I Love Being a Single Mom — Interruption #8

Families can take so many different shapes and forms

The story we tell ourselves is that single mothers are to be pitied. I'm here to tell you that I don't need your pity.

I’m here to tell you that if you are a financially independent woman who has access to some form of support network, being a single mother is actually pretty great.

These are enormous “ifs,” I know. The patriarchy is predicated on financially disempowering women to keep us dependent on men. It has also long done its damnedest to make women feel fear and shame around single motherhood.

Perhaps the only fate worse than being a single woman with children is being a single woman without children. Cue the horrifying image of Mary Hatch from It’s a Wonderful Life, who suffered the fate of becoming a single childless librarian without George Bailey to save her!

As you work to shake this shocking and revolting image from your mind, allow me to return to the topic at hand. Where were we? Ah, yes, joys of single motherhood. Here are just a few:

• I can focus on parenting my children, not my children + a manchild

• I can make decisions about how to handle conflicts and various other parenting issues without fear of being undermined

• I can do less around the house, since my patriarchal conditioning isn’t pressuring me to do housework to “wifely” standards