Single Mom at Work
with Jennifer Mattern
Feeling singled out? Get singled in with me: single mom, two kids, zero disposable income. Sometimes, life just sidles off in your preferred direction without you, and it takes a while to wrench your heel out of the sewer grate and catch up. Let's talk, sistas.
Find out more about my street cred at Breed 'Em and Weep.
I attended the pirate party of a 4-year-old classmate of my son on the weekend, a fete filled with Spiderman face painting, sickly sweet ice cream cake, and pint sized hooligans with eyeballs rolled back in ecstatic delight at the prospect of manic, unbridled carousing with other small humans.
I never know whether to drop my son off or hover at these events, and since I didn’t know the hosting Mom outside of vacant “hello’s!” at daycare drop off, I folded myself awkwardly into a chair on the sidelines of the gym and set to work inspecting my Blackberry, social pariah style.
Another Mom soon plopped down beside me, and I recognized her as the Mother of Oliver, a sweet-natured kid who always has a smile and a hug for my son. She’d been at a previous birthday party with me, and we’d exchanged pleasantries about our careers, lives, hobbies.
We did so again, discussing the French teacher at daycare and the awe-inspiring fact that our three year olds can say “maintenant je sais” with better accents than us when suddenly she paused the fluffy conversation and looked at me direct in the eye, hard.
She said: “I just have to tell you how much I respect you as a single working Mom. I have no idea how you do what you do but I just…have so much respect. Your son is obviously a sweet, well adjusted little boy and you are doing a great job.” She meant it, she was sincere, and she seemed almost nervous that she’d acknowledged what everyone at my son’s pre-school already knows: what no one has ever mentioned to me.
Horrifyingly, my eyes welled up with tears. She’d touched my heart by not only acknowledging my situation but addressing it positively, and crap, while in public when I should be berating my kid for smearing sprinkles on his face on the other side of the room and…I blinked the tears away and smiled.
“Wow, thank you,”I said,”I’m all choked up. That really means a lot. I have a big support system here.”
Most of my Mom friends are single Moms, for a variety of reasons. Paired Moms tend to invite other paired Moms to dinner parties, to keep the numbers even. There might even be a vague suspicion of Single Mamas: are we after the “Married’s” husbands? Is what we have contagious? Did we cause the demise of our life partnerships with our children’s fathers?
Possibly because we’re still in the dating pool, I’ve noticed that my Single Mom friends tend to place more emphasis on working out, wearing trendy clothes, maybe showing an occasional bit of leg. The result can be a marked coolness from married Moms who are either suspicious or scared - possibly a mix of both.
This was the first time in the three years of my Single Motherhood that a married acquaintance has voluntarily brought up my situation. The fact that she did it directly and with a frank, open heart made me want to be her friend.
If she ever invites me to a dinner party, I’d be there with bells on - wearing a full-length pantsuit and with a date, so she knows I’m not checking out her husband. But — I may just invite her over to my house first. I’m still verclempt by her kindness.
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this post warmed my heart! thanks for sharing.
Stacy | May 6th, 2009 at 7:15 am
I liked this post ALOT….being a married reader of yours who finds herself awkwardly navigating so many (although not all) of the same things you are…just differently and (sometimes) with a partner..:*)
I like that Mom ALOT too..:*)
Happy hump day K!
wn | May 6th, 2009 at 8:02 am
This totally makes me want to have the courage to acknowledge the cool people in my life (acquaintances or otherwise) for the things I respect them for. What a really awesome woman. (And you’re equally awesome, of course.)
She Likes Purple | May 6th, 2009 at 8:54 am
Gosh! How nice was that?
Christine | May 6th, 2009 at 11:12 am
How great of her, and a good reminder for me to say the nice things out loud.
I’m interested by something you touch on here - do single moms often get the brush-off from married moms because the marrieds are suspicious that the singles are after their husbands? I’m married (and probably horribly sheltered) but it has never occurred to me that some mom in my playgroup might be on the prowl.
Married moms that are reading, do you worry about this?
Thanks for another thought-provoking post, Kristin.
(Thinking about it, I’m probably more likely to be cautious about inviting a single mom to non-kid-centric events because I’m trying to be sensitive about child care issues. I’ve gotten defensive reactions before; ie “Yeah, it would be nice to have a margarita with you but SOME OF US don’t have husbands to take care of our kids in the evening.” I probably just caught that person a bad day but it made me sensitive to the dilemma. )
Blythe | May 6th, 2009 at 6:57 pm
Stacy: Thank YOU for being touched. Makes my day.
wn: You always brighten my day, and you know what? I don’t tell that to my regular commenters often enough. I know all of you by tone and intonation and your urls and I don’t say thanks often enough for your contribution to my life: online and off.
