What is the most important part of your title as a single mother? Which really defines you? Are you single first and a mother second, or are you a mother first? For me, it’s always about Hailey, my real identity is as her mother, being single in not even in the top ten words that are part of my identity.
I am a mother, daughter, sister, friend, valued employee, writer, quilter, voracious reader, animal lover and a creative baker. I just happen to be single. Being single doesn’t define me yet too many times that becomes who I am.
I was all of the things I listed above long before I was ever single, and all of them, except a mother, long before I was married so why is it that people focus on the single part of my identity and not the rest?
Somethings become part of who you are for a short period of time, maybe you are a little overweight, or a little too thin. You may be young now but you won’t be forever. Single is just a stage of life that many of us have to pass through to get where we are going.
For me being single wasn’t a choice I made. I wanted to be married forever, I wanted the marriage my grandparents had, I wanted to stand on the porch with my husband watching the grand kids tumble out of the car like little puppies. It was not to be and that’s ok.
Single is where I am right now, but it’s not who I will always be, and even if it is, it still doesn’t define me. Single does not say you are a good or a bad mother, just like volunteering for the PTA will not automatically make you mom of the year. Both of those things will form an instant opinion in someone else’s mind of who you are.
Today, as evolved as we think we are many of us would still choose the PTA mom for a play date over the single mom, we just don’t have as positive an image of a single mother. What if the PTA mom is single as well? What does that do to the automatic perception?
I’m a good mom who has raised a daughter I can be proud of, what in the world does being single have to do with that?