow and cheer the dying combatants. I was myself excited somewhat even as if they had been men. The more you think of it, the less the difference. And certainly there is not the fight recorded in Concord history, at least, if in the history of America, that will bear a moment's comparison with this, whether for the numbers engaged in it, or for the patriotism and heroism displayed. For numbers and for carnage it was an Austerlitz or Dresden. Concord Fight! Two killed on the patriots' side, and Luther Blanchard wounded! Why here every ant was a Buttrick—"Fire! for God's sake fire!"—and thousands shared the fate of Davis and Hosmer. There was not one hireling there. I have no doubt that it was a principle they fought for, as much as our ancestors, and not to avoid a three-penny tax on their tea; and the results of this battle will be as important and memorable to those whom it concerns as those of the battle of Bunker Hill, at least.

they talked to many working-class mothers who were totally invested in giving struggling children their best shot, even if that just meant keeping them in a mainstream high school program. Being a vigilante is of course easier for moms of means, but they’re a minority. The stereotype further buries the uncompensated labor of those working-class mothers who add full-time child advocacy to their list of jobs. Blum points out that single mothers find a special lack of support and extra judgment in a culture that still treats two-parent families as normal. All types engage in maternal bureaucratic vigilantism, but what happens to kids who don’t luck into having Erin Brockovich for a mom?

It’s not how much money you have that matters, it’s what you do with it. That’s how to become really rich. Let me give you an example of someone who is ridiculously rich, in every sense of the word. Let me introduce you to Dave. This is how Dave works: whenever he comes across great, everyday people, whoever they are - whether it’s a shy 17-year-old just leaving school with a longing to visit his absent father who now lives in Canada; or a plumber who has worked beyond the call of duty, been respectful and diligent, but who rarely gets to see his kids as he works so hard; or a single mother, a friend of a friend, who is struggling to balance a million things and multiple jobs and wishes she could treat her kids to something nice - Dave steps in. A bit like Superman! You see, Dave has worked hard in his life, and been rewarded with great wealth, but through it all he has learnt something far greater: that great wealth doesn’t make you rich unless you do great things with it. So Dave will secretly help people out in some special way. Maybe he pays for the young man’s plane fare to Canada to see his dad, or for the plumber to take his family on holiday, or the single mum to get a car. Anything that is beyond the norm, out of the ordinary - he does it. And you know what? It blows people away! Not only does Dave have the most loyal army of everyday people who would go to the ends of the Earth for him (and it is not because of the money he gave them, by the way, it is because he did something so far beyond the norm for them), but Dave is also the happiest man I have ever met. Why? Because it is impossible to live like this and not be ridiculously happy! It is in the giving that a person becomes rich. And that can start today, whatever point we are along the road of our goals. So don’t waste a chance to get rich quick by getting busy giving. Then stand back and watch the happiness unfold…

PRAYER With these inspirations in our hearts and minds, we turn to you, Jesus, and pray. Lord, help us to be constantly aware that life is precious. Liberate us from our life-wasting habits so that we can live life to the fullest. Nudge us when we feel tempted to waste a day or an hour, or even a few minutes. Remove any judgment from our hearts that causes us to think of ourselves as different from or better than others in any way. Warm our hearts so that we may see that it is within our power to help other people clean up their messes, and to act with the generous mercy you have shown us. Jesus, we offer this decade to you for our own mothers—living or deceased—and for all mothers. We pray for all the children who will be born today. May they each have at least one person in their lives to teach them to walk with you. We pray in a special way for single mothers and for all those couples struggling to conceive a child, and for all parents who have lost a child. Mary, pray for us and share your wisdom with all mothers. Amen.

Mothering Sunday At last, in spite of all, a recognition For those who loved and laboured for so long, Who brought us, through that labour, to fruition, To flourish in the place where we belong; A thanks to those who stayed and did the raising, Who buckled down and did the work of two, Whom governments have mocked instead of praising, Who hid their heart-break and still struggled through; The single mothers forced on to the edge, Whose work the world has overlooked, neglected, Invisible to wealth and privilege, But in whose lives the Kingdom is reflected. Now into Christ our mother Church we bring them, Who shares with them the birth-pangs of his Kingdom.