She Likes Purple: That’s exactly it. I’m going to start telling more people how awesome they are.
Christine: Indeed. It’ll stick with me all year.
Blythe: This is something I think of a lot. I’m openly single and I do believe I scare some married women who might otherwise be my friend. I get it, I think, but it still hurts me a bit - I would NEVER consider dating a married man, let a lone a married man of an acquaintance.
Kristin D | May 6th, 2009 at 10:04 pm
I think most people in my kid-oriented activities don’t know I’m single, or it doesn’t matter to them. Those who do know me tend to “admire” my parenting efforts. But personally, I don’t think it’s all that hard to raise two tots without a man; the help I might expect from a husband would be offset by hassles I currently don’t have. In one of my girls’ mom & me classes, several of the moms are very pregnant or just had babies. I feel like they have it tougher than I have it, although they are married.
I agree that it is awesome that this other mom made it a point to compliment you. It’s easy to get caught up in what your own kid is doing and neglect these important kindnesses and courtesies. This is a good reminder.
SKL | May 7th, 2009 at 10:37 am
Oh, as for the jealousy thing - I still can’t imagine being “in the market” at all, let alone making eyes at married men. And I’m pretty sure I look it - if not due to my lack of eye contact and indifference to physical presentation, then due to the black circles under my eyes. But if people don’t invite me to dinner parties, for whatever reason, I have no problem with that. Maybe I am weird.
SKL | May 7th, 2009 at 10:46 am
There might even be a vague suspicion of Single Mamas: are we after the “Married’s” husbands? Is what we have contagious? Did we cause the demise of our life partnerships with our children’s fathers?
Kristin, really? This is totally off base. As far as I am aware, paired mother’s have great respect for single moms, like the mother you’re discussing. The idea of stealing their man seems a bit paranoid to me. Has anyone ever actually said that to you? Could it possibly be your interpretation?
Jessica | May 7th, 2009 at 11:01 am
Blythe -
I understand your hesitance if people have snapped at you. I will admit to the occassional snap but not at a genuine invite. If it comes the day before I might say, “let me know a week ahead next time so I can get a sitter”
That said, there’s a bunch of stuff I never get invited too because people assume that I can’t come because of child care issues. I mentioned to someone how it hurt that I know about a particular event and have never been invited. The host assumed I didn’t want to go because I’d have to get a sitter. I have a great sitter, who’s often available additional hours if I know in advance and I’m sure some others have the same, we just have to plan. But please, issue the invite, let us know we aren’t social pariahs.
If we are social pariahs in your eyes, well, be frank about it! I’d rather know someone doesn’t like me. Then I don’t feel like it is blind neglect.
Mich | May 7th, 2009 at 12:10 pm
This was touching and interesting at the same time. It seemed to make a lot of assumptions about married mothers - unfair ones - while similarly accusing them of doing the same to their single counterparts.
I am a married mother who keeps up with my body and style; doesn’t worry about anyone “stealing” her man, whether single mother or just plain single. After all, I trust my husband.
That being said, I have no experience with single mothers. While my husband stays home with our daughter, he’s been put off by both single and married mothers at the park and playground - either ignored or looked at funny - but that’s the limit of his experience too.
With the exception of one couple we’re friends with who just had a baby and another who is expecting, all of our friends are either single with no kids or a few years older, mostly divorced, with children who are grown and gone.
The hardest thing for us isn’t how we entertain (all parties we host are casual affairs with our friends, single, married, parents or expecting invited as they are) but how we respond to events we would normally have attended pre-baby. We were active in going out to parties, DJ nights and a lot of underground shows. Now, our best friend who has a long distance girlfriend and still goes to shows on a weekly basis, is going alone more often than not. He’ll tell us about great bands coming to town but finding the money for a sitter and night out or even finding a sitter on generally short notice just isn’t working. If it’s not that, it seems like our invites are for nights before big events for our daughter and we just can’t do it.
I think it’s wonderful that someone finally acknowledged the courage you’ve exhibited, but I think you might be a little quick to judge too.
Phe | May 7th, 2009 at 12:57 pm
Hmm, Phe, you might be right. I’m judging, and shame on me.
My best single Mom friend here was telling me that her old friend no longer invites her to dinners with her husband and she is sure, through veiled and not-so-subtle comments, that her friend is suspicious of her intentions when it comes to her husbands. Not the first time I’ve heard this, but it certainly may be an anomoly.
