My husband had an affair, but long before he did this he made choices that kept him away from us. Right from the very beginning. He chose other people, other events, other places over his family. So even though our relationship only broke down two months ago I’ve been functioning as a single parent for about eighty percent of the time that Bo has been alive.
My mother was a single parent. When I was eleven my parents marriage ended and my mother became solely responsible for my two younger brothers and I. It sunk her into a deep dark hole. She did the best she could for us, but it nearly destroyed her. I didn’t understand then, but I do now. I didn’t always agree with the choices she made, and I still don’t, but I know that everything she did was out of love for us. I knew then that she wasn’t coping. And I understand that now, more than I ever wanted to.
Except for women who choose to fall pregnant (via sperm donor or the like) and know right from the beginning that they will be a single parent (and for the record I don’t think this makes it any easier really), I don’t think there is a single woman on this earth who faces single parenthood without some reluctance. Doing it alone, for most of us, was never the game plan. Relationships fall apart, people die, people fall out of love, people cheat, people move on, people make choices… good and bad… that affect the course of the lives of everyone around us. We are all intrinsically connected after all.
There is so much to be said about the honest experience of the single parent. There is so much silence surrounding the truth. There are so many things that people are afraid to say. Women so afraid of admitting they aren’t coping. Afraid of the judgment that they face. So many women who are terrified to ask for help. Women who are asking for help and not getting it. Women who are struggling financially, emotionally, spiritually but who aren’t being heard. So many truths that aren’t understood. And therefore, there are so many misrepresentations and the great social prejudice that comes with a great social silence. The attitude that our society has that tends to blame a single mother for her circumstances, I believe, comes from a greater unknowing. An incredible cultural ignorance.