The Black kids of the city of Chicago; the gay kid who struggles with suicidal ideation; the single mothers; the prostitutes; the broken of society. The only way they will know is if we go,” Bunker preached. “They are not going to come to us. They don’t care about our steeples. They want to know, is my life redeemable? Does my life have purpose?

We’d done our part, risked our lives, and the lives of those we loved long enough taking back control of a corrupted government. We won far too many battles to consider our efforts a failure. And what we fought for were the people we once were and will become again, world citizens—Cecelia, the daughter of a single, struggling mother, and me, an orphan left in the wake of a greedy white-collar emperor who turned out to be a man with a heart a lot like mine. Our worlds collided as those people, and since, we’ve manifested a different reality. One that we worked a lifetime toward. We have enough birds up to continue our legacy or let it die out—the choice is theirs.

My son has had some struggles in life, but, well, who hasn’t? I made peace with the fact that I had done the best I could as a working single mother long ago. But I think Kory still feels like I loved my job more than I loved him.

Sierra was the daughter of my mother's baby boy and the great hope for the second generation of Spruces to evolve out of the efforts of my mother's earlier struggles in Toledo, Ohio where she herself had endeavored to raise her four children as a single-parent mother.

he would single out his prey, the needy children of poor, single mothers—struggling women who were thrilled to have a man in their sons’ lives, especially a priest.

prison. Duke Graham drove to the police station and provided a solid alibi. Debbie’s family was informed that the apartment she’d been renting needed to be vacated. Her mother was still not functioning. Her aunt Glenna Lucas volunteered for the unpleasant task. A policeman unlocked the apartment, and Glenna entered slowly. Nothing had been moved since the murder, and her first reaction was one of raw anger. There had obviously been a brawl. Her niece had fought desperately for her life. How could anyone inflict such violence on such a sweet, pretty girl? The apartment was cold, with an offensive smell, one she could not identify. The words “Jim Smith next will die” were still on the wall. Glenna gawked in disbelief at the killer’s badly scrawled message. It took time, she thought. He was here for a long time. Her niece had finally died after a brutal ordeal. In the bedroom, the mattress was against a wall and nothing was in place. In the closet, not a single dress or blouse was still on a hanger. Why would the killer strip all the clothing from the hangers? The small kitchen was disorganized but showed no signs of a struggle. Debbie’s last meal had included frozen potatoes—Tater Tots—and the leftovers sat untouched on a paper plate with catsup. A saltshaker was next to the plate, which was on the small white table she used for her meals. Near the plate was another crude message—“Don’t look fore us or ealse.” Glenna knew that the killer had used catsup for some of his writings. She was struck by the misspelled words. Glenna managed to block out the terrible thoughts and begin packing. It took two hours to collect and box the clothing and dishes and towels and such. The bloody bedspread had not

Year after year, bill after bill, Wilberforce spent his entire career introducing an endless series of legislative proposals to his colleagues in the British Parliament in his efforts to end slavery, only to have them defeated, one after the other. From 1788 to 1806, he introduced a new anti-slavery motion and watched it fail every single year, for eighteen years in a row. Finally the water wore down the rock: three days before Wilberforce’s death in 1833, Parliament passed a bill to abolish slavery not only in England but also throughout its colonies. Three decades later, a similar bill passed in the United States, spearheaded by another man of conscience who had also spent much of his life failing, a patient Illinois lawyer named Abraham. Deus ex machina? Far from it. These weren’t solutions that dropped out of the blue sky. They were the “sudden” result of long patient years of tireless repeated effort. There was no fictional deus ex machina happening here; these were human problems, and they had human solutions. But the only access to them was through the slight edge. Of course Wilberforce and Lincoln were not the sole figures in this heroic struggle, and even after their bills were passed into law on both sides of the Atlantic, the evils of slavery and racism were far from over. Rome wasn’t rehabilitated in a day, or even a century. But their efforts—like Mother Teresa’s efforts to end poverty, Gandhi’s to end colonial oppression, or Martin Luther King’s and Nelson Mandela’s to end racism—are classic examples of what “breakthrough” looks like in the real world. All of these real-life heroes understood the slight edge. None of them were hypnotized by the allure of the “big break.” If they had been, they would never have continued taking the actions they took—and what would the world look like today?

