Bring in the Husbands!!!

LACTATION CLASS AND HUSBANDS

I got a kick out of this over at Mom Solo, a blog written by a single mother who is one by choice.  I didn’t sign up for single motherhood per se, but I’m here in it, and I found this post very telling.

For a long time I was embarrassed to be a single mother.  With my daughter, I always made sure to chime in that “I was with her father for years!”  Maybe if I threw that out I wouldn’t be judged.  The second time around I was married, and when my marriage went south and we divorced, I was faced with stigma of being a single mom, with two kids, with…..different dads.  So with my son, I find myself making sure I mention his dad was my “ex-husband, ” so people will not think badly of me.  I carried this on for a while, even gaining a fictitious husband when I moved to DC.  I am learning that this type of lie is another part of “mommy guilt.”  I felt guilty because I didn’t stay with the father’s of my children, therefore not giving them a traditional family (whatever that is now days).  I am letting go of that guilt slowly, but surely.  My marital status is not a direct indicator of what kind of mother I am or what kind of person I am.

Related articles

• First Lady Refers to Herself as a Single Mother (politicalwire.com)
• On Not Being a Single Mother (mybetamom.wordpress.com)
• The Single Mother’s Survival Guide. (uggggh.wordpress.com)
• Celebrities and Sippy Cups Poppy Montgomery Talks about Mommy Guilt (everydayfamily.com)
• Musings of a Single Mother (biodunsamueladepetu.wordpress.com)

The Hitter

If you have read enough of my blog, you know by now I have two kids.  One girl, one boy and these two are like night and day right down to my pregnancies with each of them.  When I was pregnant with my daughter, I felt HORRIBLE!!!!  All I could stomach was cold canned peaches and pepperoni pizza from Sbarro.  I was pregnant in every part of my body to the point I looked like a basketball with eyes all through my third trimester.  My labor with her was my reward for my pregnancy, it was quick and dirty, just like all labors should be.  Pitocin, broken water, baby.  So easy I don’t even remember the pain, though I am 100% sure I saw stars during one of my contractions.  I guess the easy labor was God’s way of making sure I had energy for the next step, because I did not sleep for longer than 30 minutes at a time for the next 3 months.  My daughter had this strange thing going where she had two modes: crying or sleeping.  I will let you guess which one she liked to do the most.  During those three months, she took four 45 minute naps a day, all which did not allow me to “sleep when baby is sleeping”, which I think is the biggest bullshit phrase I have ever heard.  When she wasn’t asleep, she was crying.  I guess it was her way to pass the time away, or ensure there were none after her.  The upside was for all the crying, when she hit the toddler years she was a DREAM.