Community And Hope For Single Parents

We talk with Elizabeth Cole of SoloParent.org about how community, safe groups, and faith help single parents move from isolation to strength. She shares practical ways advocates can help, why no-fix listening heals, and how consistent support shapes healthier homes for kids.

• scale of single-parent homes and isolation
• story of finding hope in a first group
• why advocates matter and how to help
• grief as ongoing process alongside joy
• faith as a frame for healing and resilience
• Solo Parent Essentials and recovery-model groups
• no-crosstalk rule and psychological safety
• Solo Parent Nation syncing with weekly podcast
• how to start or join groups in churches, companies, and communities
• links, schedules, and how to connect at soloparent.org

You can join Elizabeth's online group Monday nights at 8 p.m. Central on Zoom via soloparent.org . Get more information about resources for starting a group of finding a group as well.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:24

I would like to welcome Elizabeth Cole to the Pivotal People podcast. She is a vice president of the nonprofit organization in Nashville called Solo Parent. It is an organization that was started to empower single parents and transform families. And I was really interested in this because I had never heard of an organization who did this. And as I spent time on their website, I learned a couple of things. One was that 22 million children in our country are in single family homes. And that generally speaking, single parents are isolated. They're so darn busy. They're doing so many things. So Solo Parent is working to build community. And I won't say any more because that's why Elizabeth is here. But Elizabeth, I'd like to welcome you and ask you to tell us about yourself and your story, and then talk about what Solo Parent would like to do and what you'd like us all to learn as a result of spending this half hour together.

Finding Hope In A First Group

Why Community Changes Outcomes

SPEAKER_00 1:32

Well, thank you for having me, Stephanie. Yeah, I'm Elizabeth Cole and serving as vice president of Solo Parent, uh, which as you said is a nonprofit based in Nashville, but we are a national nonprofit. So we have single parents actually really all over the world. I say national, but we've got a group currently happening in New Zealand right now. So, but I became a single mom through divorce in 2018. And during that time, I I really didn't have anyone in my life that I felt like I could go to and connect with to help understand, you know, kind of what was going on and where I was. And I learned about a solo parent group that started in my local church here and with all trepidation, stepped in there on a Monday night and felt all the fear, all the shame, didn't want to be there, but knew I needed to be, knew I had to be, and walked in and a girl named Jenny walked up and said, You're new here, huh? And I was like, Yeah. And she said, Well, come sit with me. And that night I felt a little glimmer of hope that I was gonna be okay and that I was gonna have people around me that understood, knew the pain I was going through, and couldn't necessarily fix it or anything like that, but could be with me in it. And week after week I showed up. Luckily, they had child care for my son. So he got to go and play and eat pizza and have fun with other kids and other kids like him, which was great. And uh, I was surrounded by people that understood and got it. So that's really, you know, the heartbeat of what we do at Solo Parent is to provide community and support for single parents so that they can be emotionally, physically, spiritually well, so that they can raise healthy kids because we know that the downstream effect of, you know, single parent homes on the kids, they're the ones that are collateral damage here. They're the ones that are, you know, kind of paying the price for something that they didn't have anything to do with. And so we want to empower single parents to be able to have that health so that they can show up for their kids and transform their family.

SPEAKER_01 3:41

Oh, that is beautiful. So, how do you do that? How does solo parent do that? I'm assuming people who are listening, we're gonna fall in like a couple of categories. One is obviously single parents. The other is someone who is connected to a single parent, whether it's a friend or a family member. I think you're gonna raise awareness for us on what we can be sensitive to and how we can do a better job of supporting and encouraging them. And you're doing podcasts and your organization is raising awareness. What is your hope in terms of reaching people who may not fall in either one of those categories?

Beyond Single Parents: Loss And Grace

SPEAKER_00 4:17

Yeah, as you mentioned, yes, we have lots of free resources. Our podcasts, we have our group seven days a week. We meet online in person. There are groups starting all over the country in churches and nonprofits and companies. We have all the resources that someone would need to start a group. And that's really, you're exactly right. We're trying to raise awareness and build advocates for single parents because as a single mom, I'm not the first one to raise my hand and say, hey, I need help. I just, I'm not that person. And I know a lot of single parents aren't. Not only because we don't have time to think about what we need, but also we want to, we don't want to be a burden. We want to contribute to society. We want to show people that we have it together, that we can hold our own. But at the end of the day, we need those advocates to be able to step up and say, hey, I see you. I got you. Whatever you need, I'm gonna drop dinner off for you. Or hey, I'm taking my kid to soccer practice. Let me pick up yours on the way and give you an hour to just chill. Or, hey, let's go on a walk while our kids are at soccer practice and you can just unload on me all the, you know, junk from the week, whatever it is. But there are plenty of ways that people can step up that don't cost anything to just wrap your arms around single parents and be there and just say, I see you, I see what you're doing. And then I, you know, we do, like I said, we do have those groups. And if you know that you have single parents in your church or in your company who maybe could rally together and kind of come together to build the strength among one another. Like I said, we have resources to do that. You can start a group right there. As long as you have a place to meet, that's all you need, really. And a single parent can start a group or, you know, a pastor or a church leader or community leader or an HR representative at a company, you know, we have lots of things that can happen to help bring single parents together so that they feel less alone.

