I am a horrible Father…

Single Parenting is not for me.

I don’t know how you other single moms and military moms do it.

The past 4 months have been exhausting and extremely taxing on my nerves and my patience level. I worry that I am doing an awful job. I fear that Little Man isn’t getting everything he needs, with the male influence being absent. It scares me to think that our decision has effected him more seriously than we initially assumed.

He’s had nightmares. He’s cried for long periods of time wanting his daddy. Even screaming for his daddy at times. When his nightmares first started, he would wake up and I would hear him calling for Hubby.

And then other days he is fine. He talks to Hubby on the webcam, he talks to him on the phone. He points to his pictures and acknowledges that that is his daddy. He’ll even walk around the house and talk to him…basically carrying on his own little conversations about his daddy. I have no clue what he’s saying most of the time, but occasionally I will catch the phrases, “da-da” and “my daddy” in with these thought patterns.

I am not a father figure.

I don’t do sports or dirt or cars or tools or any of the other masculine things in life that Hubby so eloquently succeeds in. I do nurturing and cooking and quiet indoor play [which is very, very rare…the quiet part that is.] I’m really bad at the gun noises, the ‘vroom-vroom’ noises, the airplane noises and simulating war with the miniature army men that have invaded our house. I can’t throw a spiral with the football. So being ‘daddy’ isn’t really my thing.

I feel like I have let myself baby Little Man in some ways more than I should have. Almost like I have felt guilty for what he is going through. We-hubby and I-made this choice to better our family, but Little Man isn’t old enough to get that. I know he will at some point. But right now, I feel like I have to make it up to him.

That’s why I let him hold onto his bottle habit for so long. {We DID finally kick that habit a few weeks ago. He put it down all on his own!! Such a big boy!} I discipline him, but probably not as much as I should. He gets spankings when he acts bad, and usually when he throws his little tantrums, if I ignore the fit he’s throwing, he stops.

But I worry.

I worry non-stop about Little Man. And how this is effecting him. I worry that he is afraid his daddy isn’t coming home. I worry that he feels abandoned. I worry that I’m not doing what I need to for him. That he’s missing out on something important. And I worry that my parenting skills, my individual skills as a mother, aren’t enough.

What about you? What aspects of your life do you worry effect your children more than you would want? What parts of your parenting style do you worry about the most?