Being a single mother by choice, by definition, means the heterosexual woman is okay being manless. I'm not talking about her father, uncle, brother, or brother-in-law, though I have none of those. I am speaking about a romantic relationship with a member of the opposite sex. She has decided to step away from society's expectations of the traditional family. She is not the woman who always has to have a boyfriend or the one who puts marriage at the top of her personal-goals list. She is also not the chick who goes clubbing all the time because you can't do that when you are an SMC. That lifestyle usually requires hiring a babysitter, and that simply becomes too expensive.
It may have been very painful for her to have reached this place of peace by which she was able to honestly look at her situation, come to grips with her years, wipe away her tears, consider her biological clock, and say to herself: "I am still single, and I want a child." Or "I am in a relationship but not one leading toward long-term commitment or at least not fast enough." Or "I don't want my current relationship to become serious. I would rather break it off to have a child or raise a child separate from that person." The final statement in this fraught chain of thinking is: "I want to become a single mother." (Cringe.)
Little girls don't grow up dreaming of becoming single mothers. No one's written "Cinderella" from the perspective of a woman pining to raise a child alone. To choose this path is to embrace what not long ago was considered a very radical alternative to having a child within the confines of marriage or long-term partnership. For me, single motherhood was a default position; the label "Single Mother by Choice," a misnomer. It was Plan B--the option I learned about and turned to because Plan A didn't work out.
Deciding to become a solo parent potentially means making huge sacrifices in regard to one's freedom--one's social life among them. There are exceptions to every rule, of course. One former full-time single mother I know was able to maintain a robust love life because she lived very near her sister. The sister and her husband, childless at the time, were more than happy to babysit her son so she could go out. And go out she did! She found one husband and, when that relationship failed, found another. Yet while she may have resembled an SMC to an observer, she was not one. Her first husband just lived on the opposite coast and, as such, was mostly hands-off in the fathering department.
My best single-mother friend knows a D.C.-based SMC with two young children who married a friend from work. I have read about another with two kids who got hitched to someone she met after relocating back to her Midwest hometown. She and her husband had more of a part-time marriage in the sense that they did not even live together. However, I have since learned from someone who knows her that the relationship has fizzled. In the Seattle area, the mother of one of my sons' half-brothers (through their anonymous-sperm-donor father) has changed her status from single to married as well. An SMC from my own Boston chapter of Single Mothers by Choice, the national organization, got remarried after giving birth to a donor-conceived baby on her own. And one of my chapter's former leaders got engaged to and subsequently married someone she'd also met through work.
Stories of SMCs finding love, marriage, or some other type of romantic commitment do exist, of course. Yet in my experience, they are fewer and farther between than one might think. As an attendee of SMC Boston meetings for close to ten years, I observed with interest how often--or, most likely, not--the subject of dating came up in discussion. In my early days with the support group, it was rarely raised. Honestly, I felt it was the 800-pound elephant in the room. And when the subject was brought up, invariably it was me who had done so. I listened carefully while other members talked about how hard it was to fit dating and a relationship into full-time single motherhood. Wishfully naive, I thought to myself: Nonsense. I'll manage it.
Well, lo and behold, didn't I manage it for three solid years starting exactly one month after my oldest son was born! However, the admittedly casual relationship became too difficult to maintain following the arrival of my second son. Charlie was a difficult and colicky baby, making me slide further into my chronic fatigue syndrome--a condition I suffered from for five to seven years, two and a half of them spent not getting so much as one decent night's sleep thanks to my little horrible sleeper!
Following the breakup with my boyfriend, I could not even think about finding a new relationship for two solid years because I was in the throes of utter exhaustion. Literally, I was just trying to survive--get out of bed, get dressed, take care of my sons, and work on my book-length memoir. Prop myself up, basically, like a limp scarecrow overseeing the garden.
When my state of restedness finally felt passable, I ventured back into those waters. I found online dating much harder to manage than it had been pre-children. There was the issue of pulling myself together to look nice when I usually felt pretty crappy--granted, not as crappy as before but crappy nonetheless. There was the issue of satisfactorily keeping up with the communication in order to get a first, second, or third date. I often failed at this juncture for a number of reasons: being unable to get to the phone often enough, talk long enough, place a return call within an acceptable amount of time, or reply to an e-mail with the right amount of enthusiasm. Geez. Let me tell you, it's very challenging to be sufficiently upbeat when you feel like burying yourself in a sleeping bag.
