Being a single parent.

Recently, I have noticed many of my partnered women friends posting statuses about single parenting. In their estimation when their working partners are away on business trips or the like, these women suddenly become single parents. This is, as has come up in discussions among my many single parent friends, rather insulting. These are women who have a partner who works and supports his or her family. If the second parent is gone for a few days or weeks, even months, these women are assured of a few things that real single mothers or fathers are not. They are assured that there is at least one steady income in the home, often the significant one, they are assured that at the end of the day the can most likely get ahold of the absent partner on the telephone, through email or the miracle of skype or google chat. They also know that this time alone with the children is only temporary.

While I would never argue that being alone with one, two or more children is an easy task, a single parent faces this task every day, 365 days a year. Single parents cannot count on a spouse or a partner to lighten the load. While we may have some financial support from the absent parent, true single parents do not have the financial, physical or emotional support of the child’s or children’s other parent.

According to a recent piece from singlemothers.com based on statistics from the US Labor Bureau : As of 2011, 11.7 million families in the US were headed by a single parent, 85.2% of which were headed by a female.¹ Around 45% of single mothers have never married; around 55% are divorced, separated or widowed. Half have one child, 30% have two. About two fifths are White, one third Black, one quarter Hispanic. One quarter have a college degree, one sixth have not completed high school.  Single mothers are much more likely than others to live below the poverty rate and struggle to provide for their children.  

These women do not always have an assured steady income which supplements their own; they do not have the knowledge that they can call the absent person at the end of the day. And they for damn sure know no one else is going to be home to take over when they are too tired or too sick to parent. This is not to say that a single parent is always alone. In my 20+ years of single parenting I have met many single women and a few single male parents, who have family and friends who support them. I certainly did, but even then the single parent knows she is really alone, when her child is puking and she needs to stay home from work often losing a day’s pay as a result.

My friends and I over the years, through desire and downright need, have built support networks of other single parents. We share babysitting, share meals, joys and failures, still we return home to a house where we are often the only adult. Most of my single parent friends have been the sole authority figure their young women’s and men’s lives. These parents have struggled to find the right words and levels of discipline for a young man suddenly bigger and strong than they are or for a daughter who is taking risks we recognize as ones we took all those years ago. Yet my friends and I have been fortunate, the respect for us as mothers our children have keep these sons and daughters on a sometimes crooked, but ultimately straight and respectful path in life. We have learned when to let go and when to hold on often with great anguish.  And we find support in each other and our children.

The real single mother in American society’s vies has been a woman to be pitied, ridiculed and during the recent elections someone to blame and shame. Historically she has been a wonton hussy, rather than what many of my single parent friends are, women who ended up in unfortunate situations, both by their own choice and through no fault of their own, but who have chosen to take on the responsibility of their actions by loving and supporting their wonderful children as they grow.  I am not bashing hardworking stay at home mothers and fathers or two working parent households, far from it. Parenting is hard work, keeping a safe, warm and loving home is a feat in this modern world. But I am asking that people consider what they are saying when they use the term single parenting with such glibness.