Each car ride we notice a milestone our children reach. We see how much their speech has improved, how observant they’ve become and how much their personalities have evolved in such a short span of time.

Three-year-old’s reach that point where they have to ask a million questions and the main one is, “Why?”

But the one question we often don’t know how to answer is, “Mommy, where’s my daddy?”

I know we hope to raise our children without that question ever coming up  but sadly it does and many parents, such as myself, struggle with knowing how to answer it.

Kids are curious. They just want to know why other kids around them have a mommy and daddy. According to this website, www.fatherhood.gov/statistic/index.cfm, approximately 40 percent of children who live in father absent homes have not seen their dad at all in the past year. That is a pretty high number. Our job as single mothers is to reassure them that they are loved whether they have one parent or two.

Telling them the reason why he left could be challenging. We have to make sure we tell our children he didn’t leave because of something they did. We should never talk negatively about the absent father. Instead fill their minds with positive and happy memories of their daddy. Let them know that their mommy loves them as well as other loving family members.

When this question does come up, all we can do is show them all the love, attention and patience we have to give.