solo mama entendre

Solo Mama Entendre…I chose to name my blog to play off the idea of a “double entendre”. Being a mom has more than a double meaning, however, and becoming a single mom by choice is even more complex. When I ask people how they like being a mother the most common answer is “it’s the hardest thing I’ve ever done…but it’s so rewarding…I love it so much…it’s so worth it.”

Come on now! Those utterances bring waves of guilt, inadequacy, and the feeling that I’m losing my grip on the increasingly smaller strand of silken thread that connects me to my sanity. When people ask me the same question, I reply “it’s the hardest thing I’ve ever done. Period. And when they learn that I do this mothering thing all on my own, the most common response I hear is “I don’t know how you do it.” Which was really nice to hear early on. I needed that. Now that I’m five years in, and have experienced the dating scene a bit while mothering and listened to tales of woe from my married mother friends about balancing child rearing with full time job with taking care of the home, being sex goddess extraordinaire, and how they don’t feel like their husbands appreciate them, I look back at them and think “no, really. I don’t know how YOU do it.” My respect for married mothers increased exponentially after a few years of doing this by myself.

So here starts the tales of single mothering by choice, primarily to keep track of our experiences as a family because I suck at journaling, to share some encouragement with other mothers who may be on the same journey, and to keep reminding myself that I CAN DO THIS without succumbing to my repeated day- and night-mare: two toddlers sitting naked in my overgrown front yard at 7 a.m. eating Doritos and drinking Mountain Dew for breakfast while I sit at the dining table, unemployed, in my bathrobe, smoking a pack of Marlboro Ultras and dousing my Special K Fruit & Yogurt cereal in a Corona Light with lime.