Single Motherhood By Design

I don't need a man to have a baby. I don't have to find "The One" and fall in love and get married to procreate. My body doesn't actually care if Cupid has shot my heart straight through with arrows. Love and sentiment technically have nothing to do with the fact that since my menstrual blood began I have been able to have a baby -- whenever I want.

My eggs are sitting inside of me, waiting, waiting, for their chance to engage. They've been here all my life, hundreds of thousands of them, clustered so patiently. They are quiet, tucked away from the outside world in a semblance of security. For most of my life I've barely given them a thought, hidden away as they are in the dark, deep red recesses of body and emotion.

You'd think that such a profound feminine gift would have crossed my mind more, but it hasn't. Sometimes I take for granted what I already own and instead dream of what I desire. While some women know all of their lives that they are meant to be mothers, my youthful ambivalence has been my armor, shielding me from the tougher questions of how we are beholden to one another.

But it feels like a both a blessing and a curse, this gift, as I have woken to the knowledge that my ability to generate life is a choice bound by time. Suddenly, it seems, I am thirty- four and single and my horizon has become a tipping point of fertility. How did I get here so quickly?

Thirty-five is the age that statistics site as the significant beginning of fertility's measured tread towards menopause. It's shocked me to realize that my eggs are in decline. What's shocked me even more, however, is the realization that there is no need for me to wait to act, to wait for love, to wait for a man, if it's children that I want. I am single, yes- but I am not alone.

This isn't how my mother did it. This wasn't a choice that even occurred to her, to be a single mom by design. My mother wanted children and found a husband to have them with. He worked and she took care of the kids. He brought in the money and she brought up the next generation. I was conceived with the values of a 1950s nuclear family practically embedded in my DNA.

Even so, I've never been one for convention. Where people are going has always been more interesting to me than where people have been. In the United States today, traditional nuclear families now constitute a minority, roughly 24% of households compared to about 40% in 1970. There is a rising prevalence of other family arrangements, such as blended families, binuclear families and single parent homes. This shifting landscape demonstrates that what's becoming most important about family has less to do with structural values and more to do with emotional values. Children raised in any of these circumstances need the same thing- positive role models, a sense of belonging, some rules and expectations and someone who loves them unconditionally.

Here I am, faced with choices. I feel lucky to have them, to be a free woman in a free country, with the financial and emotional capacity to provide for a baby. I wonder at this weaving path that embracing love can conceive. For the first time in my life, when people ask me, "Do you want children?", my answer is yes. But I have begun to consider the question: What does family mean to me?

Comments

[Merckx]

I know a bunch of great single parents. I still wouldn't go for it.
My wife and I regularly tell each other not to die. Not just because we would miss each other but because the thought of raising children by ourselves is overwhelming. People do, of course when a spouse dies or whatever. People regularly rise to the occasion. But to do it by choice. Egads!
My wife is a great parent and I think I am to. Our kids are doing well and are happy healthy members of their little community. But it is a full time job. We have both become masters of time management.
But once an awhile, we need a break and if the other one wasn't there...whew...

If you must. Adopt an older child.

[OtayPanky]

Financial, psychological and physical resources are what's needed to have a chance of giving a child a reasonably happy experience of childhood.

You need X amount of money, Y amount of emotional maturity and resilience and Z amount of time and energy to do the job right.

If you have those resources without a full time, live in partner, then go for it. But...if you don't, then don't let your narcissism, or your primal ovulatory urges, overwhelm your common sense.

My suggestion: get ahold of a GOOD counselor - and go through the XYZ of it all. Tell him or her not to bullshit you...and don't you bullshit yourself either. There's a life at stake, and I'm not talking about yours.

Sometimes it's wonderful to go ahead with this profound experience...and sometimes it's better to get a canary.

[Mustang Sally]

OK, your response was excellent.

My more succincgt (intentional misspell) item did not make it through, $elfish and oh so wr0ng.

[Scornful]

Well, did you want to be married, or do you just want a child?

I would strongly suggest having two parents in the home if you want to start a family. That's just my opinion, and the friends and family members I have seen who tried to do it solo had a very tough time trying to wing it solo.

[bearwithbrio]

now, i haven't taken the time to read all the comments but some of what i have read has alarmed me...

comments like "you need to find someone who loves you first", or "kids need two parents" etc., have no founding.

what if i'm ok with being alone? what if i don't want a partner? what if i'm ok with not ever having been married? not having my own kids but instead adopting?

stop trying to fit YOUR square peg into MY round hole. different ways of life work for different people, and the more people you have to love children and to take care of them, even if the way they do it is uncoventional, the better.

i want a kid how i want a kid when i want a kid. yes, me. mine. i want! is it ok that i've owned it, all those "selfish" phrases?

kids need to be fed, clothed, housed and given emotional tools. i will be able to provide all of those, one day, i hope. until then, i will keep on wanting them, ON MY TERMS.

