What does the Bible say about single parents / parenting?

We got work for her. She was a thrifty Scots woman (the Scots people are very canny), and soon the house looked quite home-like. A chair or two, a table, some matting, a piece of oil-cloth, a fender, some cheerful almanacs from the grocer near by, gave the place quite a home-like appearance. She had been going on like this for some months, supporting herself and her only child. One day I found her, sitting by the fire weeping.

We got work for her. She was a thrifty Scots woman (the Scots people are very canny), and soon the house looked quite home-like. A chair or two, a table, some matting, a piece of oil-cloth, a fender, some cheerful almanacs from the grocer near by, gave the place quite a home-like appearance. She had been going on like this for some months, supporting herself and her only child. One day I found her, sitting by the fire weeping.

Here Moses speaks not merely of God's doings and dealings and ways, but of Himself, of what He is. He is high over all, the great, the mighty and the terrible. But He has a heart for the widow and the fatherless — those helpless objects deprived of all earthly and natural props, the poor bereaved and broken-hearted widow, and the desolate orphan. God thinks of, and cares for such, in a very special way; they have a claim upon His loving heart and mighty hand. "A Father of the fatherless, and a Judge of the widow is God in his holy habitation." "She that is a widow indeed and desolate trusts in God, and continues in supplications and prayers night and day." "Leave thy fatherless children, I will preserve them alive; and let thy widows trust in me."

What a rich provision is here for widows and orphans! How wondrous God's care of such! How many widows are much better off than when they had their husbands! How many orphans are better cared and provided for than when they had their parents! God looks after them! This is enough. Thousands of husbands and thousands of parents are worse by far than none; but God never fails those who are cast upon Him. He is ever true to His own Name, whatever relationship He takes. Let all widows and orphans remember this for their comfort and encouragement.

And then the poor stranger! He is not forgotten. "He loves the stranger, in giving him food and raiment." How precious is this! Our God cares for all those who are bereft of earthly props, human hopes, and creature confidences. All such have a special claim upon Him to which He will, most surely, respond according to all the love of His heart. The widow, the fatherless and the stranger are the special objects of His tender care, and as such have but to look to Him, and draw upon His exhaustless resources in all their varied need.

"We are orphans and fatherless, our mothers are as widows" (v.3). This gave them special title to the care of Him who is the Father of the fatherless, and the Judge of the widow. In so speaking of themselves they express their own utter helplessness, and their confidence in Him who had been the Guide of their youth. So earnest a plea would not be despised. None ever called upon Him in vain when in felt need, and truly repentant.

"A Father of the fatherless,�is God in His holy habitation" (Ps. 68:5). He cares for and protects those who have no natural protector. On this His people can count. Pity, too, for His children He feels, and as is needed will give proof of it, for "like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear Him. For He knoweth our frame; He remembereth that we are dust" (Ps. 103:13-14). What consideration on His part thus to speak, calling attention to that earthly tie, which is of Himself, and to the feelings towards the offspring which are implanted in the breast of an earthly parent. What should we think of that parent who had no pity for his children? An unnatural father, all would call him. Alas! amongst men such a character is not unknown; yet it is but natural and right for an earthly father to feel compassion for his children. The relationship in which he is towards them should call it forth spontaneously, as circumstances require it. Now all that such an one should feel for his own, that God our Father really feels for His children, only, of course, with an intensity and depth beyond the capability of the creature to exhaust, or even to fathom. "He knoweth our frame; He remembereth that we are dust." Precious, surely, should that word "remembereth" be. An earthly parent may forget it or ignore it; God never will. His compassion can be always counted on by those who fear Him.

What then is the answer? It is that God, our Father, has a special care for the fatherless and the widow, and therefore puts this exhortation first; and further, may not the reason be that we are slow to care for the fatherless and the widow? Anyhow, here is a very powerful and potent exhortation—and we do well to pay heed to it.

Mistaken again. Her mother is a poor widow, almost blind, and quite lame from rheumatic affection. There is in the family an aged grandmother, entirely helpless, bowed double with toil and years, whom they support; the three — grandmother, mother, and daughter — comprise the household, and the child is the mainstay.

But though "mothers" are not mentioned, the relationship of parents being one of love, so natural to mothers, they are, as hardly need be said, included, especially where the mother of a family is a widow, and, as such, the head of the family; or where the father is unconverted, all these exhortations being, of course, addressed to believing members of a family. But if in the first part of the Apostle's injunctions as to parental duty, mothers are not mentioned, from the reasons given above, they come in, in an especial way, for the second part of our verse "bring them up in the nurture [or 'discipline'] and admonition of the Lord;" for it is just in this point, that on the part of mothers virtue often becomes a failure, so disastrous to themselves and to the spoiled child of their love.

As has already been indicated, the word in the original is not: "nurture," but "discipline." The Christian father (or mother) has to bring up the children "in the discipline and admonition of the Lord."

My Christian reader will easily see why "mothers" are not mentioned here. A mother's tender love needs no exhortation, not to provoke her children to wrath. The warning she needs would be more in the contrary direction. It is a well-known fact, that children, who have lost their father in their infancy, often grow up to a softness of mind and character, that unfits them for the stern duties and realities of life and on the other hand, such who have been deprived of their mother in their early days, often assume a sternness of character, which renders them very unsociable and unaccessible for the gentle influences and loving associations of family life.

What a place the mother has in the home. How much she has to do with the children. The father, normally, spends less time with them than the mother who, normally and Scripturally, is the worker at home. How responsible and yet how privileged she is to have such close links with the family in their tender and formative years. What an opportunity for godly mothers to lay a good, Scriptural, and christian foundation in her children.