Single Mothers Finding Balance + Wellness
A conversation with Dr. Catricia, a bilingual pediatrician and empowering coach for single moms.
It is well known that motherhood, although rewarding, is a challenging journey to undertake. In sitting down with Dr. Catricia, we were able to discuss motherhood through the lens of the single mother. Dr. Catricia is a board certified bilingual pediatrician with additional fellowship training in urgent care medicine for pediatric care and asthma care for pediatrics. She is also a new mom with a business in coaching single mothers to better enjoy their experience in motherhood.
Can you expand on how you help single mothers in your program?
Dr. Catricia: I take single mothers from a state of feeling so overwhelmed with the chaos of motherhood (i.e. having to do it all, not being able to parent with a lot of calm) to a place of more peace, more calm, and just being able to competently cultivate their dreams.
A lot of times as mothers, whether we're single or not, we can feel stuck in motherhood because we push our passions and desires aside to go through a forced resilience to survive instead of thrive. So, I'm all about empowering mothers, especially single mothers to thrive.
Dr. Amber: In addition to this, there is also a fundamental lack of compassion for mothers. In my empower wellness program, there are single mothers who participate. However, since I am not a single mom, there is the desire to better support and understand their experience.
“Self care is not about luxurious treatments all the time. It is about taking the time to rejuvenate your mind and body from the stresses you endure daily. For the curious single moms, there is this preconceived notion that one must have an excessive amount of money and resources in order to take care of themselves. Self care can simply be having your child play in their room while you sit in your bed and go read a book for 10 minutes. Self care can also be partnering with other moms agreeing to watch each other’s kids so that each mom has the opportunity to relieve their stress. It is a matter of being attentive to what sparks joy in you.”
From your point of view, why is it important to talk about empowering single moms and what caused you to dedicate yourself to this type of work?
Dr. Catricia: That is a great question. When I think about empowerment, it uplifts the next woman right alongside you, or even a couple steps behind you. Life is hard with or without a child. Therefore, when you're doing that as a single mom, you can get in this place of feeling absolutely overwhelmed. I know that is my personal story even as a medical professional. I knew I had the symptoms of postpartum depression, however, I continued to silently just push through because of this forced resilience and sense that you have to push through for your child. There was no break, there was no one to relieve me because I don't co-parent. For years I went through this overwhelming feeling of chaos and thought to myself, ‘oh my gosh, [I’m] feeling stuck and losing myself, like who am I?’
It took me years to realize that I had to be intentional about loving myself first. I had to teach myself that there is nothing inherently selfish about practicing self love and self care. I came to the realization that if I didn’t pour into myself, I could not be there for the people who depended on me the most. With that came doing the work like therapy and of course, finding my village. To sum up, whether you're co-parenting or the other parent is not involved, you have to find that community that you trust. For your child needs to thrive as well, they need other adult guardians to be able to pour into their spirit.
Dr. Catricia, a bilingual pediatrician and empowering coach for single moms.
Dr. Amber: Within our programs we hold the same core values in which you have to be understanding all of your identities outside of motherhood and outside of your profession. To add on, it was stated that it takes a village to raise a child which I wholeheartedly agree with. Sometimes we forget that it's important for our kids to have relationships with other people outside of us.
Dr. Catricia: Right, I see it now that [my daughter] has her own relationship, with her grandparents, her classmates, [and even] her extended cousins. When we were in Miami, we didn't have that big group of friends, but she was too young to understand or to remember. Now it just makes sense for her to have these old relationships for herself.
Dr. Amber: Even though there are a lot of similarities between Dr. Catricia’s teachings and the teachings in the empower wellness program, Balanced Working Mama, in regards to motherhood and what moms need, there are definitely some unique challenges and experiences that single moms face.
From your work with moms, what are the more unique experiences that single moms face in parenting?
Dr. Catricia: There is a stereotype that single moms are expected to do it all, accordingly, we enter into that role with the superwoman mentality. Again, this forced resiliency will cause an inevitable burn out. On that account, that is definitely a unique challenge where you are not able to separate your mom role, your professional role and your self-care role. In other words, finding that balance. [For single moms] there is no off switch. You go from your professional life to your mom life, and they often merge together. For example, my toddler has asked me to open a snack while I was in the shower because there was no one else for her to ask. Sometimes that may be my only five minutes of self care time as well. So finding that balance of really being able separate the different roles that you have as a single parent is very hard. You have to find that time of peace. I speak on that a lot in my program with my single mothers. There are going to be some things that may appear to be neglected in the home and that is okay. You may just have to find a way to outsource help to assist with the cleaning or tidying of the home.
