It’s nice to be loved. No. Seriously. I walked into a room full of strangers this evening and it felt like home. My kid ran off to play with the birthday boy who promptly gave him a big hug and a kiss. Someone took my coat, someone else pointed out the pates. Everyone was sweet, everyone made a point of introducing themselves and chatting amicably about this and that. It was just what the doctor ordered, here on the eve of the week where Everything Might Change. My heart was eased.
I don’t know the whole story. We met the birthday boy and his papa and his little sister last week at the innaugural outing of the single parent group that Papa was putting together. It’s a neighborhood thing, though I hope it becomes a local thing — DC Single Parents. Papa is young, focussed, and has sole custody of two kids who were, until this weekend, both under three. Of course, he’s the subject of much gossip in the park… gossip I hadn’t heard until mama friends started calling me up, asking me if I’d heard of the single parent group forming. It’s all good press for this guy. He’s got a good soul, and tonight I got to see where it comes from. Family.
There was his blood family: his parents, his grandparents, his uncles and aunts, of course. But weaving through this established family was the new one this Papa is trying to form, these single parents whose kids were so exuberant and bright. There is a promise, here, of something good to come. Of late night phone calls when the kid turns into Super Grouch and someone needs to blow off steam. Or someone you can rely upon in an emergency to do whatever you need without complaining or holding it as a favor to be returned on some future date. Call me optimistic, but I think we might just form another village, one filled with like-minded folk whose two shoulders to support so much of the load.
Do any of you out there have such a network? Do you have single friends you can really turn to? Do you have playdates and Single Parents Night Out? Do you have a grocery store buddy, a Friday night pizza and movie buddy? If you don’t, you need to find them. I know they are out there. They are looking for you. They need you as much as you need them.
Your network shouldn’t exclude intact families, either. I overheard a dear, happily married friend of mine saying to her children and my King of Everything, “You are the lights of my life!” How’s that for making you feel 
weak at the knees? How’s that for letting you know that, no matter how hard it’s been, it’s been worth it?
We were the last to leave the party, and the family was kind enough to ask us to stay. Nico ran the gauntlet of kisses on his way out the door and gave as good as he got. We meandered back home, he on his Spiderman bike, I on my only pair of black shoes. We gathered dried lavender flowers to put into his beloved Zebra ZooZoo when the current sachet loses its fragrance. We laughed and shouted in the warm, night air. We felt loved.
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How can you do it? Start by joining any parenting, neighborhood, or singles organization in your city, town, area. If there isn’t a singles group, you can use the parenting groups as a spring board to create one. Do searches on Yahoo, MSN, and Google for existing groups to join. Talk to your church or community center. Look for singles support groups in the Yellow Pages. Get to know your fellow parents at the park, and suggest playdates or shopping excursions together. Start a babysitting co-op, though it’s hard when you’re the only person who can watch your kid, but if you become friends with other single parents, suggest that if they can come watch your kid for an evening, you can do a slumber party, and make pancakes in the morning, so the babysitter doesn’t have to wake his or her child in the middle of the night to go home.
Get creative.