Smashing Single Parenthood

Sunday 23 May 2021

“Smile though your heart is aching
Smile even though it’s breaking
When there are clouds in the sky, you’ll get by
If you smile through your fear and sorrow
Smile and maybe tomorrow
You’ll see the sun come shining through for you…”

Composer: Charlie Chaplin with lyrics by Turner and Parsons

I am sure that at one time or another, we’ve all tried to fake a brave smile in the face of adversity. But is that notion of cheerily ploughing on come what may, the quintessential ‘British stiff upper lip’, always good for you?

Well, ‘yes’ says Nabin Paudyal in Life Hack’s ‘10 reasons you should smile more often.‘ He argues that smiling not only reflects happiness but that it can also trick your brain into actually feeling happier. And countless other writers agree. Why to many, the seemingly simple smile is unrivalled in it powers. From making you more attractive and a better leader to claims that it can even prolong your life. Let’s get grinning right now everyone?

But ‘no’ counters Live Science’s Agate Blaszczak-Boxe in the article Why Smiling Too Much May Be Bad for You, where it it proposed that smiling too much when you are ‘faking it’ can actually make you feel worse. The conclusion here is that , “Whether a wide grin will hurt your emotional well-being depends on the motivation behind it,...”

So I really don’t know but I do think, as I look back as some old family photos that the false smile, for me and my teens, is pretty easy to spot. Here goes!

It’s all about the second photo for me. First Communion for my Eldest, a few weeks after ex Hub left the family home. Gosh we look a tense and nervous quartet. Unsure, uncertain and uncomfortable. I recall that the children’s dad did not come and so we presented ourselves to the world, for the first time, in the most family-orientated of settings, as a lone parent unit. Which sounds as if it would have been very daunting. But I have to be honest… only ‘sounds as if’…. because, on a very startling note, I remember absolutely nothing else about any emotions on the day. Were we feeling sad and sacred? Were we worrying about the unknown future that lay ahead? I’d be lying if I claimed I knew!

So if this is you, currently finding the strength to face a conventional world as a slightly different version of the norm, take heart! Try not to worry. It probably is going to be alright, by which I mean, as alright as anyone else. For life is an ever-changing , up and down experience for us all. I actually love the fact that we have a picture from one of the tough times along the way because it makes me feel proud of the progress we have made since as a family. As you see, just 3 short years later, in a picture taken to mark the move into our new house in the NorthWest, we look far more relaxed and together. And by 2019, on a wonderful holiday in the Sun, happier and stronger together.

So I plan to smile…or not smile as the mood takes me. But I will keep taking the pictures and will not shy away from the ones that show the trickier times in life, when the grins are a little more strained and those beams heart-breakingly brave. Because they will remind me that, if we stick together and face the challenges with those we love, more often than not, there will be better times around the corner…