Grief, Faith, And Healing Practices

SPEAKER_01 6:23

And I saw on your website on the homepage, there was a you know button that says, Do you want to start a group? So you're gonna hold people's hands. And what I love is what you just said, even if you're not a single parent, if you could be a person who has the time to start a group, what a great ministry that would be. Absolutely church. When I saw the description of what you do, what I thought was interesting was the mention of single parents having shame as a single parent and the whole idea of accepting grace. But let's not just say that applies to single parents. This I'm gonna ask you to talk about this because this speaks to anyone who wants to understand what your site says resilience, faith, and wholeness after loss. There's all kinds of losses. And people, you know, might struggle alone with that and might suffer shame. We all do in some way. So can you talk about that?

Holding Space Without Fixing

SPEAKER_00 7:22

Yeah, I mean, my own story with loss, honestly, you know, on the podcast I talked quite a bit about how my divorce was the best and worst thing that ever happened. You know, the pain of that loss was so great. And I remember walking into group one night saying, one of the first times I shared, I said, What do you do with the life you thought you had was dead? What do you do with that now? Like I was just so lost and I felt I was so discombobulated because I I had this picture of what my life was going to look like. My the love of my life and I were gonna carry on together, raise our children, you know, grow old together, live this adventurous life, and you know, and then it was gone. The rug was pulled out from under me, and I was just kind of in shock, but then also the deep pain and angry and didn't know which way was up. And I was trying to make sense of it all. I had, you know, I lost my house, I lost my husband, I lost half of my family. You know, it's just so much loss after loss after loss. And not to mention, he had two kids from a previous marriage, so I lost, you know, other kids. And and so I think the grieving process, we tend to, after a big loss, you know, one of two things. We can get stuck in the loss and in the grief of and turn into self-pity and just kind of go into our hole. I'm not saying either anything is right or wrong here because we all have our own methods, right? And there's no shame in in what's happening. Another thing that can happen, which I tended to do, tried to do, was I tried to jump past it and tried to jump past the pain of it and get out of it quicker than I really needed to. I wanted to avoid the grief. And I did that through performance, you know, being excelling at work and really diving in and being the best mom I could be, volunteering, stepping up in all these ways that made me look a lot better than I actually was. And it was fun and it was great. You know, I was I was uh able to put on a good face until I wasn't. And then it all came crashing down. And the the pain and the grief bubbled up, and it was just this, it started as this like kind of low-level thing that when things got quiet at home, I was, you know, on Friday mornings, I would pack up Jacks to go, my son to go to his dad's house, and I would just sob packing up his stuff. Or, you know, he's gone and he doesn't come home from school here because he goes to his dad's house. And it's the quietness and the stillness where it just would hit and it would creep in. And so what I learned is that I had the opportunity to grieve in those moments and I had the space to be able to do that. And I needed to give myself grace to be able to do that, to be able to sit. I would take long baths and just be with myself and pray and cry. There were times where it was so hard. I would just curl up in a ball on the floor and just pray and cry and just get it out. I was journaling, I would, you know, reach out to friends. I had a therapist that was helping me through and that I could scream at, you know, and and I would punch my pillow sometimes. You know, it's just this whole wave of emotions that you're writing. And at the end of the day, I think what I learned is that God's not afraid of it, so I don't have to be afraid of it. And God doesn't want this pain for me either, but He knows that just as Jesus had to go into Saturday, go into the depths of hell on Saturday to be resurrected, I needed to go into the depths of hell of the pain and grief in order grief in order to be resurrected and to come out healed and to be able to share my story. And so I think it more than anything, it's it's allowing yourself to grieve in a healthy way and having the right people around you and being able to fight your way through it and stay in it as long as you need, because grief has no timeline. And I'll say one last thing about it. I had a I had a therapist who explained to me that if you can picture grief as a um as a big ball, like a big inflated ball that's filling up a room, you've got that red exit button next to the door, right? That we that you see in some places. The bigger the ball is, the more your grief is. And every once in a while it'll hit that red button, you know, because it's so big. And every time it hits that button, it gets a little smaller and it hits the button a little less because it doesn't get over there as easy, and then it gets smaller. And she said, you know, you might grieve your marriage until you're 98 years old because it's still it may be a little small, inflated ball at 98 years old, but it still may hit that button, and there may be something that comes up that causes that grief. So understanding that it's just a process and that it's there and it's part of life, and it doesn't mean that I can't hold joy and gratitude and all of the good things in life together at the same time. It's just allowing it to be whatever it is.