[Oxfarm]

Well, go for it then. If you are absolutely sure you can do it alone or using some other support system, then do it. if you don't want a partner, fine. Don't need a partner? Fine, your business. But a partner is a great thing for a person to have, for _their own sake_ not the sake of the children. The partner is there to take care of you, because all caregivers need, guess what, someone to take care of them at times. If you think you have all you need, fine, but I would urge any woman considering single parenthood to take a moment to be selfish about her needs as an adult woman for a bit first, and realize that kids fill kid void, but not partner void, and any attempt to hotwire the two usually sucks. And your family and friends and community may not be terribly invested in your single parenthood adventure. Make sure you have a support system of some kind for yourself, something rock solid.

[WWang]

I was raised by a single mother and I believe I turned out to be quite an accomplished person. And even with a loving man in my life, I have decided that motherhood isn't for me. (We both agree that parenthood isn't for us, of our own individual accord, btw.)

I believe parenthood has a lot to do with one's belief in one's ability to raise a child. Do you believe that you are going to be a good parent, and will be able to give the child all that s/he needs? If you feel you have more to give, then by all means, do it. If this is more about you, about proving something to society regarding your ability as a woman without a man in your life, or about needing another person's love by giving birth to that person, I think you shouldn't do it. As a woman who knows she can't be that selfless, I urge you to do some deep soul searching.

[canow]

I know a number of women who have chosen to be single parents (either by insemination or adoption) and their kids are doing fine, know where they came from, don't seem to have any problem with how their family is structured. Both women have good support networks of friends and extended family, which helps, but they are certainly as well-balanced as any of the kids I know from two-parent households.

[LordMoon]

A long time ago, I worked as a social worker, and I spent many hours answering young childrens questions about where was there Daddy?

Frequently transporting children to court, they would ask me a long series of questions, about who there father was, where was he, what did he look like? Sometimes they would ask the same questions about their mother. Wondering if I knew where she was, and why she never came to see them.

I have also seen on many occasions other children ask the same questions of their mother about the identity of a stranger who comes to their home , or who phones. Is that my Daddy? They will ask.

Children need both a mother and a father, to be unconscious of that fact is to be unconscious of a child's needs.

But to many the feelings of a child, are not as important as what they want. Obviously that is why there are so many abandoned children. But then abandonment takes many forms.

It's easy to do things like this when your unconscious.

[Chatto]

Frankly, whether a child is raised in a single-parent family has little to do with his/her outcome -- believe me -- and science -- when I say that genetics have much more to do with a child's outcome. Having children is always complex, but many married women with children are still doing 100% of the childcare anyway, plus taking care of their husbands. So, it would seem that single parenthood actually seems the easier way to go.

One word from a 40-something who decided very early on NOT to have children -- it turns out that waiting too much longer might not be good for you or for the baby. I went into serious perimenopause at 34 -- it was totally out of the blue, but even if I had wanted children then, I couldn't have had them. So, you might want to be sure that you have a meeting with your gynecologist to determine your fertility, etc.

Good luck!

[caved1ver]

"How does one explain to their single-parent child that yes, they could have had a father, but Mommy was too uncompromising, too work-centric, too critical or superficial, or just plain too lazy to do what it takes to make a "conventional" relationship work?"

Bravo. Heaven help anyone who actually assigns some measure of culpability to these self-important women children who are unable or unwilling to maintain a healthy relationship w/ a man. But what do you expect from the gender that "invented" no-fault divorce & is currently responsible for filing for over 70% of all divorce actions?

It is a Woman's world after all...

[wandering girl]

wow. what a sexist, judgmental, sanctimonious load of crap.

[mredder4]

Me, me, mine, mine. I just paraphrased this whole post in that little blurb.

Is it all about the author? What about the child? If she has a daughter, she'll undoubtedly raise her to believe that man are unnecessary, dooming her daughter to a lifetime of failed relationships and single-mot­herhood-as­-last-reso­rt as well. If she has a son, she'll send the message that he better watch his ass, otherwise no woman will want him or will want to raise kids with him. (Obviously, as some comments show, there are men who want to raise kids too.)

Single-parent kids may grow up statistically as successful as their two-parent peers, but that little factoid doesn't include all the moments spent wondering "Why did Mom leave?" and "I wonder what my Dad would think about this, if he were here with me." Even worse, "Was it my fault?" Is it right, morally, to choose to have a child to satisfy your own biological whims (And it IS a whim. You're a rational, thinking being, not a brood cow.) if the result is increased emotional hardship for that child throughout his or her life?

How does one explain to their single-parent child that yes, they could have had a father, but Mommy was too uncompromising, too work-centric, too critical or superficial, or just plain too lazy to do what it takes to make a "conventional" relationship work?

[Furby]

Well, it's rather simple. "I don't know who your daddy is but I love you enough for both of us." That's what my sister did 13 years ago. My niece is happy, balanced, getting good grades, a little rebelious but that's normal for her age. Doesn't miss daddy a bit, just like all her friends who's daddies are nowhere to be found :)

[Darwinita]

As opposed to all of the nuclear families who "stayed together for the children" despite the toxicity of the marriage? Is it right, morally, to stay with someone whom you've come to revile so that the kid (who always sees though this) has a "stable base?"

