5. From the Hub...

My parents divorced…WooHooo!!!

Divorce sucks and it tears apart families, we are all agreed, but not everyone wishes their parents had stayed married.

When I was a child I never wished my parents were still married, and as an adult I am grateful every day my parents divorced.

My sisters and I were raised by our Mother and this is our story…

We grew up on the poorer side of a middle class neighborhood; we did not worry about being shot, jumped, or violated in any way when we stepped past our front door. We freely rode our bicycles up and down any street, we played on playgrounds that were well maintained, drug free and free of questionable adults loitering about, and we swam at friends pool’s or at the local community pool that had a high dive and full time lifeguards.

We lived in apartments, rented houses, and with our grandma. We cleaned house on Saturday’s, usually during commercial breaks of whatever classic movie my mother was watching, and we always finished with plenty of daylight to spare. Then there were the Saturday’s when nothing got done, because we went to the beach instead!

New clothes were bought on sale before every new school year and again at Christmas, but name brand labels were no where to be found, except for the occasional pair of “please Mama please” sneakers…my finest begging and pleading moment was in 1982 for the most awesome pair of pink and black Vans ever!

Because money was tight…we did not have soda in our house; it was always homemade iced tea. No chips or store bought snacks; instead our mother would pop popcorn on the stove like a pro. We ate a lot of hamburger and tuna helper, but our mother always made sure we ate our veggies (real ones – no peas or corn for us). Every Sunday we had a traditional southern dinner with our grandparents. For a special treat we made homemade hot fudge sundaes; generic vanilla ice cream, chocolate syrup, and cocktail peanuts. And last, but not least, was the special way every beach day ended…with a Wendy’s Frosty for every one of us!

Our mother did the best she could, sometimes working two jobs, to keep a roof over our heads and food in our bellies. She loved us unconditionally, she had an easy way about her, she always had a sense of humor, and she never brought a strange man into our home. It was always the four of us, no one came between us, but many friends were welcomed through the years to make themselves at home. Everyone used my mother’s first name, not because she wanted to seem cool, but because the last thing our mother wanted to be was a stuffy parent that would make you feel awkward…our home was warm, inviting, relaxed, and casual.

We struggled, we had a part-time and eventually an absentee dad, we did not have everything handed to us, we always had to be aware of money, we did not have the perfect house, and we knew that no one was going to save us.

We were rich in love, laughter and support, we learned how to work for what we needed and wanted, we did not make our lives about material possessions or worry about what others thought of what we did or did not have, and we all learned by our mother’s example that sometimes making the difficult decision is the only way to be free and the struggle if often well worth the reward.

Our mother put her children first, her career second, and her romantic relationship was private and not part of our daily lives.

Our mother had a successful career and none of us have “mommy” issues, her grandchildren and great grandchild think she is awesome, and our mother is still the cheerful and optimistic flirt she has always been.

Being happy and self confident is inevitable when you are blessed with a Mother who loves you unconditionally, without judgment, and supports and encourages you every step of the way…I would not trade my family or the way I grew up with anyone in the world.

Our story would have been much darker and depressing had our parents stayed married, and our family would be the very definition of dysfunctional.

Divorce saved us, all of us.

Originally published on HubPages ~ October 2011