A Complete Guide for Single Dads

Everything You Need to Know About Raising Healthy, Happy Children On Your Own

By Craig W. Baird

Want to help animals and the world? Here are a dozen easy suggestions you and your family can implement today:

• Adopt and rescue a pet from a local shelter.
• Support local and no-kill animal shelters.
• Plant a tree to honor someone you love.
• Be a developer — put up some birdhouses.
• Buy live, potted Christmas trees and replant them.
• Make sure you spend time with your animals each day.
• Save natural resources by recycling and buying recycled products.
• Drink tap water, or filter your own water at home.
• Whenever possible, limit your use of or do not use pesticides.
• If you eat seafood, make sustainable choices.
• Support your local farmers market.
• Get outside. Visit a park, volunteer, walk your dog, or ride your bike.

Five years ago, Atlantic Publishing signed the Green Press Initiative. These guidelines promote environmentally friendly practices, such as using recycled stock and vegetable-based inks, avoiding waste, choosing energy-efficient resources, and promoting a no-pulping policy. We now use 100-percent recycled stock on all our books. The results: in one year, switching to post-consumer recycled stock saved 24 mature trees, 5,000 gallons of water, the equivalent of the total energy used for one home in a year, and the equivalent of the greenhouse gases from one car driven for a year.

Dedication

Table of Contents

Foreword
Introduction
Section 1: Dealing With Divorce and Widowhood
Chapter 1: Legal Issues in Divorce — Custody, Child Support, and More
Chapter 2: Helping the Kids Cope
Chapter 3: Working With Your Ex-Spouse
Chapter 4: Widowhood
Section 2: Balancing Life
Chapter 5: Facing Your Job As A Single Parent
Chapter 6: Child Care
Chapter 7: Managing Stress
Section 3: The Roles of the Father
Chapter 8: Doctor
Chapter 9: Cook
Chapter 10: Disciplinarian
Section 4: Meeting The Challenges
Chapter 11: Dealing With A Son
Chapter 12: Dealing With A Daughter
Chapter 13: Dating Again
Conclusion
Appendix A
Appendix B
Bibliography
Author Biography

Foreword

In 1996, my “feat of feet” — running almost 2,100 miles from Minneapolis to Atlanta at the Summer Olympics of Atlanta’s opening ceremonies — was thought to be an impossible trek. I was told by doctors and seasoned runners that it was truly impossible to accomplish. Nevertheless, my goal was to run the equivalent of a marathon each day for 75 consecutive days to honor single parents and their kids. I was 57 years old and had never run more than a 10K in my life, but that did not stop me. I trained for 17 months, and many times went home at night to cough up blood while my body tried to make the pain stop. Halfway through my training, I had a heart attack, but returned to my training three weeks later.

I decided to complete this enormous task and write a book about it after my beautiful wife, Sue, passed away from breast cancer in her mid-30s. After she passed, I knew I would need help — for the emotional pain and for simple hugs. I knew it would be very hard. All I knew was work — I did not know how to cook meals or know how to shop for my kids’ clothes. This book — Craig Baird’s A Complete Guide for Single Dads: Everything you Need to Know About Raising Healthy, Happy Children On Your Own — will teach you all of that, so you won’t have to fumble as I did.

I was raised by grandparents who told me every day that nothing in life is impossible. Running to Atlanta was sort of like running home. Two of my three children were born in Atlanta, I worked for The Coca-Cola Company for eight years at its corporate offices, and to me the Olympics meant anything could be made possible. You must have faith to be able to accomplish what I did, but the mental part was also tough and could have easily destroyed my thinking, had it not been for my personal faith in God.

Baird’s book comes at an opportune time — fathers need advice, help, and support. It is not easy to be a single dad, whether through divorce or widowhood. This book will teach you about divorce law, finding an attorney for custody, cooking, disciplinarian techniques, and how to communicate with your kids. You will learn how to raise kids whether you have support from an ex-spouse or not. Many single fathers also want to give back, tell their stories, and help others. This guide contains several stories from single fathers, along with tips from grief counselors and stories from children raised by single dads. I found that single fathers are, many times, lost in what to do and how to raise their kids. They need help, answers, and direction.

