There are so many single parents who don’t have a co-parent involved in their lives. And that means one parent needs to take on two very important roles. We’re so excited to discuss this book “Becoming Mama-Dad: How God Fathers Through Single Mothers” written by Solo Parent team member Marissa Lee. She tackles the very big question of “How does one balance taking on the role of both mom and dad?”.
Following marital strife and the shocking death of her husband, Marissa suddenly found herself as a single mom to her two boys. They were eight and ten at the time. She was overwhelmed by her new role and plagued by a sense of inadequacy. And she has gifted us this book about her journey of guiding her boys into manhood.
Many people can relate to your story, not only because some listeners are widows or widowers, but you also had to deal with betrayal before your husband’s death. Can you walk us through the days leading up to his passing? What had been going on in the marriage?
My marriage to Bill was a difficult marriage. While we both loved each other very much, there was a lot of arguing, a lot of fighting. I did not like the way that he treated me. And I found out some things about six months before he died—that, for me, I was done. I could not continue to be treated that way. And he wasn’t willing to make changes; [there was] betrayal and lies. It could have been a Lifetime movie. And I was very, very hurt. I was very concerned about my kids and my husband. As things were uncovered about what he was doing, he spiraled out of control more and more. His behavior was very erratic, very unpredictable. And eventually I filed for divorce. I said, “I just can’t do this anymore.” I said, “You need help. I cannot be the person who can give you help. Please go get it because I haven’t stopped loving you. I’m not looking to go be with somebody else. I just can’t do this anymore. You’re not listening to me.” And I didn’t know how else to protect my family and my boys.
When I went to see the lawyer, he listened to my story, looked me in the eyes and said, “Marissa, that man is going to kill you.” And he ended up filing for a restraining order of protection. And I said, “No, no, no, no. That’s not what I want. What are you talking about? It can’t be this bad.” Within two hours, the judge signed it. I always heard those were hard to get—they are hard to get. I kind of wondered, was I that the frog in the pot that was boiling and I didn’t know? Was I excusing behaviors I shouldn’t have been? And then one day I was at work actually staring at a picture of my husband and daydreaming about what it would take for me to know that he was safe to take back because I think that’s what he wanted. But we had been down that road before and I couldn’t trust it. I got a call from the neighbor and she said, “Hey, I just wanted to check on you. How are you doing?” I’m like, “I’m fine. Why?” And there was just this most awkward pause. And then she said, “You haven’t heard, have you?” I asked, “Heard what?” And you could have heard a pin drop as she realized she was about to tell me something—she couldn’t not. And I’m thinking, “Is my house on fire? What are you telling me?” And that is the only case in my entire life that my catastrophic thinking has not been catastrophic enough. And she said, “Marissa, Bill is dead.” And I did not believe her. I called somebody else for verification and when she told me, I screamed and collapsed on the floor. I was not thinking straight. I was chanting things like, “How am I going to tell the kids?” over and over again like a crazy woman because it came out of nowhere. He wasn’t sick, there was just no warning. All of a sudden, the story completely changed. And I kept thinking, “This is not how the story goes. What are you talking about? No, somebody wake me up. This is a nightmare.”
My in-laws had gotten there by the time I figured [his death] out. I was a puddle on the floor and a coworker had taken the phone. The cops were waiting for me to get home. They obviously weren’t the ones to tell me. My sister-in-law drove my car and my mother and father-in-law drove me. I was desperately trying to get ahold of the counselor. I was trying to get home. I didn’t know if somebody on the school bus was telling my kids that their dad was dead. I didn’t know what I was about to walk into. This was two o’clock in the afternoon towards the end. So I literally was like, “I have to go. I have to be there when my kids get off the school bus.”
I found out that there was a police officer waiting outside my house. My kids didn’t need to come home to a police officer and no mom—what was that going to do? I finally got ahold of the counselor who [had been] trying to help with the whole family dynamic. He had met Bill, he was working with the kids, and he had actually said, “No, I think he’s safe to hang out with the kids.” He had approved of [Bill] going on a camping trip the following weekend. And he said, “Wait, what happened? What are you talking about?” And he started turning the questions on me because he was so shocked. I wanted to say, “Shut up. I need your advice right now and I don’t have time for this. I don’t care that you’re stunned and shocked. Go deal with that with your own counselor. You’re my counselor right now.” I’m like, “How do I tell the kids?” And he’s like, “You just don’t elaborate. Tell the truth.” I couldn’t do it. [Bill’s] dad did. When they got off the school bus, they knew something was up because grandparents were never around.
