On the afghan-covered couch of my best friend’s Mother’s day home, a little boy lay curled in the fetal position, his hair drenched in sweat and his cheeks red-pink. He looked utterly miserable.

Sherry’s Mom was bent over him, a cool hand on his forehead, and she shook her head angrily as she removed a thermometer from his mouth.

“He’s got a temperature, the poor duff,” she said quietly,” He should not be here. He is going to make the other kids sick, and he needs his Mommy.”

I looked at Sherry, worriedly. My own little boy had recently started spending days at their day home and I couldn’t fathom ever leaving him in a state of fever and malaise of the boy on the couch.

“Why would his Mom have left him here?” I asked,”Was he not sick this morning?”

“He was,”she said,”She’s a single Mom and she said she had no choice but to go to work.” She shook her head in disgust. And I exhaled slowly, wondering what was Wrong With People.

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This year will mark my second Festive Season as a Single Mom. And I’d kind of rather wade into a teeming cesspool of leaches with cement blocks on my feet than hang out without my three-year-old sidekick on Thanksgiving and Christmas — but it looks like that’s exactly what I’ll be doing.

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My friend emailed me late one night this week, an update email about his kids, his work, and what was stewing in his head. He’s a fairly newly divorced dad, with a 7 year old son and a 3 year old daughter. His ex-wife and the kids live about six hours away by car.

It’s a situation he was amenable to at first: she was offered a great career opportunity in her old home town; her family was there and he could have the kids on weekends and for stretches of time over the holidays.

“But I miss the kids so much,” he wrote,”I want her to move back here, or at least halfway. And I want to ask for joint custody.” I could almost feel the pause in his missive: a friendship between a single Mom and a single Dad is rife with opportunity for misunderstanding merely on the general perspective of the sexes.

“What would you do,”he wrote,”If your ex asked for joint custody of your son?”

I drew in a breath and wrote back right away.

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My good friend Mel was in town a weekend ago for the Madonna concert. As she arrived on my doorstep with her luggage, shaking off droplets of rain, I suddenly became aware of the unintentional pine needles decorating my tile, the littered array of mini dump trucks on the fireplace mantle. And yes, there was also a half-eaten cheese bun sitting on the couch and a plethora of dishes in the sink.

“Uh, the house is a tad messy,”I said apologetically, taking her coat.

“Tally,”she laughed, referencing my ridiculous height-inspired nickname from years ago,”It’s me. I don’t give a hoot.”

Good things my friends aren’t picky, because housekeeping is number one on the list of Things I Let Slide.

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While seated solo at the bar at a busy restaurant at LAX last week, picking at a cold quesadilla and organizing folders on my laptop, I met a young business man.

“Where are you headed?” he asked when I lifted my laptop bag to make room for him next to me, the only empty stool in the room.

“Going home,”I said, stretching my arms and feeling my shoulder prick with the aftermath of terrifying GPS-led navigation on LA’s infamous freeways,”Just here for the day for meetings.”

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I walked with my son along the sidelines of his Father’s rugby game late Saturday afternoon.

My three-year-old kicked leaves and I shuffled beside him, somewhat embarrassed that my kid’s skinny little legs were exposed in a pair of wildly autumn-inappropriate blue shorts. But he insisted and I’ve learned a hard fought lesson: choose battles with small humans wisely. At least he’s wearing a thick coat.

We’ve been to a few of Nolan’s father’s rugby games now, and at first I felt frozen to the bleachers among the cheering wives, Moms of adult, lumbering sons, and grizzled British ex-pats muttering salty words of frustration . Were there any other ex-fiancees here with the sons of any other of the rugby players? Didn’t think so. But we rolled with it, because we’re good at that, inspecting floating red Maple leaves and holding hands and sneaking off to buy root beer at the snack bar.

There’s an older man always present at these weekend games, in his late fifties, standing with a large camera and a keen eye on the sidelines under a canopy of trees. He’s watched my son and I at each of the four games we’ve attended, smiling, making us feel welcome, each time. This day he speaks to us for the first time: “So who do you two belong to?”

I look up and smile and stammer mentally, concocting what to say and Nolan points to the field, to a burly man in a white hat, pummeling another burly man into the sodden ground.

“That’s my Daddy!” he says joyfully.

Camera observer man turns to me, waiting.

“That’s my ex,”I say slowly.

“Oh,” he says, looking a little flustered: and then, “Silly man.”

