Playing Dad

When you’re a single mother, every move, big or small, centers around making sure your kids’ needs are met and, if possible, to somehow make up for what’s missing.

Your son wants to learn to play baseball? Hire an older boy to teach him. He needs a mentor-type person to process things with? Hire a solid yeshivah bochur to learn and play ball with him so they can develop a relationship. “That’s what I spend my money on,” says Reena.

Reena has designed her life around making sure that Tzvi (and his younger siblings) have present, positive role models. She chose a job at a far lower pay grade in favor of more flexible work hours, enabling her to act as both mother and father to her kids. When Tzvi was young, she used to eat out every single Shabbos — even though she loves eating at home — because she wanted him to experience a “real” Shabbos seudah with healthy male role models.

When there’s no father in the house, the major milestones of becoming a man fall on the mother. “My son does have a father whom he spends weekends with once a month, but when it comes down to the daily minutiae of life, it’s all on me,” Reena shares. “Before his bar mitzvah I went with him for his suit, his hat, his tefillin bag. I drove him to his bar mitzvah lessons and learned with him.”

A lot of boys struggle with going to shul; not having anyone to do that with ratchets up the struggle a thousand notches. “When Tzvi was younger, I’d walk him to shul Friday nights and then never be sure if I should wait around for him, or walk home alone and get a neighbor to accompany him home. Asking for help has always been a challenge for me; I always feel there are those who need it more, and that I chose my situation by marrying someone I knew I shouldn’t have. Which I know is wrong thinking, yet it’s still my feeling. That said, I strongly encourage women in my shoes to get whatever help they need.”

Rifkie is a single mother from Lakewood whose three boys are now all in their twenties, the oldest one married and starting to raise a family of his own. “Because my boys were close in age, and always a crew, doing everything together, I didn’t struggle with getting the boys to shul on Shabbos — they just went on their own. But when the two bigger ones were away in yeshivah, I did ask a neighbor for help,” she says. “It wasn’t easy asking for help, it was deeply humbling. But I did it anyway. I’ve always said, it’s exactly how Hashem created the world: He wants people to give and He wants people to take. We need both the givers and the takers to make the cycle work, so that ultimately we come to realize that we have only to rely on Him.”

Asking for help is one thing; finding it is another. Mirel Goldstein, a psychotherapist in Clifton, New Jersey, and single mother of 22 years, raised her two boys as a single mother from the time they were little. Early on in her career, she worked in the ER doing admissions and mental health crisis counseling over long shifts, including Sundays. “Male babysitters were nearly impossible to find and I was always worrying about yichud issues,” she remembers. “Babysitters needed to be driven home, so there was always finding yet another someone to stay with my boys for a few minutes while I did that.”

From the start, Mirel decided that she wasn’t going to let fear or insecurity drive her parenting. “I wasn’t afraid to set limits. I’m an easygoing person by nature, but I wasn’t afraid to be a firm parent. You don’t need to overcompensate for the fact that your sons are lacking a father in the home. Your children want you to stay in your parental role. They need your love and your security,” she says.

Mom, Meet the Yeshivah System

Figuring out the right yeshivah for your son is a challenge for all parents, but doubly so when you’re doing it on your own and have never been through the yeshivah system yourself before.

When Meira, a mother of two sons, and a nurse in the Midwest, had to apply to yeshivah for her bechor, she didn’t even know where to start. “I was advised to send my oldest son, Yair, to a specific yeshivah. Even though I had huge doubts that it was the right fit for him, everyone kept placating me and saying it was the perfect place,” she remembers. “Yair was already very traumatized by the divorce. He had no clue it was coming, and sensitive soul that he was, he took it very hard. Though he was struggling with his Judaism, he was at a point where — given the right environment — I believe he could’ve been influenced for the good.”

The yeshivah was advertised as a place for boys who are “out of the box” and accepting of all types. Instead of living in dorms, the boys were farmed out to people’s basements. The boys had plenty of free time, especially on Shabbosim, but there was no structure or activities to keep them occupied in a healthy, kosher way. Stuck in a basement without friends, Yair got bored and antsy, which quickly led to trouble.