And we just sat them on the couch and one of my children had a couple tears well up in his eyes and the other one was like, “Okay, can I go play now with my cousins?” And it shocked me because my world was crashing and my kids were only eight and ten and didn’t know how to process this yet. The distraction of their cousins was actually probably exactly what they needed in that moment. And they have cried since.
Talk about your first encounter with Solo Parent.
One of the moms found out that I was a single mom. We were at lunch and she said, “My neighbor is going to this group called Solo Parent.” And I was like, “I’d love to hear more about this.” I was looking for support groups and ways to not feel so isolated. I ended up attending and they had a separate group (PALS) for Parenting After Loss. I remember walking into the PALS group and thinking two things. One was that it was the darkest, saddest room I had ever walked into my entire life. And the second was that I felt immediately seen and understood by everybody in that room. And it was dark because that was the hurt that we were all bringing into that room. Nobody there asked me to be okay because they wanted me to be okay so they wouldn’t be uncomfortable.
They just accepted me because they were all hurting and they knew what it was like. For me, finding Solo Parent was that “thing.” I didn’t want a help group that was going to tell me everything was bad, but I didn’t want [a group] that was going to make me fix it at that moment … I just wanted to be with people who got it.
Once Bill passed, you had to figure out how to teach your boys how to be men. What were some of your first conversations with God about that?
When I first became a solo parent, I hyper-focused on how inadequate I was. I had this wrong theology that “if I’m inadequate then God has to fix it.” And I had this solution in mind that there was a position open in our family. The best way to fix this problem was a replacement for that position. I knew the solution that I wanted. Early conversations with God were pretty much like, “Okay, God, fill the role.” At the very beginning I knew I wasn’t looking to date anybody and God filled that role with other people. There were men who stepped up. One would take the kids and have them hang out with his kids, go to their games, ride in his Jeep together. They got some bonding guy time.
The boys and I moved to Virginia and my brother was there. He lived in Alexandria at the time and we were in Richmond. And I don’t even know what they did—hiking and crazy stuff that you do with an Army guy. My dad was in town for that camping trip that Bill was supposed to take the boys on; my brother had just been deployed to Iraq and he was sent back for the funeral and had enough time to do the trip. So it seemed to me that everything was where it should be. God was doing what happens in the movies where somebody steps up and fills in. Well, then we moved back to Nashville from Virginia and the friends that had helped had things in their own family so they couldn’t step up the same way. And my brother was no longer close. And the two-to-three-year mark is where I started getting really lonely and a lot more desperate. And I really started thinking, “But God, you were supposed to give me this movie experience. Everything’s supposed to be okay. And here I am, I’m on my own and I can’t do this.” And I knew the statistics about a child raised without a father, but I would reread them and the crime statistics go through the roof. The chances that my children were going to either end up in prison or end up ruling the world [were their options]. So I was looking at the statistic that they were going to prison. I was really good at catastrophizing what my inadequacy meant for my boys. It turned into more of these complaining sessions: “God, I can’t do this.” And “God, you promise to be the father to the fatherless. Where are you in all of this? I need you.” And “My boys need you more than anybody else needs you and you are not here. Where are you?” I think some men can relate to this too, because as fathers to girls, we feel completely ill-equipped.
You had to realize that the role wasn’t being filled. And you had to become both roles. Talk about that transition and those experiences.
When I hit my low, my children were starting to hit their low too. Teachers were saying, “We think Hunter’s depressed. He’s falling asleep in class, something’s going on here.” Colton was starting to get really noticeably angry and angry with God. It felt to me like things were falling apart. I remember sitting at my desk window looking outside and my neighbor was with his five-year-old twin boys. And they had two kayaks in the back of the truck. And these children were dancing around their dad; they just thought he hung the moon and he was amazing. And he loosened one kayak and he hefted it up on his shoulder and walked it to the garage. And I was looking at him thinking, “I’d have to get my kids to help me with that kayak. I can’t lift it by myself.” And I just watched the awe and reverie of these little boys admiring their dad. And the hole in my heart for my kids was so huge that I am tearing up right now thinking about it because I couldn’t fill that for them.
And that was the moment I said, “Fine. God, my kids don’t need a mom, they need a dad. So if you are not going to bring them a dad, then make me a man so I can be their dad because I’ll give up my entire identity—everything I am for these boys because they need it.”
And it’s funny because I could almost hear God kind of chuckle like, “Ha, now we’re getting somewhere.” And it wasn’t that all of a sudden I woke up and could lift heavy things. When I said that prayer, there was some naivete: I’m going to literally wake up and have a beard. And I didn’t. But I did start reading some books on becoming a man.