It’s a little uncomfortable for a minute as I weigh the assumption: that this man believes the Father of my son left us somehow, gave us up. It’s an assumption I’ve heard before: no one wants to be a single Mom. Single Moms have been forced into the situation without their consent or compliance, right? This well-intentioned man doesn’t realize that perhaps, I was the one to leave.

I encounter assumptions about my single Mom status on a near daily basis; the following are the stereotypes that make me cringe the most.

1) Single Moms are desperate for a new man.

I’ve dipped my toe in the dating pool, grudgingly, over the last few months and the first thing that always comes up is the assumption that I want to get married and have more babies, stat. Why? Because I’m a single woman of child-bearing age? Because a woman is not complete without a man? I don’t know, but it’s annoying assumption, without merit, and I don’t like it.

2) Single Moms are money grubbing.

I can’t count how many times I’ve been asked how much alimony and child support I receive. The answer: none. The reaction: shock. Many acquaintances, friends, customers and strangers have assumed I am somehow benefiting financially from my separation. Nothing could be further from the truth. Not that it’s your right to ask anyway - in my opinion.

3) Single Moms should be pitied.

“I don’t know how you do it!” It’s the single most repeated refrain of my single Mama existence. It’s meant to be tender and empathetic, I know, and I don’t mean to dismiss the good intentions behind the phrase. But I do it because I have to, like every single Mom has to. It’s not worthy of praise, I’m no more strong than you, I just deal with what I encounter, like anyone else. Save the pity, is my view: save it for the baby seals and impoverished countries and Republicans. (Just kidding! Kind of.)

4) He must have left you

As above. Strangers have said: “He’s an idiot, why would he leave a team like you two, how could anyone leave you” and more. Strangers (and acquaintances) need not make these assumptions. Maybe he didn’t leave. Maybe us single Mamas did what we had to, made the decision ourselves.

What Single Parent assumption makes you crazy?

There are many very challenging components of being a single Mom: handling the weekday drudge chores solo, navigating the slippery slope of temper tantrums without additional adult intervention, curling up to cold sheets at the end of a long day with an unsatisfactory pillow for company instead of a warm body. There’s the inability to release the pent-up frustrations of parenting through adult conversation, and a tendency to eat half-chewed sandwich discards as Sunday dinner.

But for me, and for many of the single Moms I know, the most challenging stress factor is money: how to survive on just one salary.

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I watch Kim from the sliding glass door of my tiny office. She’s efficient as always as she packs up her Blackberry, her laptop, and a stack of file folders from her desk. She wraps her scarf around her neck and quickly glances at her watch, slipping off her heels and shoving her feet into the waiting flats under her desk. It’s only 4:30 as she hurries to the elevator to leave for the day.

Kim is one of the most polished and efficient sales people on the team at the large media company I’m working at. I admire her intelligence and hope I have half her poise when I’m her age: which is only in four or five years. But I can’t help resenting her a little. I understand she has to pick up her kids from daycare, but shouldn’t she be putting in her dues at the office, too? I’m working till at least 7:30 every night to make sure I’m on the right rungs on the slipper corporate ladder - and, I know it sounds petty — but I resent her late mornings and early exits.  Just because she chose to have children doesn’t mean she should get away with fewer hours on the clock, right? I think parents need to put in the same hours as non parents.  Firmly.

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Like so many women who grew up in the 1980’s, I have a moderate fascination with Madonna.

I remember listening to Like a Virgin with a mixture of thrill and awe, not quite sure what this Virgin business was all about, but understanding that the message was naughtily scintillating and awfully good background for dancing rhythm-lessly with my little friends in the carport of our suburban home.

I flipped through glossy magazines in my tween years: lusting after the lace gloves, hairspray and giant crosses that characterized Madonna’s mid-80’s style. I wanted to be that confident, large-eyed, get-anything-she-wants woman. I didn’t want to be a singer, necessarily, but even then I knew that it wasn’t Madonna’s voice that created her success. It was her determination. It oozed out of every pore. With that assured tenacity, she couldn’t fail.

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When I was contemplating the ramifications of separation from the Father of my son, I sought wisdom from my two best girlfriends. One of them, Shelly*, is a child of a nasty divorce. Her Mother left her Father when she was not quite three, and moved her and her older sister across the country to be closer to her own immediate family. She rarely saw her Father growing up.

“Do you resent your Mom?” I asked, stomach sinking,”For moving away from your Dad, I mean.”

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