I am Superman and I can do anything…

… Well, no. Not exactly. I have limitations regardless of my developed immunity to Kryptonite.

One such limitation is that I am not a man. I can never be a man. And despite what my Feminist Theory professor believed, I can’t replace a man. This limitation prevents me from being a father. I can’t even pretend to be one.

If you are a single mother pretending to be both mother and father to your child, stop it. Stop it now. Quit being so hard on yourself. You don’t have to pretend to be a father, simply because there is nothing you will ever be able to do to fill that missing gap. So stop trying. Just be the best mother you can.

I understand single mother’s well intentions when they do this. I hear your lament and I know better than anyone how much work is involved in raising children alone. But you don’t have to work twice as hard to be two parents. So please, give yourselves a break.

Embrace your natural role of nurturer. Don’t muck it up with gender confusion. You don’t have to behave hard as nails and masculine. Your child will have a hard enough time understanding what it means to be a man in the absence of one at home. Don’t make it worse by confusing them on womanhood too.

Let’s examine same sex parents to illustrate an example. If you’ve ever noticed, in this dynamic you will have one partner assuming the feminine role of nurturer and the other will have the masculine role of disciplinary. This is the natural order of things and why same sex couples subconsciously assume these roles. We are wired this way. It is the way it is. You can’t force it or change it.

So mother’s, you will never be fathers and it is unnatural and fruitless to pretend you can be one or replace one.

Another temptation single mothers have is to dismiss the importance of fathers all together. They feel it will lessen the sting of rejection if they tell their child, “It’s ok Daddy’s not around. We don’t need him.”

Now think about that. If you have a son you are raising him to believe that being a father is not an important vocation. Will this son grow up to value the role of father in his own marriage? Will this son, should fatherhood be thrust upon him through unplanned circumstances, be compelled to step up and assume a role he’s been told all his life is unimportant? No. You can blame the perpetual cycle of fatherless children on men, or you can examine the mother’s negative attitude toward men that has been ingrained into her children.

And if you have a daughter what respect for men are you instilling in her if she’s repeatedly told her daddy’s not important. The last thing this world needs is more man hating feminists.

I’m not trying to give single mother’s a hard time with this post. I’m giving them permission to ease up on themselves. I’m letting you off the hook. Don’t be something you are not; just be the best mother and woman you can be and the rest will take of itself. Trust me.

No, strike that. Trust God.