Dr. Amber: With the mention of forced resiliency, I can’t help but think of how fitting a name it is. As a mother, there is no break, and no other person to take the burden off. As previously stated, your child may come to you in the shower and ask you to do something. At Balanced Working Mamas, we have a mom with a unique story who also had a forced resiliency. She entered motherhood by caring for her sister and she's essentially a single mom. We had to talk about the boundaries around certain things, communicating with other people about the expectation of doing it alone, and how it was unrealistic.
Dr. Catricia: A lot of times single mothers are burdened by doing it all alone. From the outside, they put on this facade of being strong and not asking for the help they need because to ask represents failure. However, even if help is offered, they often don't receive it as they should. Again, oftentimes help is equated with thoughts of failing because it is expected of moms to be able to do this alone. We have to remember that it takes a village to raise a child, and release ourselves from that pressure, that burden, and that mom guilt. We must not equate community that with failure because it is not a failure. It is imperative to remember your capacity and remember that you can't pour out of an empty cup.
You're still a human and to recognize that does not mean that you love your child less and it doesn't mean you're less of a mother. You have your own individual spirit and purpose. Often this principle can get lost in single parenting. So, remember to give yourself grace because just as we aren’t meant to go through life alone neither are we meant to go through life parenting alone. So, the question then becomes: how can we make the best of it and thrive while going through it?”
Dr. Amber: To reiterate Dr. Catricia’s point, you can do the things that you want and have these dreams and passions, we just have to help you through the journey. There was another mom in the empower wellness program who was a single mom for many years. Now she's partnered and discussed how hard it was for her to go through that transition of being a single mom for so long. Now having a partner, she spent a lot of time not knowing what to do with the partner. Her experience was also that utilizing help meant failure on her part because she had been doing it on her own for so long. She had to adjust to such a big transition.
Dr. Catricia: I can only imagine since I haven't transitioned into that space yet. Through my experience with courtship as a single mom I think about how I would be able to create that space to allow them to feel welcomed. Even outside of a romantic partnership, I struggle with asking for support from my own family. I sometimes find myself worrying about flitting between the two extremes of asking for help. On one side of the extreme, you have the single mom who wants to do it all but gets to a breaking point. On the other side of the extreme, you have the single mom who is not around because she feels she didn't get to live her life to the fullest. The middle ground is the mom who realizes that it is okay for her to have her alone time.
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What have you found to be the best ways to empower and support single moms?
Dr. Catricia: As a fellow single mother, the most important thing is for that mother to come to the realization that she has to own her story. With my story, I suffered in silence with postpartum depression with this a sense of failure when it came to acknowledging why I felt that way. I had to come to terms with the fact that I didn’t see myself in the stereotypical American culture lifestyle that came with a white picket fence and 2.5 children. I saw myself as being a successful professional. It wasn't until I started sharing my story, that I was able to start doing the inner healing and liberate myself from all of the thoughts that were attached to the mom guilt, feelings of failure and bitterness. Acknowledge where you are and what you want your story to be. To sum up, the first thing for them to do is to own their story. Secondly, establish a community. As previously mentioned, you still need that village to help your child when you can not help them yourself. Lastly, understand where you thrive from. My purpose is now empowering other single moms. After struggling with postpartum depression, I was able to thrive because I did the work for the growth mindset. Those are all important aspects that I utilized as tools to empower single moms.
Dr. Amber: As mentioned, it is important to teach moms to own their stories. However, this made me think of the judgments and critiques single moms have to endure. As previously stated, there was a lot of guilt and shame that Dr. Catricia had to work through in terms of envisioning her life outside of the traditional American standard. It is unfortunate that our single moms have to go through that. The growth mindset was also touched on, which is important for our single moms because there are a lot of opinions that are being projected onto them from other people. Since others’ mindset is limited about what they believe that a single mom can achieve, they in turn put these limitations on these mothers. We need to have a growth mindset in terms of what we want for our lives and our families, while also believing that these things are possible.
