Summer has many associations. We look forward to sunlight, warm weather, BBQ’s and children being home…but not to someone else’s children being home, say your husband’s children with his former wife.

Instead of the children stopping by for a night or two once a week, these children arrive for two weeks, maybe a month.

All of a sudden the bleak, quiet days of winter seem compelling.

Dealing with your own children requires being thoughtful, calm, and present. Dealing with your stepchildren requires the same but with even more patience and reflection, so you can respond with integrity.

And then there are the frictions between your own children and their step-siblings in various outings and occasions.

I’d say it’s time for a cocktail and a few deep breaths — and possibly a series of mini-vacations, with one set of children at a time.

Even extremely evolved couples can fall prey to the blame game. Who made the mess in the kitchen? Left the front door open so the dog ran out? Broke my favorite bowl? Who?

It’s so easy to suspect your partner’s children from the previous marriage. Not only are your children perfect, but if you blame his children, that’s one less altercation with your own.

On the other hand, as a step-mother, you want to make sure that the step-siblings are having a good time.

The result this summer is that I am making everyone’s favorite dishes, driving them thither and yon, and attending to their needs at all times.

Trying to please children (who are always self-involved creatures) evokes Sisyphus pushing a boulder up a hill.

No sooner do you feel the glory of a job well done than there is another demand.

And chances are you are never thanked for anything you do.

Sometimes you just can’t win.

In a conservative town in Nebraska, Sara learned many lessons from her relationship and her divorce. "Trust your gut,” she says. “When you become a mom you have to do what’s best for your kid.”

Some people think you should put your husband first, she says, “but if you’re in a family situation that will negatively impact your kid, you have to take care of them. You’re responsible and at some point your motherly instincts kick in and you have to what needs to be done.”

You also, of course, have to take care of yourself. If she had stayed with the marriage, she says, “I would be the mother to two people instead of just one. He would be very happy. I would work outside the home” — in the Air Force — “take care of the domestic duties and bills, and he would be free to do what he wanted to. I could have dealt with the situation, but I wouldn’t be happy."

On the other hand, being on your own, she says, can be tough. “Dating sucks with a child,” she says.

And then there is the regret: “You always worry that you could have done something to make it work... could I have done this or that, tried harder... any number of things. You’re going to second guess yourself. So know that that will happen, and it will be hard and trying, especially if you work, because you don’t get a break.”

Eventually, she says, it pays off.

The secret to making it through a divorce in the Midwest is to find a good support system. In her case, that was not her home church, which shunned her, even though she was a children's ministry leader there.

She felt the church thought she was a bad example to the kids. "I was asked to take a break from any church ministry. It was like, 'You are divorced so now you should rethink things.' "

She found a new church with a more liberal mindset and credits the congregation with helping her through the rough time.

Single parenting is stress. It is about learning how to juggle and balance your life. It is about learning to expect the unexpected. It is 2 AM trips to the Emergency Room, all alone.

It is explaining to your boss that you can't come in to work, again. It's about scrounging change to buy diapers. It's about driving to the local Family Court (who named it that anyway?) and filling out form after form.

It's about sitting in court houses for hours and hours only to end up with some stupid piece of useless paper.

Single parenting is frustrating. It's about feeling as if you never have one second to yourself. It's never being allowed to shut the bathroom door – ever.

It's never being able to blast loud music in your car with the windows down. It's never having time to talk to, or see, your friends.

It's not having a hair cut in two years.

Single parenting is frantic. It's leaving your house and realizing that you've got two different shoes on, or worse, you don't have on any shoes at all.

It's rushing through the grocery store at 7 AM, so that you can get in enough hours at work. It's rushing to pick your kid up at daycare so that they don't charge you the one-dollar per minute late fee after 6 PM.

Single parenting is lonely. Single parenting is single. There are times when it feels like there is nobody on Earth who could possibly understand how you feel.

Single parenting is depressing. It's about taking your kid to the park and seeing all of the happy families. It is about seeing a father play with his son and wanting to throw up.

Single parenting is embarrassing. It's about waiting for that dreaded question, "Where's his father?" or, even worse, comments like, "Oh his father must be so proud!"

It's about wishing that people were more sensitive to holidays like Fathers Fay and Mothers Day.

Bellevue is called "The Birthplace of Nebraska," and there could not be a better place to exemplify the Heartland of America. What is it like to be a divorced woman in this small city, surrounded by farms, churches, a neighboring Air Force Base, a place where folks are friendly, patriotism is abundant, and conservatism reigns.

Sara Muse, 23, knows what it is like to endure a divorce in this conservative part of the country, and she knows what it’s like to do it with a 3-year-old daughter, Rhyanne, in tow.

"I was married for about a year and a half before she was born," Sara says. Her eyes light up when she speaks about Rhyanne, whom she has essentially been raising by herself since her divorce a year ago.

"He sees her a couple of times a month … at my house, not at his. He'll come over for a few hours and then leave. He doesn't take her overnight."

Sara does not fit the stereotypical image of a divorced woman, and a single mother. She’s a Staff Sergeant in the U.S. Air Force and a semester away from earning her bachelor's degree in marketing management.

She volunteers, and is active in her church. "When I first separated I was 21 with a small child, and I was walking around with no ring on my finger,” she says.

“People will look at you and the child, then your hand and there’s just this, 'How old are you? Did you get pregnant in high school? Did you make a mistake? Did you not play by the rules?'"

She’s also heard people say, “Oh you are so young to already be divorced.”

She says, “Like I’m starting on this path to five or six husbands."

Check back tomorrow for the story of Sara’s marriage

Odds are that when people hear the phrase "single mom" they envision an unwed teen, poor, uneducated, unemployed, and struggling. There is a real stigma attached to being a single mom. A recent poll of “Moms Today” revealed that:

• 86 percent of those interviewed believed that most single mothers are on welfare,

• 90 percent believed that most single mothers are under the age of 25 and

• 77 percent believed that most single mothers didn't graduate from high school.

I used to believe these things too, and then it happened to me. I was married. We decided to have a baby, and when I was eight months pregnant my husband left. Just like that, I was a single mom. I'd never been so terrified in my life. For the first few months I would ask, "How did this happen to me?" I'd try to pinpoint the exact moment that things went bad, thinking if I could just nail that down, everything would make sense. That was the hardest part, the utter shock that I had let this happen to me, that I could be so blind.

After I got over that stage, (I never did find that moment), once the rawness wore off, I started to pick up the pieces. I worked at finding the perfect balance between loving my son, being the best mom ever to him, and taking care of myself and other things I love. Slowly, I've figured out ways to navigate life as a single mother. And I’ve met other wonderful single moms who have redefined what it means to be a single parent. We're educated. We work. We pay our bill. We take care of our kid(s). We date. We have fun. According to the US Census Bureau, this is what single mothers really look like:

• 44 percent are divorced or separated

• 79 percent of single mothers work full time

• 72 percent of single mothers live well above the poverty level

• 69 percent of single mothers do not receive public assistance

• 68 percent of single mothers are over 30 years old