By RAMON PRESSON
For Brentwood Home Page
In 1966 there weren’t many single mothers in the suburbs of Winston-Salem, N.C.  My father left his young wife with an only child - -a son, on the cusp of his entering the first grade. We hadn’t been in our new house very long. For the next dozen or so years it would just be me and her, keeping up the house, maintaining the lawn, and holding on to an order of life.

I’m sure my Mom was upset, devastated, fearful, and angry but those reactions never so spilled over that it poisoned the water I drank from.  She didn’t complain endlessly, did not marinate in self-pity and did not vilify my father. At the time I had little frame of reference for the remarkable feat she was pulling off on a daily basis. I was the only kid I knew whose parents weren’t together. I didn’t know that most divorced parents continued sparring, especially over child support, custody and visitation.  If there were battles, I didn’t know about them.

I don’t remember being treated any differently by neighbors, teachers, friends, or Little League coaches. My Mom was never a sympathy-seeker and I’ve never had much of an appetite for it myself.  A layer of my Mom’s strength had to come from her childhood. She grew up in the years following the Great Depression with parents who were tenant tobacco farmers in Lewisville, NC.  Rooms were heated and food was cooked with wood-burning stoves, water was drawn from a well, and slipping to the restroom meant walking the trail to the outhouse next to the curing barn.

She doesn’t know how to ride a bike because she never owned one.  She loves the beach but never learned how to swim because swim teachers and lifeguards are scarce on the banks of the muddy Yadkin River.

She learned to be self-sufficient and to persevere.  As a young girl she learned to succeed and find other sources of nourishment when attention, encouragement and affirmation at home was in shorter supply than rain water in August.  She learned to be frugal, but not cheap.  She was always exceedingly generous to me, and still is.

She chose to be verbally and physically affectionate with her child, even though her own childhood experience was a bitterly cold contrast to such warmth. I knew I was loved because it was demonstrated in every way, notably self-sacrifice. And I seldom left the house in the morning or put my head down on the pillow of a day’s conclusion that I did not hear my mother tell me she loved me.

I know the cliché is that only children are spoiled.  I can only speak for myself and say I was not spoiled.  Unless having a woman give to her son the gift of being the healthiest single parent she could be is spoiling him. Unless allowing him to play every sport he wanted to and driving him to practices and games after she worked a full day is spoiling him. I once played basketball for three different teams in the same season, and she never once complained about the schedule and the shuttling. She was my biggest fan.

 She encouraged me to get all the education I could, saved money so I could attend Wake Forest.  She affirmed my going to grad school.  I’m hoping that next summer she’ll be able to attend my graduation ceremony as I receive my doctoral degree as it will certainly be dedicated to her. Dedicated to Frances Shelton Presson, who with only a high school education has served over 55 years as a trusted matriarch of one of the largest law firms in the Southeast, who taught me to make sure that it’s foolish to underestimate a Presson.

So I tip my hat to her and to all single mothers for being strong and loving your children well.

Marriage therapist and author, Ramon Presson, is the founder of LifeChange Counseling and the Marriage Center of Franklin  (www.LifeChangeCS.org)  Reach him at ramonpresson@gmail.com  or  (615) 319-6450