Single mother hopes her book helps other single-parent families
- Tiffany Head | May 14, 2018
With her newly self-published book, 52 Weeks of A Single Mother’s Love, Wendy Mirasty had her first book launch in Lac La Ronge last week just before Mother’s Day.
Mirasty recalls how she tried to find single parent self-help books on how to raise a child in a single parent home but found it very challenging.
Instead she found an article on social media that was very disturbing to her. The article claimed that children who were raised in single parent family homes would become unhealthy adults and turn to criminal involvement.
“Right away, I thought about myself and my son and thought, that’s not going to happen! That’s not going to happen in my home and I highly doubt that it happens in other single-family homes,” she said.
She decided it was time to write her book to help other single parent families look at the positives even on their most challenging days.
Mirasty got most of her inspiration from single mothers who have come into her life and how they’ve kept their family together despite overwhelming obstacles, like financial strains.
Steven Swan, who helped edit her book, said, “it’s a valuable resource for a mother to use to reflect on how her life is right now and how her life will be.”
The book’s 52 topics for each week of the year are her reflections on her life values and experiences and each topic has a quote in the end and a question for the reader to reflect on, she said.
Mirasty would like the book to reach out to parents in hopes it would help them to reflect on their families and to build on the love and strengths they already have.
Life in the family home gets busy and everyone is always on the go where there’s dental appointments, school-teacher conferences, sports practices or games, cooking, clean and laundry; the list goes on and on.
“We have all those overwhelming mother moments where we do not even have time to cry, even though that is all we want to do sometimes,” she said.
Mirasty added there are a lot of self care topics in the book for parents who need to remember that they need to take time for themselves in a positive way.
She dedicates her book to her son and, “To the wonderful single mothers that continue to move forward regardless of what life brings.”
Her book cover is picture of two stick figures of a child and a mother with a heart in between.
She said that her son drew the picture and told her it was a picture of her and him and the heart in the middle is the love that connects them.
Mirasty said she has not marketed the book and did not think of making a profit out it but hopes, as she continues to do book readings and signing with various agencies and communities, that it reaches a lot of families.
She said the book has been out for a week and she has had to order more books to be printed. She had not anticipated such an overwhelming response.