SPEAKER_01 12:42

I'm nodding here because I've always thought of it as the tunnel of grief, and we can try to go around it, but it's not going to go away. We have to go through it and giving yourself the grace to go through it. Someone else I've talked to about grief said, never use the word still. What is still? It is it is with us. Our grief is with us for the rest of our life. I like how you said it gets smaller. It doesn't define us, it refines us. You said that your divorce was one of the best things that happened to you. Tell me more about that. What are some of the growth opportunities or some of the experiences that have come out of that for you?

Growth After Divorce And Purpose

SPEAKER_00 13:21

Well, I mean, just being in this community of single parents has been life-changing because I, before my divorce, I didn't realize just how lonely I was. I didn't realize how really empty and shallow life was and my relationships and my ability to be intimate, you know, and find safe people that I could be. And when I say intimate, I mean go deeper, you know, because I was social butterfly, able to connect with everyone on a surface level, but I didn't have any really true deep relationships. And that's because I wasn't in touch emotionally and able to really go there. I just didn't have the awareness. And so that loss of and going through my divorce allowed me to be able to tap a different part of myself that I had never done emotionally and mentally, excuse me, and also have a deeper relationship with God than I had ever had. Um, it totally, I grew up in church, but it totally changed the way my relationship with God operated from that point on. And so I think going through it woke me up in a way that made me more serious about going into deeper relationships, not with just with myself, not other, not only other people myself, but also God. And what that allowed me to do was be a better mom, a better friend, a better coworker, a better leader. It just has affected every single part of my life. And it's also awoken kind of a fiery passion within me to know that I have purpose and my story has purpose. And, you know, my story of hurt and trauma and all of that started way before my divorce. It started when I was very young. So having the opportunity to kind of wake up to that, deal with it, have the right people around me has just completely changed my life. And my divorce was the pivotal moment, and that allowed that to happen.

SPEAKER_01 15:22

I heard uh yesterday, Ann LaMotz. I was listening to her speak, and she said something about how we're all filled, we're all filled with these little Swiss cheese holes. And there's nothing external that can fill it. The social butterfly, the relationships, the perfect marriage, the new house, nothing is gonna fill it. Filling those is an inside job. And if we would just, I wrote this in my journal today, if we would just open our hands and allow God's grace to get in, it fills all those holes. That's the only thing that can. So she's like, this is an inside job. It's an inside job. And what hit me was that's to fully available to all of us. Yeah. That is fully available to all of us. And it's free. We run around in circles trying to do all these really hard things. Well, the easy thing would be to accept God's grace. So I love what you're all doing. So it is faith-based, but not a requirement anymore to be a part of your community. When I looked on your website, there were three key things the organization strives to do. One is what we've talked about, which is community. The other is to educate and empower single parents. I'd like to talk about that. And the third one, what I hadn't even thought of was training to equip organizations on how to support single parents. So specifically, you know, churches, companies, organizations, the military. Being in the military as a single parent. My gosh. So I can remember um when I was raising my kids and they were little, and I had friends who we all had little kids, we were home with our kids. And one friend said, Oh, you know, my husband travels so much, he's always gone. It's like I'm a single parent. I didn't say it, but what I thought was, no, single parents have to work too. It's still, we can't even imagine from that position what. So talk to me about educating and empowering single parents.

