I was married to a kind intelligent young man from berkely. He was very worldly and taught me a great deal, when we divorced when the boys were young 3 years old and up I became a single mother but my sons spent weekends and holidays with their dad. Their dad later remarried and we remained friends and his new wife shared in raising our sons.

As a single mom I used humor to deal with issues and as a teaching tool . I also worked at different jobs , I ran a day care and my sons helped when they were older. When they were younger they had books on the shelves , puzzles games and toys we also had baby dolls a toy high chairand cradle so when their sister came to visit they would role play. My sons father had a daughter with his new wife and she would come visit and stay and play with her brothers, so they played with trucks and cars and then katie would too plus then they would role play with the dolls and cradle. once we lived near a school where I worked and 5 girls that were sisters moved in near us, we decided to host a welcome tea party and the kids at the one room school house came to welcome the 5 sisters. My sons decided to be like butlers and served everyone we all had fun they put on their butler aprons and hosted and served all the kids that came.

some times after dinner we would watch the news together and if there were stories where people got hurt or a house fire I used those news stories as a value lesson to teach them to be sensative to others who sufferd from this. I would ask them how they would feel if this happened to them to make it personal.

my sons are married to wondeful women 2 have children and they are all thoughtful and helpful in roles they share in their marriages and raising their kids. My youngest graduated with his masters in political science and his wife who is from kenya is a nurse my other son works for the city and his wife works with disabled people they have 2 children a boy and a girl, my other son works for a large company and loves to cook his wife loves to bake so they have fun in the kitchen , this is their second marriage each and they each have children. all my family do volunteer work and donate time and help for others such as cook at a homeless shelter, work with kids on sports and donate equipment etc

They have good sense of humor, I remember one halloween when they were ages 3, 6 and 8 years old they knew how much I wanted a daughter but never had one, they got into an old trunk I had stored girls clothes in and they put on dresses and surprised me they wore them for halloween to act like daughters we all laughed when they choseto do this, they came dancing into the living room and said now you have 3 daughters. They were sensative to my dream that never happened and it shows they remembered and wanted to do some thing forme.

I worked and went to university and was lucky with some of the jobs I had one being on archaeological digs and woking for museums. My sons at time got to travel with me and spent time with men and woman in the field of study. I also new musicians and artist so they had an interesting group around them which taught them to be flexable.