My single Mom friends are definitely in better shape than my married friends, but that too may be a totally isolated case. I know lots of happily married Moms who rock the trends and their bodies.
Kristin D | May 7th, 2009 at 1:49 pm
I am married and unfortunately, what Kristin says is true. I know plenty of married women that think ALL single women are on the prowl for ANY man. It is ridiculous. I have noticed though that all of the women that I know who think this way don’t have good marriages.
Erika | May 7th, 2009 at 3:21 pm
First, I want to say thank you to you, Kristin, for writing this blog and sharing your experiences so candidly. I have been reading your blog for a while now, though this is my first time to comment. I started reading it when I first found it on this site just because I enjoyed the writing and the issues raised. Later, when my husband began showing signs of mental illness and I was struggling with the possibility that it would reach a point where I would have to leave (which it did just a few weeks ago), I began reading your blog more intently, and even went back and read all of your archived posts, some of them more than once over. It was so helpful to me as a way to begin to imagine my own life as a single Mom. Not that your blog made it sound easy or look like the grass was greener on this side, just that it made me start to think in a real way about the great things as well as the not so great, but I could deal with them things about what my life would look like post-separation. For me, it was important to focus on what I was moving towards, and not on what I was running from, and your writing helped me to do that.
This most recent post in particular struck a chord for me because I am so newly single that I still feel like a transplant in the world of single Moms. As I was reading the entry and the comments, I kept going back and forth between which side of the marred v. single line I saw myself on. And being in between the two doesn’t bridge the gap for me so much as it makes me see the divide so clearly.
Thinking about it, I realize that when I was with my husband, while I did maintain my friendships with old friends who were both single and childless, when it came to seeking new friends, I definitely gravitated more towards other couples. It wasn’t that I was afraid of any impropriety between my husband and a single woman (I had plenty of things to worry about in my marriage - that just happened not to be one of them); it was more that I thought it was a more comfortable dynamic for family friendships when there was a man for my husband to talk to, a woman for me to talk to, and a child for my daughter to play with.
Now that I am single, I have immediately begun to seek out single Mom friends. I like talking with people who can relate firsthand to what I am going through. Also, as hard as it is to admit, I can’t help but feel when I am around couples with children that it is a painful reminder of what my daughter and I don’t have (though I hope that I won’t feel this way in time). In turn, I don’t want couples that I’m around to feel sorry for me being by myself. And, I have been a bit put off by the reactions of others to my new situation, though not in the way you describe. The worst (though sincerely well-intentioned) response to my situation that I’ve gotten from married family members and friends is the offer to watch my daughter sometime so I can “go out”. I’m not sure at all where it is I’m supposed to go, and I must say I resent the implication that because my marriage didn’t work that I somehow get (or want) a free ticket back to being 25 and single and childless. I very intentionally and very happily chose to be where I am as a Mom, firmly planted in a place where going out means tickets to the circus, and I have no desire to reverse the clock on that (even if I ever do decide to date again, I know it won’t look anything like dating the first time around). I am comfortable here, juggling my daugter and my career, spending my weekends at Mommy and Me and the playground, and going to bed by ten in pajamas splattered with jarred fruit. My hope is to be around people who respect my place here, even though I don’t have a partner anymore, and who don’t make me feel like I’ve somehow shown up to the prom alone.
I know that was a long-winded response, but my point is to say that I think the most important thing to remember is that we all have a lot in common as Moms first, in terms of where we are in life and where our interests lie, whether married or not. Especially while our children are young, I think that is a far greater indicator of our lifestyle than our marital status. I think if we can remember that, we can be less suspicious of one another and find more common ground. But, at the end of the day, we still might just prefer to be around people whose situations more closely mirror our own, and I think that’s okay too.
Jesse | May 8th, 2009 at 10:43 am
kristin..We have to make assumptions based on our experiences and those closest to us, no doubt. But…your post reminded me just how it feels to be lumped into a category based on a small set of experience (when viewed from the perspective of a wider world - not intimating that you’re of limited experience!)
In that respect, it was a great eye opener for me too.
It was also interesting as I’d never even thought of the things you’d noted when it came to single mothers. But then, as I said, my experience with ANY mothers beside myself is almost non-existent.
It’s hard for us as a couple because we are pretty much the only ones with a baby in our wider circle of friends and loved ones, so that makes us the outcasts in many senses…”Oh, don’t bother with them. They have a kid now and can’t make it anyway.” In that regard, I can relate to your sense of being cut off.
I hope that your married acquaintance reaching out will be the start of more inroads being made with other parents - single and married alike.
Phe | May 12th, 2009 at 8:08 pm