It might be common knowledge that single motherhood has various effects on children, which is why many tend to demonize it. Check out father-daughter relationships and why it is important to build a healthy bond. However, let’s step back a bit and understand the daily struggles a single mother goes through.
Disclaimer! This context does not apply to the glorified baby mama or someone who becomes a single parent by choice, say in the case of in-vitro fertilization.
Who is she?
This is a woman who raises a child or two alone. She is the single mother who doesn’t bank on the physical, mental, emotional or financial support from the man who fathered her kids. She is a woman who pushes through disappointments, which consecutively formulates the belief that she is hard headed. Nonetheless, her strength doesn’t shake the self-doubt and that creeps in to remind her that she might have failed relationship wise.
One way or another, life forces her to restructure her ambitions and narrow them down to being a provider and just a mother to her children. She settles to becoming the sacrificial lamb for the sake of her children. Countlessly, she chooses to suffer in silence if it means her kids will benefit in the long run. Like all mothers, She is also the woman who would rather go hungry for her kids to have a meal.
She is a woman too busy juggling between multiple jobs in order to sustain her family. She wants to shout and get angry, tell her boss to shut the front door. However, she knows that pride and anger at the face of power will cost her more than she would like.
Her humble soul never says no if it means another milestone in her children’s growth. All her life she looks forward to a day when she can have the courage and privilege to say enough is enough. So she swallows her tears and pushes through the humiliation.
Nonetheless, her success still intimidates many. Her achievements make most men cower while women unintentionally consider her supernatural.
Her daily schedule includes fighting stereotypes and people who narrow her existence to just being a single mother. She is not allowed to react like other people or it might say too much about her family burdens. If not, her vulnerability might as well be cementing the assumptions people have about why she is raising her kids alone. Are women partially to blame for deadbeat fathers?
So she chooses to tolerate those who think she is at fault in the same measure she pushes through pride and prejudice. But at the end of the day, I see a woman who would enjoy the company of a life partner if she could have the privilege. Single Lady In Nairobi: Dating A Single Mother
She is a winner who has to sacrifice it all to win but she would love to have a shoulder to lean on from time to time. She is a woman who would appreciate the chance to be vulnerable from time to time.
She is a parent who would like her kids to grow up in a love-filled environment. She is a woman who would love another shot in a different life. She carries unfulfilled dreams and daily hopes that her children will be blessed enough to liberate her as she would like to wear more hats than being a mother and a provider. Overall, l see another lioness striving in a jungle to protect her cubs.
See also: Do children raised by single mother idealise love
Featured image via the body is not an apology