During that time, the world seemed completely unforgiving. I was a single father at age twenty-six, divorced after a meaningless marriage that had lasted a year. My mother had died young after a lifetime of misery. My father and I struggled to keep my son from the jaws of death. And all around me, I saw nothing but a kind of farcical futility. I could no longer really see the point of being alive.

By that decade, such interpretations were being made at a feverish pace, so that, in a single presidential address to the Folk-Lore Society in 1937, it could be suggested that pancake tossing on Shrove Tuesday had been a magical rite to make crops grow, team sports on that day had begun as ritual struggles representing the forces of winter dark and spring light, and Mother’s Day was a remnant of the worship of the prehistoric Corn Mother. 12 By now, some theorists were intervening in seasonal local customs and attempting to ‘correct’ them if aspects of the current performance did not fit the particular interpretation which the experts concerned were making of them as survivals of prehistoric religion. 13

Parish affairs and town affairs overlapped substantially. Church and state were not officially separated in Massachusetts until 1834, and as late as that date is, Concord did not comply with the new law until 1856. The church was no longer the only social force in town. When Emerson moved there, Concord had an exclusive group called the Social Circle, limited to twenty-five members, which went back to 1778 (and which still continues), and a library that had been started in 1794 and reorganized in 1821. There was a Female Charitable Society and a Society for the Suppression of Intemperance, both dating from 1814. By Emerson’s time there was a strong antislavery society, in which Cynthia Thoreau, mother of David Henry, was active. The women of Concord sent frequent petitions and memorials to the government in Washington. A lyceum was begun in 1828; it incorporated an earlier debating society. A Mozart society was founded in 1832. By 1835 Concord had sixty-six college graduates, with another four or five currently enrolled as undergraduates. The town itself had six school districts, with separate schools for boys and girls. The schoolhouses, one of which was directly across the street from the Emersons’ new house, were plain and bare, without paint or equipment. Heated by a single stove each, they were always too hot or too cold, and they struggled with an absentee rate that averaged 33 percent. There was a small, precariously maintained private academy for college-bound students.

Our national epidemic of “missing fathers” is not simply a problem of single mothers struggling without a husband. It’s also that of intact two-parent homes in which the father is morally absent from his children’s lives.

Material objects are transitory. The joy they bring is momentary and hollow . . . Strangely, my mantra wasn’t working right then. So, you’ve probably already guessed my secret. I had an addiction . . . or maybe a compulsion was the better word. I was a thief. A shoplifter. And the mere sight of consumer items small enough to conceal within the confines of a purse or a coat pocket gave me twitchy fingers like you wouldn’t believe. It was abhorrent, I knew that, and I struggled daily with my guilt. In fact, I’d been doing so well in my attempts to quit. To be a better person. Six months ago I’d moved to New York to begin a new job as a celebrity photographer/blogger/YouTuber, and I resolved to stop. It was my chance for a fresh start. I hadn’t stolen a single thing in all that time. Yes, the Big Apple remained untouched by my habit for five-finger discounts. And yet, there I stood, just itching to steal that flipping ridiculous bottle of nail polish. I knew the reason why, and her name began with a J. That would be Jackie Fitzpatrick, my mother, and provider of inferiority complexes everywhere. It was summer and I’d come home to Dublin for a visit, see my brother and his fiancée, meet up with some friends. The problem was, I’d committed to staying at Mam’s for the duration. I was only back a day before she started in with the usual comments. When are you ever going to meet a man and settle down? Those baggy jeans do nothing for your figure.

