In her book, Pregnant and Alone: Thoughts and Prayers to Strengthen the Single Mother, Pharr offers words of inspiration to help unwed mothers cope with the stress as well as learn, grow and become empowered. She shares with rolling out why she wrote this book and how the reader benefits. –yvette caslin
Please share with our readers your motivation for writing this book.
There are always messages and lessons in the issues of life. They are how God speaks to us. Although I don’t go much into the unusual details of my particular situation, I didn’t feel that it mattered as much as the information, support, encouragement and love that I want to share with women going through what should be a happy time alone, for whatever reason.
Why did you find it important to make it spiritual and reference God?
Pregnancy is a spiritual process, and God is a part of everything that I do. I have made mistakes in my life, but He has been the backdrop of my life, my frame of reference, since I was a child. Whether we’re happy or sad, up or down, it is important to remember God and rely on Him.
What will you share with your daughter when she gets older about pregnancy and relationships?
I am training my daughter, who is now 12, that she must focus her priorities on the constants in life — God and herself. She must love and value herself more than any boy or man. She must know that she is beautiful, important, strong and intelligent without the validation of others. I tell her all the time to focus on her education and never, ever compromise her goals and stability for someone else. I use my life and mistakes as regular examples and teach her my motto: “Never make someone your priority who makes you only an option.” I want her to follow the traditional order of things that I once had planned for myself.
What is the underlying theme of the book?
You can get through anything with or without a support system because where there’s a will, which means drive, determination and effort, there’s a way where there seems like no way. With God, there’s nothing too small or too big for us to handle.
Is there a point that you’d like to add?
Women need to up their standards and handle and love themselves and their children as if they’re priceless treasures. It’s about you, and it’s about your children. It’s not about him. When we take on the responsibility of having children, we are promising to raise them to be the best that they can be. Yes, it gets very hard sometimes, but you are their role models. You are all they have. You brought them here, so don’t leave them now. They need you.
Feel free to contact the author or purchase a book by writing Arnell Pharr, P.O. Box 1460, Marietta, Ga., 30061. She also is on Facebook and Twitter.
