Eric Moore, pastor of California United Methodist Church, came to California in July of 2012, as he put it, "suddenly and unexpectedly single."
Moore grew up in Springfield. Until he moved into the dorms at Central Methodist College, Fayette, he had always lived in the same house. When he graduated in 1996, he entered seminary, and began a pastoral career. He was appointed to serve church congregations in Huntsville, St. Charles, Columbia, Fayette and California. When Moore came to California, just about three years ago, he said the new situation was "enormously disorienting."
His girls and "the incredible support of my church family anchored me in the midst of stormy seas."
Josie, 13, and Norah, 8, live primarily with their mother during the school year and attend West Middle School and Fairview elementary, respectively. "They live with me in California all but one weekend each month during the school year," Moore said, "and the majority of the summer. Norah attends summer school at California Elementary."
What do the children mean to their father?
"My girls are the lens through which I see the world," Moore said. "I have only a brother and all of my first cousins are male, and so raising girls is pretty foreign to me. I realize that I had some misguided notions of what girls were like in comparison to boys - turns out they're just as smelly, also eat like horses, and find potty humor every bit as funny as boys do. I want to help them discover what makes them each uniquely beautiful - and I want to do everything I can as daddy to ensure they know it's their brilliance, curiosity, warmth, and seemingly infinite capacity for empathy that defines them. I desperately want them to know their value, and for that value to inform the choices they make in life."
Asked a few questions concerning being a single dad and his calling as a pastor, Moore was candid in his responses.
- What's the best advice you ever received being a single dad?
I do not parent differently as a single dad than when I was a married to my girls' mother. What has changed is that I parent with a different intentionality. During the school year when the girls are living primarily in Columbia, nearly every Tuesday evening I drive to Columbia for what they affectionately call "daddy-daughter date night" where they take turns picking our supper destination. Sometimes we go play at a park or work on homework together - but always we spend time talking about their day. I always want to know what the best thing was about their day, and what was the hardest or most frustrating, and for what are they most thankful.
Not long after I came to be pastor in California, I was lamenting with one of the guys in my church that the United Methodist Men have their meetings on Tuesday nights, and because of my arrangement with the girls I was unable to attend. I'll never forget his response: "Eric, don't ever miss a chance to show your girls they are the most important things to you in this world."
- What struggles do you have as a single dad?
The biggest struggle I have as a single dad is not being with them every single day as I once was. The things I miss the most are the everyday things that would otherwise easily be taken for granted. Believe it or not, things like brushing hair and making school lunches are what I miss the most when they're not around.
- What's the best advice you would give to a single dad?
The best advice I can give is something I did not realize at first how significant it would be: find a way to be involved with your children every single day - somehow, some way - even if it's virtually. On nearly every day that I am not with them in person, I have a video chat with them on my phone. In the earliest days of single parenthood, this lifeline to them kept me sane. Over time, I have discovered that this time creates opportunity for conversation and conveys to them that they're my priority even when I am not with them in person. Sometimes we talk about the most important things in the world; other times we talk nothing more urgent than what they ate for supper. That intentional conversation carved out each day keeps communication lines open - something that I especially value now that my oldest is a teenager.
The other best advice I can give fathers is to pay attention to when they call you "Dad" versus when they call you "Daddy." Maybe it's a father-daughter thing or maybe it's just that I am raising a couple of little ornery connivers, but their default is to call me "Dad" except when they want something, at which point they call me "Daddy." They are keenly aware the power of the word "Daddy." The other day, my younger daughter begged her older sister for something, and when it didn't work, she batted her eyes at her big sister. Josie's response: "Norah, that only works on Daddy." Sadly, it's true!
- What should every single dad know about his kids?
This is just an educated hunch, but I think every single dad should know that his kids want a meaningful relationship with each of their parents. Even though they do not live together, they want to know that their mom and dad make co-parenting with the best of intentions a priority. I am grateful that in my girls' situation, Molly and I aspire to do just that.
- What skill should every single dad have?
This is a continually growing edge for me: know how to ask for help when you need it. The hardest part of parenting even in the best of circumstances is we do not know what we do not know. I don't think it accidental that my closest friends during this chapter of my life have been fellow single parents, and in my case have been single moms. Frankly, being male and not having had sisters, there are aspects of raising adolescent girls that are foreign to me. I am blessed with a support network of single-parent friends of whom I can pretty much ask anything and receive a helpful, compassionate answer.