“I got a call from my friend one Motzaei Shabbos. Yair was at her house, with all his belongings. Apparently, he had been kicked out for being mechallel Shabbos. The yeshivah hadn’t even told me about it yet. It was a disaster.

“Looking back, I can’t blame any one specific factor,” she says. “In fact, I try not to blame at all. But the fact is, I was single, I can’t say I knew what I was doing, and I had no one to help me traverse this chapter.”

By design, yeshivah is a man’s world. So even when there aren’t big issues, it’s still challenging for women to navigate. “As a single mother, it’s easy to get bullied or dismissed because we don’t know our way around,” says Meira. “I felt like my opinions didn’t really matter.”

Reena felt just as alone when Tzvi was struggling in yeshivah. “The way the yeshivah handled the situation was incredible — they spoke to me; they spoke to my son. But I was totally alone throughout the whole ordeal. I couldn’t share with my parents. My friends wouldn’t have understood the complexities of the situation. There was no one with whom to emotionally offload. So I just cried alone.”

When Rifkie’s boys were in yeshivah, she tried to take care of as much as she could on her own. “It’s empowering to do things without asking for help — when we can. And in most situations, I felt the rebbeim were receptive and helpful. But when I felt that I couldn’t be efficient in specific situations, I reached out to my brothers or other male figures to advocate on behalf of me and my sons.”

The Mother-Son Dynamic

How do single mothers foster open communications with their boys, especially when they are sometimes their sons’ only real parental figure? And how do they navigate a relationship with their sons as they go through various stages of maturity?

It isn’t smooth sailing by any stretch. When Tzvi experimented with vaping, Reena says she “completely freaked out on him. I think vaping is horrible no matter what reason you give.” But then she noticed that Tzvi was sharing less and less with her.

“I knew I had work to do to rebuild the trust. I said to him, ‘I will always love you and be there for you, no matter what you do.’ And yes, sometimes the trust will slip again, because he’s a boy and there will always be things he won’t want to discuss with me. Now that he’s older, he’s more private, appropriately, but I always make sure he has people to talk to. I’ve spoken with his rebbi in yeshivah to talk to him about stuff, and gave Tzvi the heads-up to reciprocate. Before he went to camp, I spoke to him about safety and made sure he had at least one person who he was going to share things with without feeling like he’d get in trouble. I don’t know if he always listens, but I still try my best.”

As a psychotherapist, Mirel is obviously a big proponent of open communication. “I talked to my boys a lot when they were growing up. I would bring up a lot of hypothetical cases that might enter my practice, and through that, we managed to have many conversations about feelings, boundaries, navigating pain — which normalized a lot of topics for them and opened the floor for them to talk and share,” she says. “I also constantly made sure not to overburden them with my own pain. I kept checking with myself that I wasn’t overreacting to the things they shared.”

Even though Mirel’s boys didn’t have a father present in the home, they knew their mother regularly consulted with him or others about issues that came up, which contributed to a healthy dynamic between her and her boys. “To buffer the intensity of the mother-child relationship, it’s really important for children to know that there is an outside authority figure who Mom discusses issues with,” says Mirel. “This creates paternal function even when there is no father in the house. It could be the father, or someone else that represents authority — like a rav, mentor, grandfather — whom you can pull into the home symbolically when decisions need to be made.

“I was also a big believer in giving my sons judicious facts and information about their circumstances, so they would have a coherent narrative about their life. It’s a hard balance to do this without speaking too much about the other parent or the divorce, if divorce is the case. But within appropriate limits, it’s important for kids to have a sense of some of the facts surrounding their lives.”

To this day, Rifkie is very close with her grown sons, and she attributes this to learning what made her boys tick. “Learn to talk their language,” she says. “If you’re going to get hysterical or too emotional on them, they’ll tune you out. I’ve always tried very hard to be on my boys’ wavelengths. My boys are very athletic, so I always sent them out to frum sports leagues. One Chol Hamoed, they wanted to go paintballing; I’m not a huge fan, but you know what — it’s fairly kosher, and this is what they wanted, so I let them. It’s about finding things that talk to them.”

