No one told me what single motherhood would be like. Growing up I had watched Danny Tanner happily raising 3 daughters, and Carol Brady and her clan of blondes meet Prince Charming and form an instant volleyball team of cheery half siblings. It was a lie. Nothing is that easy.
I come from a happy 2 parent family. I was raised with values and responsibility and my parents are good hard working people. All this being said I took a harder road than I planned. By the time I was 20 I had 2 sons. I had fallen in love my freshman year of college and had blindly followed a guy who fed me full of lies, abused and broke the best parts of me, and left me pregnant with an 8 month old son on my hip. Was I fool? Absolutely. As a grown woman now, I can look at that circumstance of my life and highlight every warning sign, every naive excuse for his behaviors, every bruise, and every lie, and I can recognize them. I tell that version of myself to run....but her path has already been chosen, and for every scar that he left, he also gave me 2 beautiful boys. I won't bore anyone with his departure, but one day I woke up and I saw my sons face, and his brother growing in my belly, and I knew they deserved a better life. I didn't ask him for any kind of support for either of our sons, and like any good dead beat father, he didn't offer any. And eventually he stopped being a factor in our lives. I was 20 years old with 2 kids, and unfinished degree, responsibilities and no idea what direction I was headed in. I always hear mothers throwing around the phrase "single mother" "single mother", meanwhile they get a child support check every month and their child's father gets them every other weekend. I'd like to argue this isn't being a "single mother", its just being "single". A single mother by definition is raising her child alone, and its exhausting, and time consuming, and the hours are long, and without end, and it just might be the most rewarding gig out there. I knew early on that I wanted to provide for my boys. Not the government, not my parents, not strangers, but me, their mother. I got whatever job would pay the bills, and I pinched every penny, and certain realities became certain to me. If the boys needed diapers, that might mean not having shampoo. If the boys needed baby food or formula, than it meant I would eat purified bananas on saltines. My boys never did without, because I knew what they deserved and I was willing to give them everything they needed. Now before I make myself out to be Joan of Arc, the first 2 years of my sons lives, they were on Medicaid. It was the only state benefit that they received and simply it was because they needed insurance. I don't regret it. I believe that state aid is there for people that truly need it but I also believed that I was capable of providing all of the necessities that my family needed by working. It was not easy. Childcare for 2 children under the age of 2 is like a down payment on a fancy car each month. I am positive I didn't even know what a savings account was until I was at least 25. My sister helped with babysitting when she could, but every month I forked out a huge portion of my earnings for someone else to watch my babies while I worked. I stopped dating, literally halted, non existent, stopped. I watched so many of my friends bring these temporary men into their children's lives, and I didn't want that. I wasn't just dating for me, I was dating for them too, and I didn't know many men at the age of 21 who were looking for a ready made family. As the years passed by it got easier to focus on them and forget about dating all together. I adopted the ideal that it would happen when it was meant too, and the hopeless romantic in me still believes it will. Let's flash forward 10 years. Right now after all the crap, and hardships, we are this neat little unit. I have great kids, they are smart (both are in accelerated learning programs), they are kind, responsible, they are all around good little human beings. I have a career now, one that by the skin of my teeth and the grace of God, is something I have been able to build on, I own are home, a fairly descent car, 2 dogs, and a wii. All this and I would like to tell you that being a "single mother" has gotten easier. But it's not. I still struggle every day. Even with the good job that I have, its still very difficult to provide for a family of 3 on one income. My boys are extremely active in sports. I spend a full year before each season starts saving up for what they need, and even then a lot of times its not enough. We spend less than $75 a month on groceries. Insert 2 growing boys into that statement and watch all of your food disappear like a vacuum. I have carried my own insurance for all 3 of us for over 90 percent of their lives, and yet I still rarely have money to go to the dr myself despite multiple health issues. We don't take vacations, we shop at thrift stores, and garage sales, and my boys never complain. They are happy, even when things are hard. Sometimes I look at them and I think about how far we have come together, and how far we still have to go. I have faith that things will continue to get better. And I believe that where there is a will there is a way, I don't give up because I don't know how. I want to give my boys the world, because I believe that one day they might change it. And that is worth every struggle to me.