- Which is your biggest challenge at home: Cooking or Cleaning?
I like to cook, although I am entirely self-taught. I haven't killed my girls yet with my cooking - though they'd probably tell you I have tried.
Cleaning is far and away the biggest challenge for me. A single mom-friend of mine brought over recently her robot floor cleaner - attach a Swiffer pad and turn it loose on the hardwood floors. She loaned it to me for a few days. I choose to think of it as one single parent doing a favor for another, and not that she was commenting about the state of my floors!
My girls are old enough to contribute to keeping house along with me, although sometimes I struggle to give them that responsibility.
- What is your proudest moment being a single dad?
One day this spring I was talking with my oldest daughter, Josie, about her busy schedule at school and all of her orchestra and choir concerts, performing arts showcase, mandatory parent meetings for rising 8th graders, and field trips. I told her that one way or the other, I would be there. Her response: "I know, Daddy. If you didn't have a car to get there, you'd walk to Columbia." Josie is a brilliant girl.
- What was the scariest moment being a single dad?
The scariest moment happened very early on in single fatherhood. I don't think the moving truck had hardly pulled out of my driveway when one of my dearest church members came over and introduced herself and welcomed me and the girls to California. As we were chatting, she asked me what I was going to do when the girls are with me and when the phone rings in the middle of the night with an emergency in which a family in the congregation needs me to come be with them immediately. I had no good answer; in fact, that's the single-parent/pastor nightmare. She said, "I'm gonna tell you what you do. You call me. Anytime day or night. I will come and sleep on your sofa so you can go be our pastor." That phone call has happened more than once, and I am grateful that this beloved parishioner and others both of my church and beyond it have been there when I needed to ask for help.
- What matters most in my life is...
...that my girls know they are the most important thing in the world to me.
- How do you balance the difficult choice of risk vs. responsibility for your children?
I believe in the "trust but verify" approach to parenting. We start in all things from a place of trust, but my job as parent is to ensure that that trust is well placed. My older child has a cell phone but it's subject to occasional and unannounced inspection to ensure she's making wise choices with it. She's old enough to have a Facebook account but she cannot have one without "friending" her mother and me. My younger child has understandably grown tired of riding her bike in circles in the driveway, and so little by little is earning right to ride her bike in the lightly-traveled road in front of our house. She recently said to me, "I know you worry about the other cars on the road than you do me." She's right - she is increasingly earning my trust the more that I oversee her riding her bike in the street, but I never stop worrying altogether. Whether it's riding her bike in the street, driving a car when she's old enough, or dating boys (God forbid as she'll never be old enough in my book), every parent understands that balancing risk versus responsibility is a balancing act.
- How do you balance the time for the children, since time is at such a premium for a single dad?
I balance time for my children as well as I do because I make them the priority; and they know they are the priority. If our usual Tuesday night date night is not possible due to a schedule conflict, we make it up and do it on another night. If money is especially tight at the end of the month, we may not go out to eat on daddy-daughter date night - we have done peanut butter sandwiches at the park and we have made frozen pizza and had a Wii bowling marathon. Our time together is the value - not what where we eat. And when things interrupt our hoped-for plans on any date, we adjust and come up with a new plan. All of parenthood is a balancing act, but with good communication and their trust that they are the number one priority, we survive and thrive.
- How does your calling and the associated work involved affect your involvement with your children?
My girls know that the work I do as pastor is not a typical 9-5 kind of job; they know that my vocation is more than a job. They make sacrifices and adjustments all the time for my job, but this is the life they've always known, and it always works out. For example, last month I had to miss an important end of the year concert at school in Columbia because I was preaching at California High School's baccalaureate. Yet the day before, I had the flexibility to take a few hours in the day to chaperone the same kid's field trip to the Churchill Museum in Fulton, and I was one of a small handful of dads in her class able to do so.
My children know that I care deeply about them and about the people I serve among in ministry. Empathy is not something we can teach or coach into our kids - it's something they observe in their parents and emulate. I have sat in parent-teacher conferences in which their teachers glowingly told stories of each of our daughters handing in their assignment and voluntarily offering to go sit and assist a classmate who has having trouble. This isn't something their mother and I instructed them to do. If I can help nurture in them a heart for their neighbor, I feel like I'm doing the most important job I am called to do.