My mom sent me a Bible commentary and I’m like, “I need to read this to my kids.” And I thought, “No, there’s no way these kids are ever going to read this book with you. They’re going to totally be dismissive.” But I sat down and I did it anyway and we read eight pages. And the next night I went upstairs and I said, “You guys ready?” And they said, “Yeah, let’s do this.” And I was like, “Really?” And they’re like, “Yeah, it’s interesting.” And I found out the very first night that the commentary addressed some issues about God that Colton was wrestling with. And we read about eight pages a day, every day. Even when both of them had Covid, I sat in the hallway between the two of them and read. That was a 500-page book. I think we made it through four of those.
I was the biggest skeptic. I was Thomas the Doubter, right? This year my kids are both on their own reading through the Bible. And last week, Hunter got up and gave a 30-minute sermon in front of his youth group. All I did was read to my kids and there was something about it that was so settling because they saw God. They actually invited friends. A number of times we had neighbors listen as well. And those friends would invite friends and I would get texts from random people who would say, “What are you reading to your children? Because my child wants to read this too.” And I’m like, “Okay, sure. But we didn’t always just sit there and read it. Sometimes I’d be like, ‘Hey, do you agree with that?’” And then sometimes we’d say, “No, I don’t agree with this.” And we would dissect it. Other times we’d be like, “I never thought about it that way.” I realized for my kids to be fathered, they had to know who their father was. I had to take them to the throne of God and say, “God now father my children” as opposed to just expecting God to show up and invite himself in. I had to invite him in. I’d been raised where my dad was our spiritual leader and we did family meetings—and they were terrible to try to stay awake in because nobody could understand the level he was talking about. He was a Greek scholar. If he reads the Bible, he reads it in Greek and translates it on the spot. He was speaking Greek. We didn’t get it. So I didn’t feel equipped to be the spiritual leader for my family, but I didn’t have to be. And I think that’s the point of this: Whether you’re a man or a woman, we are not equipped and it was never intended to be that way.
What are some of the differences you discovered between moms and dads besides the obvious?
My late husband used to say that if you want to build a relationship with a woman, you talk to her. But to build a relationship with a man, you do something together, you have adventure, you build something, you face danger, you golf. You play a game, you’re active together, you’re in it. You’re not just talking. When my children were facing a challenge, my instinct as a mom was to be very nurturing and to try to make it go away. “Let me make it all better. Let me talk about how bad that person was.” Which is terrible parenting by the way. That’s not my advice, but that’s my instinct, that’s what I wanted to do. A lot of the fathers I’ve seen and the way that my own father treated me was more of a, “Yeah, that stinks. Suck it up buttercup.” It’s much more of a “Life is cruel, the world is hard. Go live in it because that’s the only way you’re going to figure out how to manage it.” And I do think that there purposefully is that push and pull of “there’s a safe place to land,” but there’s also somebody who goes and pushes you out to try to be more and do more and see what you can accomplish as a man.
And a mother who is really, really good at pushing the bird out of the nest and feeling good watching their child fall from the tree is rare. They’re mostly like, “I’m going to swoop in and save them.” But then if you think about the Boy Scouts and soldiers who trek to the middle of mountains and they can sleep on the ground and they do it for fun. And as a woman, I just want to put lots of pillows on my bed and see how comfortable I can make it. There’s differences in the way that we approach problems and solve issues and the way that we face challenges.
In your book you talk about 10 character traits that you had to teach your boys as a mom and dad. Just talk about a couple of them. What was the hardest and which one was the most fun and memorable for you?
For me, self-control is the hardest because I fail miserably there. And because of that, it’s a really hard thing to teach. It’s something that you have to model to teach. And so if I’m losing my self-control, I’m struggling with that. But I’ve heard that an escalated parent can never deescalate an escalated child and I had to learn that lesson the hard way.
As far as the most fun or memorable, I would say “adventure.” Their dad was such an adventurer and I pulled a lot from his playbook. It was January 1st, and I was taking the boys out on an ATV ride and going to drive. I didn’t know how to drive an ATV. Well, we got lost. I’m also really bad at directions. I’m in the back of a ton of acres and completely lost, and the ATV breaks down and we have no cell service. And I’m like, “Okay, I brought not only my two children, but also my nephew, out here to die. We are going to freeze to death and starve to death and it’s going to be my fault and I don’t know how to get us out of this”—again catastrophizing. And so I was like, “Okay guys, we are going to go for a hike.” So that adventure was one of those times where I put myself in situations that were totally over my head. We’re still alive to tell the tales. And it’s fun when we reminisce about those times, my kids are like, “Oh that was so fun.”
The first Father’s Day after Bill died, your boys gave you a Lego set and a card that said “You’re the weirdest dad ever.” I love that story; it’s obviously not the story you dreamed of when you became a mom. How are your boys different today, maybe even stronger, because they grew up with you in both roles?