Grace in the Grind

While raising her sons, Mirel intentionally made a point of carrying herself with dignity, of not identifying herself by her status as a divorced woman, even managing to grow a successful private practice where she sometimes meets couples. “People take their cues from us. The message I gave my kids was always, ‘We are a normal, regular family who do normal, regular things.’

“Of course I also let them grieve the things they wanted and couldn’t have. Like, for example, my boys found it challenging to get on a plane midway through Yom Tov to fly out to their father, or they didn’t like their curtailed bein hazmanim trying to fit in dental appointments alongside making time for both parents. I’d let them vent up to a point, but ultimately, I knew I couldn’t fix this for them. This was their process. That was how they came to their own acceptance of the way their lives were.”

It’s easy to wallow in self-pity when you’re going through a challenge, but that’s a path Rifkie chose not to take — and her sons have followed her lead. “If the way we go through our challenges is that we feel, We need a man in the house or otherwise we’re nebachs or we can’t do this, then our kids will pick up on that very fast. For us, it was always, ‘What’s our next step? What can we do about our situation?’ We don’t have to be victims. I’ve certainly had times I felt like I wasn’t going to survive this. But the pragmatic approach was always our protocol. People see you how you see yourselves. Divorce is often the first thing that hits people, but I’ve always told my boys, ‘It fades once they get to know you.’ ”

Self-pity, though, has a way of bobbing up even when you push it away. “That’s why I’m always telling myself, ‘There are lots of women whose husbands work full-time, who must be away for weekends or weeks at a time. There are lots of fathers who are too busy, or too absent physically or emotionally, to learn with their boys or talk with them,” says Rifkie. “I’m not the only woman in the world having to do things alone. We’re not the only women who have to think creatively of different ways to make things work. People have all kinds of situations every day that aren’t Plan A.”

As with any mother’s parenting journey, there will be sweeter times, and harder times. Reena’s proudest moment was Tzvi’s bar mitzvah. Not just because she had practically pulled the event together herself, but because of the beautiful comments that flowed throughout the evening. People praised not just her son’s davening and learning, but also his determination to attend minyanim alone, his middos, his behaviors, how he held the doors open for his rebbeim, positive comments like that. “For the first time in a long while, maybe years, I was like, wow, this worked. I’ve done something right,” she shares. “The nachas was huge.”

The hard times are just as memorable. “Have there been times I’ve felt overwhelmed and discouraged?” reflects Reena. “Like, every single day. The earlier years post-divorce were excruciating, and then things got a bit easier as I got a handle on my new status and new daily routine alone. But I don’t think overwhelm is reserved for single mothers, everyone gets overwhelmed with life. My sister with a happy marriage and a lot of kids also gets overwhelmed. True, it’s a lot harder when you’re on your own and you have no one to cry to or do things with. So I cry in the shower. I go running. I call friends and get chizuk. I just push forward because I don’t have a choice. I can’t fall apart ever, because I have children who need me, and if I fall apart, they’ll have nobody. So at the end of the day, no matter how upset I am or how overwhelmed I feel, always at the back of my mind is the voice that says, Get it together because you have children who are relying on you. So on a hard day, I’ll take a particularly long shower, or wait till they’re sleeping and go for a drive.”

Modeling how to push through challenging times, says Meira, “has been a valuable lesson for my sons, and it can only be taught by example. On hard days, I daven to Hashem for siyata d’Shmaya to say and do the right thing at the right time. I do the best I can, and daven some more. I always say, ‘Hashem gave me these children, He will give me the tools I need to raise them.’ ”

“And remember,” echoes Reena, “the zechusim will be mostly yours.”

CATCHING BOYS BEFORE THEY FALL

No Boy Left Behind

Six Pointers from master mechanech Rabbi A. Bender

“I

’ve seen firsthand how boys from single-parent homes often face challenges that can leave them feeling isolated,” says Rabbi A. Bender, menahel of the elementary division of Yeshiva Darchei Torah. “One of the first mandates that my father, Rabbi Yaakov Bender, introduced when he first became menahel back in ’78 was that no boy should fall through the cracks.” Losing his own father at 15 gave Rabbi Yaakov Bender a deep understanding of how vulnerable boys can feel without strong male figures in their lives.