I certainly wish I had Baird’s guide beside me on those many tough days and nights after my wife passed. It is a complete guide for all the many issues I faced, and then some. Every single father should read this many times over.

Terry Hitchcock
Single father and author of
A Father’s Odyssey: 75 Marathons
in 75 Consecutive Days
www.terryhitchcock.com

Table of Contents

Introduction

Whether a man becomes a father as a result of divorce or death, there is always a difficult road ahead. Many fathers find the task of being a single parent overwhelming at first. They need to be a mother and a father, a cook and a friend, a disciplinarian and a teacher. There can be so much to learn and so much to know initially — many fathers wonder if they will get through it.

However, fathers do get through it and learn about their children, become a role model, and have relationships with their kids they never thought possible. It can be tough being a single father, but there have been many in the past who have done a good job. Single fathers need to find ways to adapt to their new circumstances, and they need to adapt fast. It can be hard when you wonder if you are doing a good job, but that is why there is help out there like this book. There are many organizations that help single fathers, to give them a firm foundation of understanding that will allow the fathers to raise their children in a proper manner.

Becoming a single father is something that changes your life completely. All the tasks that were once done together are now done by the father alone. It is a daunting change and a difficult thing to work through. Fathers can become a single parent through divorce or widowhood; both events are challenging, and more and more fathers are going through it. About 100,000 men a year become widowers. About half of all marriages in the United States end in divorce.

When children are involved, divorce is far from a simple matter. Fathers both need custody of their children and to have a relationship with them. However, custody courts usually favor mothers, leaving fathers with partial or no custody. Movements have been started, like the Fathers’ Rights Movement, to help balance the custody playing field, but it can still be hard.

Single fathers often struggle in the beginning, but it forges a stronger bond with their children in the end. If a father loses his wife because of death, he will love his children that much more because they are his last link to his lost wife. If he loses his wife through divorce, he will love his children that much more because he wants to show them that no matter what happens, he is always there for them.

There is a lot to being a single father. Some of the hats you will wear include:

• Being a teacher and a role model by helping your children through their schooling.

• Being a disciplinarian by giving your children rules and boundaries that they need to follow.

• Being a cook and ensuring that your children eat right and lead healthy lives through the meals you make them.

• Being a friend to your children by playing with, encouraging, and bonding with them.

Fathers are the role models that children have. They allow children to see the world through their father’s eyes from an early age. As a father, the example you set for your children is based on the actions you display in front of them. They say that a father is not a father simply because of the birth of a child: A father must earn the right to be called a father.

As a father, it is up to you to ensure that your children get a good foundation for their lives. You can teach them about being kind to others, respecting the rules, and being good sports through everything in life. As a single father, it can be hard to do these things, especially when it comes to discipline, but your children look up to you. Even in their teen years when they want nothing to do with you, your children will look at you and respect you.

There are many things that you have to think about when you are a single father. These include ways to keep your children busy, who is going to baby-sit the children when you are at work, when to have the sex talk with them, and what to do when they hit puberty. Puberty can be a trying time for a single father. You have to deal with issues that you may not want to talk about, or that you do not really know much about, especially with a daughter. However, this is a unique time for your children and they need to know that what is happening to them is normal. You cannot rely on school to teach them the basics. They need to hear it from their father.

Beyond these trials and tribulations, being a father is an incredibly rewarding time of life. You will look back at being a single father and remember the great times you have had. There will be tough times and sad times, but overall the experience will leave you stronger and a better person for it. Years down the road, whether you are divorced or widowed, your children will look back on the time they spent with you as children of a single father and know you did your best in often trying circumstances.

You will find myriad resources in this book, such as cooking tips, information about bonding with your kids, how to handle stress, and how to handle discipline. Being a single father is a slippery slope, but this book will give you some traction to find your footing and raise children you can be proud of, and who will be proud of you.

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