I know that TRP generally thinks that single mothers are the epitome of uselessness. Having hooked up with quite a few when I was single, I would agree.

But, there was always a catch to this. My mother raised myself and two siblings alone, and was fucking awesome. I recognize that I'm biased here, but let me throw out a few lessons that I got from my mother, which I imagine most boys would have gotten from their dad's if they were lucky enough to get them at all.

Lessons on Violence and the Social Pecking Order

After divorcing, my mother didn't have shit, so we moved into a HUD home. The neighbors were what you'd expect, and so were their kids. One of them was my age and a bit bigger, and so he kicked my ass a couple times as I walked home from school. One day he actually followed me to my house. When I went inside, my mom spoke to me. She said:

"He followed you home to harass you; you'll never have any respect from others if you let that go. You're safe in here, but tomorrow you'll just have to deal with it again. If word gets out, school's going to suck for you. It might be wise to just kick the shit out of him while he's here on your property. Don't worry, if you start to actually get hurt, I'll stop it."

And so, I sent that fuck home crying. No more issue from him. We ended up becoming friends.

Thoughts on Religion

My grandparents were quite religious and would take me to church regularly. My mother was, while not a self-proclaimed athiest, quite skeptical of religion. So, after hearing the exhortations of sweating pastors, I'd talk to my mother in an attempt to save her immortal soul.

Her response:

"I'm not so sure about this God character. You should read the Bible. Have a look at the old testament. God seems to slay a lot of people and really likes his burnt offerings. Sounds less like Santa Claus and more like the Predator to me."

I took her advice when I was in high school. Aaaaaand . . .I ditched religion pretty shortly thereafter.

On Personal Accountability

In early high school, I got into quite a bit of trouble. On a number of occasions, I was arrested. One night, after my mother picked me up, I expected a long lecture and some grounding or other such shit. Instead, she said:

"DU, you're too old for me to really enforce anything any more. If you are going to do something, I can't really stop it."

(I thought, "Goddamn right, I'm fucking running this shit. Finally, she acknowledges my godlike prowess, power and ability.")

She continues:

"But, you know, I don't really have to pick you up from jail anymore."

And she didn't. And I quit doing things that put me there.

Now, my mother had plenty of faults. The biggest was that she really liked alpha men, and those didn't make very good husbands or fathers--including my own dad. But, she was honest about it, and always taught me that women can't help but to look down on weak men. It is my nature, said the scorpion. And so, she would not suffer to raise a weak son.

She also never bought into the constant stream of bullshit popular culture ingraines into kids, and routinely taught my siblings and me to question teachers. She would also often mock increasingly feminized society. Though poor, she had a degree, and often mocked teachers who would try to talk down to her during PTA meetings or (more often) when I was in trouble. One in particular she called a "silly feminist who made up for her lack of intellect or attractiveness with sheer malevolance."

Perhaps most impressive of all, as I grew older, she would admit that she just couldn't give all the mentorship to a young man that he needed. She introduced me to an old ex of hers from college who taught me to shoot, hunt, fish, drive a boat, trap, and so on. Maybe that sounds weird, but I was happy for it.

Anyway, AWALT and all that, but SWABTO, and my mother was definitely one of the latter. She sure as shit provided me with more RP-type advice than the majority of middle class yuppie kids got, even from their beta fathers.