“Though we can’t ever replace a father, we as a community can replace some of the financial and emotional support that may be lacking. By stepping in and offering concrete help — whether it’s walking a boy to shul, helping with bar mitzvah preparations, or just being a listening ear — we can make a real difference.”

Rabbi Bender highlights six ways we can help on a communal and personal level:

Offer help before you’re asked.

“One of the most important things I tell people is not to wait for these boys or their mothers to ask for help. Often, they won’t. Instead, we must take the initiative to offer support. Simple gestures go a long way, like asking, ‘Can I take your son to shul?’ or ‘Can I help him choose his lulav and esrog?’ Small things like this can lift a tremendous burden off these families and make a lasting impact on a child’s life.”

Loop in the morah or rebbi.

“At Darchei Torah, we take a proactive approach to supporting boys without a father figure in their home by alerting every menahel and rebbi from the start of the school year, so they know to keep a close eye and be extra mindful of their needs. The boys are treated like everyone else, with the same expectations and rules, but there’s an additional layer of care to ensure they don’t fall through the cracks.”

Help the boys feel normal and supported.

“We run Dor L’Dor learning programs every Motzaei Shabbos where boys come to learn with mentors or other boys in similar situations. It works like Avos U’Banim, except we don’t want to call it that. And it’s not just about the learning; it’s about creating a warm, supportive atmosphere where they feel like part of a greater whole. We also organize special events, like a Chanukah mesibah, for boys who may not have a family to celebrate with. When they see others in the same situation, it normalizes their experience and helps them feel connected, rather than different.”

Chip in.

“Financial strain is a major issue that many single-family homes face, and we’re committed to easing that burden wherever we can. We raise funds to help cover the cost of summer camp, tefillin, Yom Tov expenses, and more. It’s crucial that these boys have the same opportunities and experiences as their peers, without the added stress of finances.”

Be a mentor.

“These boys need role models and support throughout their schooling. Whether it’s arranging chavrusas, mentors, ensuring they have someone to walk to shul with, or helping them prepare for their bar mitzvah, we’re there for them every step of the way. By the time our boys reach mesivta, many of them have received the care and attention they need to thrive in their learning and personal growth.”

Lend an ear.

“Not just for the boy, but also for the mother. They’re often dealing with significant emotional challenges — custody battles, financial pressures, and the stress of raising a family on their own. We encourage mothers to reach out to us, whether for practical help or just to talk through an issue. We want them to know they have someone to turn to. Many of these women just need to hear that someone cares and that they’re not alone.”

Growing Up Without My Father At Home

A 15-year-old bochur shares his perspective

“O

ne of the biggest challenges of not having a father around is going to shul alone. When you’re little, it’s normal to go with your mother and bring lollipops and books. As you get older, most boys go with their fathers, and I didn’t have that. My mom took me to my grandfather at first, and later arranged for other people in our shul to take me. Sometimes she even walked me herself and waited around until I was done and walked me home.

Shabbos meals were another challenge. My mom made sure we were invited out often, usually to my grandparents. But I always noticed when other families had both parents at siyumim or dinners, and that was tough — it’s just normal to have both parents there.

Another hard part was when my friends’ fathers would do car pool or take them to shul, so we would get to know our friends’ fathers, but no one really knew mine. It felt different, and sometimes awkward.

Despite all this, growing up like this definitely made me more independent. I’ve learned not to be afraid of every little thing and to handle life’s challenges better. I’m not pampered, and that’s made me stronger. Another thing I realized is that it’s exhausting to hide this part of your life. So I decided not to be awkward about it — being open is so much easier.

To all single mothers out there raising boys, I say: Make sure your son has someone to go to shul with on Shabbos, like a grandparent or a friend’s father. And make sure your Shabbos meals feel regular — don’t skip out on things just because there are less people around. Very important: Make sure there’s cholent! If you can, live near grandparents. It really helps to have family nearby for Shabbos meals and other times.

One last thing — don’t walk into your son’s yeshivah dorm room uninvited! Trust me on this.”

(Originally featured in Family First, Issue 926)