You can’t be ‘both mother and father’ to your child. It’s biologically and emotionally impossible. What you can be is a mother who burns the candle at both ends, pulling double-duty to make sure the impact of a father’s absence is acknowledged and alleviated through attentive care, counseling, and ties with extended family, community members, and friends who will help your child understand that he is capable of happiness, wholeness, healthy self-esteem, and immeasurable self-worth.

What you can be is wise. And a wise single mother knows that her role is not to compensate for a father’s absence by mimicking what she perceives as ‘male’ presence — discipline, protectiveness, healthy aggression — but to give her children the best of her feminine energy and to ensure that her children grow to love and respect the men she trusts to help her protect, mentor, and influence them.