Educate And Empower Single Parents

SPEAKER_00 17:33

Well, first, let me say that's something that I I've done little jokes on social media about when people, you know, people who are married say, Oh, my husband was gone for the weekend. I was a single parent. I know they're trying to just connect and maybe be a little funny. And but man, does that burn some single parents up? Because I bet. You know, I mean, yes, we're we yeah, we're carrying the load, but also we don't have anyone who's gonna call us from wherever they are in the world and say, hey, let's talk about our days together, you know. So it's like, oh, it's a little different than just having having somebody gone. And even, you know, within the military, deployed spouses, it's still different, it's a different set of needs, and you know, it's a whole thing. So, and that's coming from a a veteran. I'm a veteran as well. So you are thank you for your service. Yeah, where did you serve? I was in the army and uh stationed in Hawaii, so I didn't have it too bad, but still, you still had to get up at a certain time every day. I did, I did, yeah. But so you asked about empowering and educating and empowering single parents. So I think you know, there's a lot of support and unique support that single parents need, and you know, kind of to the point of what we were talking about, there's it's one thing to be a parent, and I've been a parent married, and now I've been a parent as a single parent. It's different being a parent as a single parent because you don't have someone to bounce your disciplinary actions off of. You don't have someone who can, you know, take your son fishing and or, you know, as the mom of a boy, you know, it's it he wants to do all these boy things, and I've had to adapt and learn, and that's what you do. And but I don't, you know, there's some unique needs when it comes to being a single parent and learning how to operate alone. And so we kind of take these, you know, take the mental health side of things and the emotional health and spiritual health and physical health and put it through the lens of being a single parent and try to adapt it and relate it to no matter what's going on in your life and what you're dealing with, whether you're a single parent 100% of the time because of whatever the circumstance, or you're a single parent who is estranged from their kids because the mom has taken off and you know, your dad left and you're trying to be a parent, but you don't really know how, or you know, maybe you're an every other weekend type parent, or you're 50-50 split. Whatever it is, there are so many unique, you know, kind of angles to take as a single parent. And so we really try to help single parents understand that we see you. We've been there, we're a nonprofit for single parents by single parents. All of us have been single parents or currently are. And so, yeah, so educating and empowering and taking kind of life skills, parenting skills, mental health skills, and putting it through that lens and helping helping single parents kind of succeed in that area again, so they can raise healthy kids.

SPEAKER_01 20:51

So, in your community groups, in addition to you know, relationship support, do you have programming? You know, do you have speakers? Okay. On different topics.

Programs: Essentials And Nation

Weekly Rhythm And How To Join

SPEAKER_00 21:02

Yeah, it's um we have a couple of different options. So we have something called Solo Parent Essentials, which is a 14-week set curriculum. So if you think about like divorce care or financial peace university or any one of these programs that might be in your church already, it's a it's a set, you know, time period, one semester kind of course. And it's it's based on kind of the cream of the crop topics that single parents deal with most, whether it's loneliness, financial wellness, you know, emotional health, parenting skills, all these different topics that we hit on throughout that 12 weeks. And essentially what happens is you go through those, the topic discussion together, you kind of check in. There's some guidelines that you have to follow because it's set up as a recovery model. So there are guidelines for safety and trust and having confidentiality and that sort of thing that we establish. You go through a topic discussion where you're learning about that specific topic for the week. And with baked within those are topic discussion questions. And so the leader would ask those questions of the group, and a few people will chime in, give their input, walk through that. That takes about 15, 20 minutes. And then the back half of the group is open share. And that's where you can share kind of what you're dealing with, what's going on, you know, throughout the week, grief or grievances or you know, joys and excitement, whatever it is. You can celebrate, you can cry, you can do whatever you need to do. But coming to the group and having people around you to kind of be with you in that space of real time, real time happenings. But the thing that's special about it is we don't allow crosstalk. And so if I'm sharing, like, hey, my kid blew up at me this week, he, you know, slammed the door and ran down the road. Another parent can't say, Oh, well, my kid did that too. And I want you to know you can do this, this, and this. It's not about that. It's about getting it out. We say thank you for sharing, and then we move on, and the next person can share. And what that does, and as uncomfortable as it is, because when I first started groups, it was really uncomfortable not to chime in and have the back and forth banter. But what that does is allow the safety of someone being able to share without being fixed, without feeling like they're doing it wrong, and to be able to just be in it, you know, and feel the feelings, feel what's happening inside of you as you're sharing, and whether that's the fear or the grief or the shame or the you know, happiness or whatever, without someone coming in and trying to take it away. And, you know, I in my group on Monday nights, I still lead a group. I do allow for crosstalk after the group is over. We'll stick around. And if anybody has questions or, you know, asks for feedback, you know, you're certainly welcome to do that because we that's part of being in relationship and building trust. But our groups are really set up to just come in, get it all out. And I really am truly, I've experienced it, and I've seen multiple people experience how that open share time of being able to just dump and go and not have a fix is so healing. And it really does start to kind of unlock something inside of you to say, all right, I have a safe place to just be, you know, to throw out my first draft.

SPEAKER_01 24:40

As you're saying that, I'm thinking, wow, we could all practice that when our friends or loved ones are have a need to dump. It's so, you know, it's so easy to think that all of a sudden, you know, you're gonna be able to fix it with some advice when really the key would be to hold your tongue and let them just open up and share and feel safe.

