Is it possible for a single mom to raise two boys without having any male mentors?

Also, how do you learn to trust other people with your children?

My dad left when I was really young, so my mom tried to surround my brothers with positive role models. Three of my brothers were molested by men my mother thought she could trust. One was by our uncle, another by one of the older kids in a mentorship program that our church had, and one was by one of my brother’s friend’s dad. When all this came out (more than 10 years ago) out of the 3 brothers that had been molested: one was in jail, one was hooked on drugs, and one had committed suicide. When my mom found out the details, she was inconsolable. It broke her, and she passed away shortly after that.

My husband passed away last year and I have two sons — ages 4 and 6. Because of what happened with my brothers, I don’t really trust my sons around any other adults.

I’m paranoid about preventing them from going through what my brothers did, but at the same time, I don’t want to shelter them to the point where I stunt their social development. I made sure they had tons of playdates and sleepovers, but always at my house (and as they get older, I’m thinking about cutting out sleepovers because I read some stories about men who had been molested by their friends at sleepovers).

I hear parents complaining about being trapped in the house with their kids during the pandemic, but this has honestly been a Heaven send for me. I don’t have to worry about them being around any adults without me there.

I’m content now, but I’m worried about the future. One day, things are going to open back up, my sons are going to get older and they’re going to be around other adults and people who want to hurt them. And I won’t be there to protect them.

But besides that, I’m also worried about the effect of raising boys in a single-mother household. I read that boys that grow up without a father or positive, male figures in their life are at a greater risk of becoming men with behavioral, emotional, psychological, and relational instability.

But I don’t see why that is. What can a father teach their son that a mother can’t? To tie a tie? Change a tire? Anything I don’t know, I can Google, and my sons and I can learn together.

But for the people that say I’m being foolish and unrealistic, what are some things that helped you learn how to trust other adults with your kids?

Related posts:

I often catch myself playing down one thing just because I like another one. Like, I like art house films, so I think to myself that blockbusters are stupid. In our new flat we have a lot of very…

When business is slower than desire, many companies believe discounts will bring customers who will return for more, but that strategy rarely works. New businesses and startups often believe that the…

The steady flow of pings woke me up in the early hours of the morning well before my alarm was set to do the job. Notification from friends in other time zones had me wondering what on earth I was…