Last week, I asked you to tell me who you are, single mothers. How did you get here? Did you choose? Did you lose? Were you married, divorced, widowed, none of the above?
My story is pretty simple, and if you haven’t lived the bone-crushing agony of loss, the numbing sensation of being trapped and forsaken by time itself, you might think mine is a pretty amazing story.
But it’s not, really. People ask me how I do it, and seem to want to praise me — and single mothers like me, and you — for doing my job.
And from the first time I sat down and cried myself to sleep over this incomprehensible loss, to the day I realized I’d finally found home; from the morning my ex forced me to discuss our breakup in a cafe on the Champs Elysee where everyone could watch me cry, to the afternoon when I realized it would be difficult, but it would be all right; all along the way, I have learned, I have loved, I have passed on what I know.
You, single mothers, single fathers, and kind people everywhere, are my tribe.
Robin, good question. I struggle with this also. I have moments when I tell myself that what’s important that she has her dad in her life, then another bill that I can’t pay arrives in the mailbox or another collector calls and I just want to scream at how unfair it all seems.
Just a quick question. How do you deal with the fact that the ex doesn’t support your child at all and you do it all? I have a very hard time with this. I still have complied with the visitation schedule to a T and he gets to to be the “good dad”. He’s my son’s playmate, not a father. A father would financially support his son. It’s just so unfair.