Like I said before, being the only child of a single parent isn't easy. They're gone a lot, and when you move along into your teen years and don't need to be under constant watch all the time, you can get very lonely. When I was a teen, I had my close group of friends that, to me, was my family. However, since my mom was always working and tired when she came home, I felt very isolated and distanced from her. No one's teenage years are easy — frankly, they suck. For me, though, teen angst and turbulent emotions were amplified because I often felt like my mom didn't care. I translated her absence and lack of communication into apathy, which really troubled me for a long time.
As an adult, I know now that she was far from apathetic as she worked relentlessly to provide me with anything I wanted. No family, no matter how many people it is composed of, is ever 100 percent happy 100 percent of the time. The kind of unhappiness I dealt with was particular to a single parent home, but other kids have their own kind of unhappiness with their home life, too. It's just different.