During a belated New Year’s cleaning, I come across my grad-school coursework on the Austrian psychiatrist Viktor Frankl. Scanning my notes, I begin to remember his story. Frankl was born in 1905, and as a boy, he became intensely interested in psychology. By high school, he began an active correspondence with Freud. He went on to study medicine and lecture on the intersection of psychology and philosophy, or what he called logotherapy, from the Greek word logos, or “meaning.” Whereas Freud believed that people are driven to seek pleasure and avoid pain (his famous pleasure principle), Frankl maintained that people’s primary drive isn’t toward pleasure but toward finding meaning in their lives. He was in his thirties when World War II broke out, putting him, a Jew, in jeopardy. Offered immigration to the United States, he turned it down so as not to abandon his parents, and a year later, the Nazis forced Frankl and his wife to have her pregnancy terminated. In a matter of months, he and other family members were deported to concentration camps, and when Frankl was finally freed, three years later, he learned that the Nazis had killed his wife, his brother, and both of his parents. Freedom under these circumstances might have led to despair. After all, the hope of what awaited Frankl and his fellow prisoners upon their release was now gone—the people they cared about were dead, their families and friends wiped out. But Frankl wrote what became an extraordinary treatise on resilience and spiritual salvation, known in English as Man’s Search for Meaning. In it, he shares his theory of logotherapy as it relates not just to the horrors of concentration camps but also to more mundane struggles. He wrote, “Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances.” Indeed, Frankl remarried, had a daughter, published prolifically, and spoke around the world until his death at age ninety-two. Rereading these notes, I thought of my conversations with Wendell. Scribbled in my grad-school spiral were the words Reacting vs. responding = reflexive vs. chosen. We can choose our response, Frankl was saying, even under the specter of death. The same was true of John’s loss of his mother and son, Julie’s illness, Rita’s regrettable past, and Charlotte’s upbringing. I couldn’t think of a single patient to whom Frankl’s ideas didn’t apply, whether it was about extreme trauma or an interaction with a difficult family member. More than sixty years later, Wendell was saying I could choose too—that the jail cell was open on both sides. I particularly liked this line from Frankl’s book: “Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.

PAPA", it's not only a name but an identity with our name. "PAPA" is not only our strength but a deep motivation from a very honest and hard-worker person, who used to struggle every single minute for our successful life. "PAPA" is a shop, where we can buy all the materials without any cost related to our needs and desires. "PAPA" is the name of a Prophet, who has been sent for us. "PAPA" is the only reason for our existence. It's only "PAPA" and his divine personality, who sacrificed his whole life, his youth, his time, his desires and his ambitions only for us. It's request from a very bewildered son for a good deal of mankind that don't even try to snatch the smile of that divine face, don't make them too muffled, don't let them to face those flopped and rumble attitudes. If you're too groggy for their happiness, then let them with their own sorrows and temptations.

All six children disappointed their father [Edward White Benson]. Martin, the eldest, was a paragon: brilliant at school, quiet, pious - his father's dream, He stuttered, which may reflect the strain of such perfection under such parents. His death at age seventeen tore a hole in his father that never healed. Nellie tried to be the perfect daughter - working with the poor, caring for her parents, gentle, but always willing to go for a hard gallop with her father for morning exercise. Her death at a young age, unmarried, was for the whole family an afterthought to the awfulness of Martin's loss. Arthur, Fred, and Hugh all found the Anglican religion of their father impossible. Arthur went to church, appreciated the music, the ceremony and its role in social order, but struggled with belief, even when he called out to God in the despair of his blackest depression. Fred was flippant and disengaged, and his first novel, Dodo, the hit of the season in 1893, outraged his father's sense of seriousness. Fred represented Britain at figure skating - a hobby that was as far as he could get from his father's ideals of social and religious commitment, the epitome of a 'waste of time.' Hugh's turn to the Roman Catholic Church was after his father's death - but like all the children, the fight with paternal authority never ceased. While his father was alive, Hugh muffed exams, wanted to go into the Indian Civil Service against his father's wished - he failed those exams too 0 and argued with everyone in the family petulantly. Maggie, too, was 'difficult': 'her friendships were seldom leisurely or refreshing things,' commented Arthur; Nellie more acerbic, added, 'If Maggie would only have an intimate relationship even with a cat, it would be a relief.' Her Oxford tutors found her 'remorseless.' At age twenty-five, still single, she did not know the facts of life. Over the years, her jealousy of her mother's companion Lucy Tait became more and more pronounced, as did her adoption of her father's expressions of strict disapproval. Her depressions turned to madness and violence, leading to her eventual hospitalization. There is another dramatic narrative, then, of the six children, all differently and profoundly scarred by their home life, which they wrote about and thought about repeatedly. Cross-currents of competition between the children, marked by a desperate need for intimacy, in tension with a restraint born of fear of violent emotion and profound distrust (at best) of sexual feeling, produced a fervid and damaging family dynamic. There is a story her of what it is like to grow up with a hugely successful, domineering, morally certain father, a mother who embodied the joys of intimacy but with other women - and of what the costs of public success from such a complex background are.