Our first camping trip as a single-parent family proved quite the adventure.
Night rushed down the mountain, greeting my four sons and me as we pulled into an open campsite for the weekend. I roused them and sent them looking for firewood before darkness settled in.
I felt strange, setting up the tent alone. As a new single parent, it would become a familiar feeling.
My thoughts were interrupted by the sound and sight of a roaring fire the guys had started from a previous camper’s embers – without me or matches! Our adventure as a new family was off to a great start.
We enjoyed the weekend thoroughly. We hiked, took pictures, relaxed and by Monday morning, the boys didn’t want to leave. I cleaned up camp while they enjoyed their last moments in the mountains throwing stones into the creek.
Then my three-year-old started screaming. His six-year-old brother hadn’t quite been able to throw a huge rock all the way to the stream below, but hit the toddler in the head. With no skull fractures or blood, I put ice on his wound and tried to calm everyone as we headed to the emergency room two hours away.
As I watched the guys playing in the hotel pool together that evening, I thanked the Lord for being with them during their adventures (and headaches). A rewarding, though difficult, journey lay ahead if we could adjust well to life’s challenges.
Making the most of the mundane
Single parenting still involves all the mundane chores of a two-parent household. It can be exhausting. Rather than burning out emotionally, physically and financially by trying to be a “Disneyland Dad,” I tried to make the most out of ordinary situations to develop good relationships with my sons.
I took them grocery shopping with me, a fate worse than death for most males, no less a small gang of boys! But we made it fun. In large grocery warehouses, I packed all four of them onto a flatbed cart and piled the groceries on them. They loved turning corners while clutching the groceries!
When only smaller carts were available, I pushed the cart so quickly (but carefully) that my small tribe had to run to keep up. Whining and running are not easy to do simultaneously!
Eating out was seldom and simple. We really enjoyed those 29-cent hamburger specials and $1.99 chicken-fried steak meals.
Connecting with each other
Rather than focusing on making lots of money or dating, I looked for opportunities my sons and I could share together.
All my boys liked baseball, so I spent hundreds of hours and lots of money investing in them through baseball practices and games, bats, gloves and team fees. They enjoyed playing hard and I think that helped them release some of their frustration and sorrow about their parents’ divorce. Baseball also forced me to focus on encouraging, rather than correcting them, because I had never played the game.
Connecting with community
Accepting help from others was a difficult but crucial adjustment. Church members would send us home with leftovers from church potlucks.
But the church offered more than occasional food and financial assistance. My boys also observed couples relating to each other and their children – which were opportunities to rebuild perceptions of a healthy family.
A weekend family camp was one of our favourite times of the year. Nestled high in the Rocky Mountains, we stayed in a lodge or even a 12-man tent, ate great food (always important for active boys!), sang, worshipped, talked, kayaked and fished together. Family Olympics were the best for a family of all guys.
Another favourite, life-changing adventure was the Canadian fishing trip our church sponsored for fathers and sons. While they enjoyed the incredible fishing and great outdoors, they also watched how other fathers and sons interacted.
Now three of them have begun their own adventures in college, and I continue a family journey with them in another new role: a proud and encouraging coach. From that first camping trip until now, choosing to live this new life as an adventure with God and my boys was one of the most important decisions I’ve made.