Dr. Catricia: There are a lot of limitations that are placed on single mothers. However, there are successful single moms who are living fulfilling and successful lives. A mother’s happiness doesn't stop when she becomes a mother. Happiness is taking control of your narrative and making the best of your situation. That in itself is empowering. There is a quote from Brene Brown that says, “loving ourselves through a process of owning our story is the bravest thing you can ever do.” When you find a village to support you in sharing your story you will realize that your story is not for you to hold inside, it's for you to share with the world.
Dr. Amber: In agreement with that, it is empowering and uplifting for not only us who share our story, but also for the people who hear it. It helps to release some limitations that the listener might have and lead them to having a growth mindset
What would you have to teach our single moms to parent in purpose more?
Dr. Catricia: To begin with, you need to love yourself first and fearlessly even through the messy parts. If you can not appreciate yourself as you are with all your flaws, then you can not become who you were created to be, which is how I define purpose. Loving ourselves, having self awareness, and healing that inner child causes us to refrain from parenting from a place of trauma and past pain. With parenting in purpose you parent from a place of love and understanding. As a pediatrician and a parent coach, I really focus on understanding our children and their purpose. Therefore when you love yourself first, you can be the best version of yourself for you and for them.
Tip number two is to be intentional with self care. When I fell into that trap of depression I was neglecting self care. I was a mom who went and overworked herself at the hospital. Then, I would go home and nurse my child at night. There was no break which caused me to burn out fast. Self care is not about luxurious treatments all the time. It is about taking the time to rejuvenate your mind and body from the stresses you endure daily. For the curious single moms, there is this preconceived notion that one must have an excessive amount of money and resources in order to take care of themselves. Self care can simply be having your child play in their room while you sit in your bed and go read a book for 10 minutes. Self care can also be partnering with other moms agreeing to watch each other’s kids so that each mom has the opportunity to relieve their stress. It is a matter of being attentive to what sparks joy in you.
Thirdly, you should always practice giving yourself grace. As a single parent, you often have to roll with the punches a lot. Therefore, if you serve your kids macaroni and pizza rolls on Friday night then that shouldn’t make you feel like a bad parent. That's what grace is about. Give yourself the chance to do the things that make your life easier without feeling guilty for it.You can't learn to have peace in that area while you're waiting for the things to change.”
Dr. Amber: Sometimes it feels controversial to say “love yourself first” because our society teaches us to alway put your children first. However, we have to realize that if you are not taking care of yourself, you can not give as much to your kids. This is why being intentional with self-care is so important because it allows you to give your child the best version of you.
Dr. Catricia: As we live, we should be continuing to evolve as parents and as adults. I believe parents are their children’s first teachers, but I also believe that your children can teach you and there's a lot that you can learn about yourself in that transition from adulthood to parenthood. For example, I'm not the same person since having kids, nor should I want to be the same person. As my daughter continues to grow, I, too, shall continue to evolve.
How can we support the single moms in our lives better?
Dr. Catricia: The first one that comes to top of my mind is to genuinely be there to check in on them. It is important to be sincere when you're checking in on them and volunteering your support. Be available for her family because [her requests can happen at any time. We're living in pandemic times, but during the holidays that definitely could be a time of triggering emotions. So, extend that invitation to them when you're doing gatherings. Another suggestion I have has to do with helping her be intentional about self care. A couple of things that you could do to help would be to volunteer as often as your schedule allows to take the kids off her hands for a little while. If you're unable to do this try to purchase her an annual subscription to a grocery delivery service. A lot of single moms don't have all the resources they need because there is only one stream of income coming into the home. In summary, that would be my suggestion to support her. Make sure to check in on her, offer your time, or even purchase something for her because it helps her pour into herself.
Where can these moms find you if they want to reach out or connect with you?
Dr. Catricia: I can be found on my website, which is www.drmomsageadvice.com. From there it takes you to my different social media handles. I'm also on Clubhouse quite often where my handle is @singlemomcoach. On Thursday and Sunday evenings I talk a lot in rooms about conscious parenting with the redefining black parenting group.
Hi there! I’m Dr. Amber Thornton.
I’m a Clinical Psychologist, Motherhood Wellness Consultant, wife, and mama to 2 amazing little ones.
My mission is simple: to help working mothers balance work, motherhood, and wellness. I want to completely change the narrative of what is possible for working mothers.
Learn more about how we can work together!