I would say that my boys are both independent and competent and that was by necessity because I couldn’t do everything. I was having to work more than a full-time job and take care of them. There were times when I would say, “Hey, can you help out with dinner?” The neighbors actually would send their kids over so they could learn how to cut an onion from my kids. My kids would teach them how to fix their scooters and interchange parts. I don’t worry that my kids can’t handle those tough challenges. My youngest was diagnosed this summer with a heart defect. Watching him walk through where it didn’t shatter his world; he is figuring out how to navigate that and the changes with grace. [It has] has been pretty remarkable to see the faith that [the boys] have. There are times when I look at them and I’m like, “what in the world? How did this come from me?” I did not do this alone. Watching how those struggles have shaped them into men of character who are not afraid to speak the name of God and the name of Jesus in public has been pretty eye-opening for me to watch.
I want you guys to check out this book. It is really, really good and I had the privilege of walking this path of developing the book and hearing these stories. So often in Christian circles, we feel like, “Oh, okay, I’ve discovered the way. God, you’re going to be there; you’re going to raise, you’re going to father my boys.” But there are days when doubt creeps in and God doesn’t feel trustworthy or that he’s going to do what he promised to do.
How did you find your way back to having confidence that God was showing up and fathering your boys?
At the beginning, I did a lot of complaining and found out that that just doesn’t work. When I filed for divorce, my counselor was new. I told her the story and said that maybe I’ll write a book someday. And she said, “Well, how do you know how the story ends?” And I thought that was an interesting question because my marriage was ending, everything I knew was ending, and to me it was an end. But her question was essentially telling me that this is the climax of the story. This is not the end. This is where change begins. It’s a pivot. Where we are in our story is the middle of God’s story. There is an ending on the other side. There is a story that God is writing throughout time that is bigger than just me, but he’s also writing in my life and it’s bigger than just this moment. I try to reframe to say, “But God, what are you doing with this for the long term? What does this mean afterwards?” Because I know Jesus promises that in this life we will have trials but it is not this world and this life that we are seeking for. It’s that next; it’s the eternal life that we’re looking forward to with God. And it’s hope in something more and something bigger. When I can step out of the moment and see this as just a moment in time, that’s where my hope comes from: God is doing more.
Listener Question
One of my kids gets so upset when she gets anything less than an A and my youngest son doesn’t want to go to college, so he thinks his grades don’t matter—so he barely puts in any effort. How did you approach grades with your kids for homework, tests, report cards, and so on?
My son was literally failing fifth grade. I transitioned him from Montessori school to a public school when his dad died, so it took him a little while to figure the whole thing out. I was like, “You know what? I don’t care if my kids are C students,” which is very, very hard for this type A mama to say. “But right now is more about grace for my children and them getting what they need.” And they were in fifth and third grade, so you can do that very easily. Colton’s grades started to improve and eventually got back to A’s. Even in middle school, I was like, “I don’t care [about grades]. I have to cook dinner and pay the bills.” In seventh grade, Colton came to me and said, “Mom, I can see my grades online—and look, I can get A’s.” I was like, “Yes you can. This is amazing.” And after that he was inspired to do it.
This question addresses what I believe is kind of a problem with our culture is what we measure. And to me, putting in effort is what matters instead of outcomes. We can’t control the outcomes of everything. And yes, some people are inspired to get good grades, some people don’t care about that. They don’t care to be measured. What’s important to teach our kids is working and putting in the effort because my girls excelled when they applied themselves. When they didn’t apply themselves, they didn’t move the needle a whole lot. And they’re all smart, they’re all intelligent. So I just think this idea of measuring our kids [with grades] isn’t what really matters. I think what matters is putting in the work.
Jax just started sixth grade and the transition from elementary to middle school is excruciating for everyone, not just him. And so it is an effort thing for me. What I noticed very early on was he was struggling with all of his activities in the summer when he had free time and could do whatever he wanted. He spent all his time playing video games or hanging out with his friends. And we had to make the very hard shift to say, “Your priority is school. Your responsibility is school in the same way that my responsibility is work. And has to be what you do first before you do anything else. We need to see an effort being made; it doesn’t have to be perfect. You don’t have to have all A’s, but D’s and F’s are absolutely a no-no. If I see that happening over and over, then we have to decide if you have too much on your plate. Are you too overwhelmed with the things that are not as big of a responsibility like football, band, your drum lessons, or playing video games with your friends, for instance? Once he heard that those things would start going away if his grades didn’t come up, he was like, “Oh, okay, I got it. So I’m going to knock this out and then be able to live life.”
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