SPEAKER_00 25:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 25:03

And trust. And I'm sure confidentiality is a key priority of your group, you know, for people to know they can trust you and they can tell you the stuff and you're not gonna tell anyone else.

SPEAKER_00 25:12

And you're not gonna think we're crazy for you know letting it all out. And you know, uh, Tony Collier wrote uh she released a book uh last year. We had her on the podcast. So if if anyone wants to go check out that podcast episode, solo parent podcast. But Tony talked about how Jesus reacted when Lazarus died. And you we kind of breeze over the fact, you know, we talk about how he he made his way there, he wept, and then he raised Lazarus from the dead. But we don't talk about that gap of time where he just where he was with, he sat with Mary and Martha and was just there, you know, and and grieved with them. He didn't jump to fix it immediately, he just was there. And we talked about that with her, and she's the she's the one who brought that up and she put it so beautifully, and I'm probably butchering it, but it was just a really great example of just being with as we're dealing with our stuff versus trying to jump in and fix, which we all are a lot of us, I won't say all, but a lot of people want to do. I know I'm a fixer, so it was a hard lesson for me to learn for sure.

SPEAKER_01 26:27

And he wasn't offensive, you know. I mean, Martha got mad at him, right? He let her be mad, yeah, you know. And I yesterday my son and I had a phone call. He was mad at me about something, and I jumped in and defended myself. Well, I probably could have done a better job, just let him be mad. Right. Not sure I agree, but whatever. Everyone is entitled to their feelings, right? No judgment. And that's the other thing is that when people are express, especially when it's someone close to you and they're jumping and they're sharing the feelings, we have to say their emotions are valid, their feelings are valid. Yeah, I have mine, you have yours. So to give people the freedom to express their emotions, even if it can be hard to hear. I'm learning so much from you. I could talk to you all day long. But what I've really, you know, anyone listening might be a single parent, might have someone close to them who's a single parent. You definitely want to share this organization with them. And or they might be like me. I'm retired, I'm kind of looking for something meaningful to do. The idea of starting a group in your church that doesn't have it yet could be a real gift to the people in your church, whether it's your church or your workplace or any organization. I think that's a really beautiful idea. Maybe your community. So any of us could help. As you said, we're talking about future generations here, the kids who are collateral damage. How do people get in touch with you? You've you've referenced your podcast. So tell us, you know, how often Solo Parent podcast is what it's called, and you are the host of it, it sounds like co-host, yep.

SPEAKER_00 28:05

Robert and I, Robert Beeson is the founder of Solo Parent. And so the two of us are our co-hosts, and we have single parents who join us. Uh Amber and Marissa kind of take turns chiming in here and there, and then we invite guests on. I think we've, as I mentioned, you know, Tony Collier came on. We've got a episode with Henry Cloud in February. We've got lots of great episodes um going back. And so um, yeah, tune in. It releases every Monday. Great. And then I'll say too that our groups, our our online groups follow our podcast. So we don't use the solo parent essentials. I mentioned earlier we had two programs, uh, and I didn't get to the second. The second is Solo Parent Nation, and what that does is follows our podcast each week. So theoretically, a single parent would listen to the podcast on Monday, join a group one day of the week, or in person, you know, if they have a group in their area, or start a group, and the topic discussion that you would discuss kind of pairs, complements the podcast topic for that week. And so we go through various things throughout the year. We don't take a break. We have podcasts 52 weeks a year because single parents don't get a break. So why should we? And we need support every day of the year. So that's what we're here doing. And uh we cover themes like love, parenting, stability, uh, relationships, forgiveness, building confidence, you know, lots of things. Every every month is different.

SPEAKER_01 29:40

So well, I appreciate the opportunity to talk to you. And I'm my my ideas are spinning around in my head. But if people want to get in touch with you, it's soloparent.org. Yes. And I assume there's a contact us button. And I saw, as I said, it prominently displayed two options joining an online group or starting an in-person group and um all kinds of other resources.

SPEAKER_00 30:06

So as I said, I lead on Monday nights at 8 p.m. Central. So come to my group and get a little taste and see if you like it. Is that online? It is on Zoom. Yeah, you can join directly from the website. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 30:18

So Monday nights, 8 p.m. Central, Elizabeth has an online group. Wow. Okay. I'm so glad you were specific about that at the very end here. That's so great.

SPEAKER_00 30:29

Yeah.

Links, Schedule, And Closing Thanks

SPEAKER_01 30:30

Okay, we'll have all this information in our show notes. You can also go directly again to soloparent.org. And I just want to thank you so much for taking the time today and for really the good work you're doing. Thanks so much.