Single Mother

 

You only get one mother. There is only one female that bore you into this world.

For whatever reason and circumstance, she parted her legs and allow a male, for that is how it works, to enter her and ‘zygote’.

From that moment she will be designated as Mother.

Emotional and physical changes will happen from that point on.

A single parent is a person who lives with a child or children and who does not have a spouse or live-in partner. Reasons for becoming a single parent include divorce, break-up, abandonment, death of the other parent, and childbirth by a single person or single-person adoption.

The term ‘single mother’ has been referenced so many times in the media and popular culture I had to do some research. Raised as a boomer, I had a mother and father. All my schoolmates and friends had similar families. I was unaware of kids being raised by only one parent.

Having been after a war, one would think there would be more acknowledgements of kids growing up without a father. Just like amputees or others with war injuries, they were not in the victory parades and became invisible to the newsreels.

As my social circle grew, I became aware of orphans, different religious beliefs and ‘single mothers’. I noticed there wasn’t a father around but never asked.

It is tough enough to grow up as a kid, but being raised by a woman who must cope with the education, clothing, feeding responsible while trying to balance emotional memories and an unknown future.

There are single fathers too, but society designates childcare to the mother. From the moment of birth she is expected to be the first feeding station that the father cannot do.

The mother from the time of conception must decide whether to carry to full term, put up for adoption, abandon or worse. A mother, with or without the father, must take the burden delivered to her.

Don’t know if being a ‘single mother’ is a badge of courage, source of pride or a constant reminder to remorse.