🏠What it means to have grown up in a single-parent family
Growing up in a single-parent household often meant feeling "less than" or incomplete compared to "normal" families, while learning to take on more responsibility than other kids your age to fill the gaps left by having fewer adults in the home.
You may have missed having a particular role model, perspective, and source of support that could have helped shape your understanding of relationships and identity. Family crisis might have turned you into a mini-adult long before your time, making you alarmingly good at caregiving and problem-solving. You learned to be self-sufficient early, becoming the solution rather than someone who needed help.
You might be careful not to need people too much or get too comfortable anywhere—painful lessons from disruptions in your family structure. When good things happen, part of you may already be preparing for them to fall apart, making it hard to fully enjoy stable periods. At a fundamental level, you may question whether you deserve lasting stability, seeing past disruptions as omens that will inevitably reappear in your future.