It wasn't long before I discovered that the conundrum my life choice has handed me--men my age, already reluctant to date a woman the same age (pushing fifty at the time)--were also not interested in dating someone with young children. Their kids were in their mid-teens, college, or even out while mine were watching Bob the Builder. As if these were not big enough strikes against me, pile on the matter of my unavailability: I had no weekends free, no weeknights off, and no vacation weeks like divorced mothers. Voila! Behold the surefire recipe for Undatable Middle-Aged Woman, or UMAW. Oh, but don't forget The Babysitter Factor or, as it is more commonly known, The Wallet Drain. A. My home was in too much disarray to bring in a babysitter most of the time. B. I rarely found one when I tried. C. I couldn't afford one often enough to keep a relationship alive. (In case you're wondering, my former beau was extremely understanding regarding all of these points. He was a saint, really. Yet even saints have their limits: He broke up with me.) Paying for a babysitter enough times to get presented a ring has got to be like shelling out for one year of college.
Despite my numerous disadvantages in the dating pool, I rejected several potential suitors myself. Yes, I am picky, too, which is one of the reasons why I was in this predicament to begin with. You would think that someone who chooses to be a single mother, replete with all of the hardships that entails, would be domestic and possibly sedentary. Well, think again. That is not me at all. So I said "bye, bye" to those nice few men who were willing to put up with old, unavailable, not-rich-enough me along with young them (my boys). When not plagued with chronic fatigue syndrome, I have been athletic and outdoorsy my whole life. But both characteristics presented the final Catch-22 in regard to finding a relationship: I had practically no free time to do the things I love and that I hoped my companion also loved.
So it felt like an absolute miracle when a gorgeous, successful Ivy Leaguer younger than myself--a former Outward Bound instructor, no less--decided to give me a chance. Since he had a flexible schedule, we were able to see one another during the day when my boys were at school. The arrangement solved my babysitter problem but not my money problem because I was losing valuable work time while still paying for preschool. Alas, the strikes against me proved too great. He could not get past the young ages of my children.
This raises the simple question: Has the simple fact of my SMC-hood also been a factor? No and yes. Mostly, I have found that men--obviously, the ones I would be interested in--are not put off by the unusual nature of my family. Instead, they have told me that they admire the choice I made, and they call me brave. However, I have a special knack for locating that rare man who can't handle my truth. Before having kids, I actually found a man who changed his mind about wanting to date me after I told him my parents had died, and I was an only child. Somehow my misfortune made me "not family-oriented" like him, he said. I wonder exactly how family-oriented he would think I am today?! Likewise, leave it to me to find the man who rejected a woman for being an SMC instead of a divorced mother. Having pursued me for twelve weeks via e-mail, it was very obvious what the reason was for his sudden disinterest. He ended our first phone call right after I told him about my choice, blubbering on with some bullshit story about becoming closer to an acquaintance. The sole purpose of the call, I might add, was to nail down the particulars of our first date.
Once again I am taking a break from online dating. It took me a while to get over Mr. Outward Bound. Then when I felt ready to dip my toe back in, I rejoined the dating website that connected him to me. I had seen the profile of an attractive creative type who likes to kayak from the community next door. I wrote him an e-mail and cautiously awaited a response. Nothing. Rejected for my age again, I surmised, which was exactly the same as his. Feeling a rush of all-too-familiar disappointment, I let that website membership expire and have not pursued any other since.
I would welcome meeting someone in my real life, but I don't need to now. Having turned fifty last September, I have resolved to refocus on my career. I don't need a relationship and, for the first time in my life, I rarely even think about one. Perhaps this means that after eight and a half years of being a single mother by choice without a support network, I have finally and truly become an SMC -- a Seriously Manless Chick. And I am okay with that.
Hell, at a recent Boston chapter meeting, I was the one who responded to the questions about SMCs finding romantic relationships. My conclusion: very hard to do, easier if you have one child as opposed to two, you need money to hire child care, better to wait until the kids are older, and you need energy and determination.
I could tell my rather negative report on my own experience and the observation of others didn't sit particularly well with members of the group. It was not what they wanted to hear, and I could see my former self in them. "Anything is possible," they said hopefully.
Yes, I agree. But good luck with that.
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