How does Mommy explain to the kid that yes, Daddy is a presence in your life, and I'm so sorry that both of us have to put up with the SOB?

Sanctimony and judgment are so distasteful. Personally, I hope she does whatever she feels will best constitute her happiness, and nobly live up to the responsibilities that her choices incur.

[mredder4]

'Personally, I hope she does whatever she feels will best constitute her happiness'

Why do I get the feeling that you're a Baby Boomer? It's just the right mentality for that quote.

Nowhere did I advocate for loveless marriages. But even in families that fail, both parents are usually involved somehow even after the divorce. This author is removing the right of her child to know her father, and that's disgraceful, especially for something as hollow as the pursuit of the author's happiness.

Selfish, selfish, selfish.

[Joshuarr]

I know people who hate both their parents, and I am willing to bet you do also.

I was raised by a single mother and never had a moment of anguish over the questions of why. Of course that is probably because I was well loved and cared for by an amazing woman.

It sounds like you've experienced this so called "increased emotional hardship" throughout your life. You would do well to analyze your own issues before calling a woman's instinctual drive towards motherhood a 'whim'.

Life is hard. Parents have to explain hard things to their children. My mother had to explain that my father wasn't a bad person, he just couldn't control his drinking. I'm glad she explained that on the other side of the country from him. I don't think the author will have any problems explaining things to her children, whether there is a man there or not.

[OrganOfThought]

well said

[sfsclark]

1) You can do it alone, but you won't do it as well as if you have a partner or an extended family living in the same town. Single parenthood is a poor choice to make. For the kid and for you.
2) Children eat up virtually all your resources (I know I have four). If you have a baby after 35 you will be exhausted (I know two of my mine were born at 35 & 39). Our energy levels do decrease over time. After a long day of work when you come home to homework, errands, sports, getting dinner, baths, and whatever kind of fun you might want to have with your kids you will be wiped out and it will be 10:30 p.m. (I know I also work full time)
3) There is no way I could have 4 children and a successful career without my husband. His involvement makes my lifestyle (which I love) possible.
4) A partner or close family gives you down time which is necessary for all adults with children. My greatest fear is that somehting will happen to my husband and I will have to manage the financial, emotional, physical, and mental stress alone.
5) Get over the bull#*&%%$ you've been fed. Parenthood is diffcult enough without making it worse by going it alone.

[Mort]

One thing that jumps out of the article is "I want." "Me." "I don't need a man... I can do it by myself."

I don't mean any disrespect here, but before you go ahead with this, you really should ask yourself why. Is it because you want to be a good mother, love a child and do everything you can to ensure that he or she is nurtured properly, or is it because you can, you have a right and no one is gonna deny you that? If you really care about the interests of the child and are willing to take on the tough road of single parenting by choice, more power to you. But if this is all about you and your ticking clock, I'd think it through a little more.

[Bashley]

I'm 27 and just had this same discussion with my mother over the weekend. I would love to adopt a child or become a foster mother and take a less demanding career to put something back into this world. I currently work 50 hours a week and am finishing my bachelor's degree, but still find a way to give 10 hours a week to a local charity that works with foster children. I would love to leave corporate America behind and take care of a child, and myself. My grandmother is urging me to wait for marriage and not give up my career (which I hate).

My mother raised me by herself after my dad left. They were very young (19 and 20), and my mother says she wouldn't change a thing as far as I'm concerned, but wishes they were older and more stable. She applauds my enthusiasm, but truly wants me to wait until I'm older (my plan is to wait until after graduation).

I think any person who CHOOSES to be a single parent is going to bring a loved child into this world. I look forward to adopting a child who needs love like any other child, and raising them to the best of my abilities. Be it with a husband or without.

[SonofLiberty1]

Bashley,

I too (being 51) would urge you to wait.

You never know quite what life will bring you.

If God wants you to be married and have a child it will happen in his time, not yours.

Looking around, I find that being a single mother is not as easy as the blogger here wants to
portray.

Again, you never know what will happen in your life....

[Joshuarr]

It's not time to make a change - just relax, take it easy.

[Joshuarr]

I'm 32, and have never really thought about wanting or not wanting children. I recently started dating a single mother, and the kids are great. One thing you need to prepare for is the need for baby-sitters, or a live in nanny. Finding a sitter when we want to go out spontaneously it is often an ordeal.

[AnneOlivia]

I used artificial insemination to conceive my son, who is now 7. Although the plan I had for raising him has fallen apart, I've discovered another positive set of circumstances for the 2 of us, and we do okay. Although I've had moments that I've been scared, I would not trade him for the world. After my mother died, he literally saved my life and gave me something to keep living for.

It's not easy, but it's fun and challenging and will teach you a lot about yourself and what you're capable of.

[marakima]

I'm a man, no children and no wife or GF, and I envy your position... I'd love to have a kid, and I'd want to raise him or her by myself. I'm hetero, btw. Adoption will be the way to go for me, and if you do end up getting too old to healthfully conceive, I hope you will consider adopting as well.

[OrganOfThought]

surrogate mother + donated egg?