Nope, You're Not Single

I'm pretty laid back about the single mom thing. The kid and I are close -- as much as he pisses me off -- and I don't have to share him for holidays or anything. I depend too much on my family and babysitters for help, but he's with me almost 100% of the non-school time. And it takes a toll. I know the boyfriend gets annoyed, and the kid and I get on each others' nerves because we're too close, and we're too much alike so we fight like cats and dogs. But it's worth it.

But it's hard.

Don't romanticize it. It's a hard, hard thing to raise a kid on your own.

So tonight, when I was waiting for dinner with my mother, father and kid, it threw me for a loop when my mother said that she, too was a single mother as my brothers and I were growing up.

Bitch, please.

I know that my dad is a bit grumpy and keeps to himself. I get that it was probably tough sometimes to watch us kids while he was at work and you stayed at home with the boys. I bet there were times that you were overwhelmed, unsupported and frustrated. It was not good all of the time. Yup. I totally get all of that.

You were NOT a single mother.

Being a single mother is knowing that NO ONE is going to walk in that door and save you. It's knowing that if your child is bad, no threats to "call dad" are going to work. You have to make every decision and you have to stand by your decisions if it turns out that they weren't the best ones. You don't get a break to take a shower or read a book for ten minutes. If you have to run to the grocery store, you have to load up the kid/kids (even if they're asleep or sick or engrossed in something) and you have to walk up and down the aisles by yourself and nobody will take them outside when you're in the checkout line and they're being absolute shits. It's knowing that if your kid is puking at 2 in the morning, you have to decide on your own whether to take him to the urgent care or just hold him all night and rock him. And sometimes you have to stay awake after being with a sick kid all night and go to work, because you're the only one bringing in money and if you don't work, there will be no money for food or rent or clothes or heat.

That's being a single mother.

And I love being a mom and I get lots of help from wonderful people, but dammit, mom, you were NEVER single. Dad may have bitched about helping out, but he helped out. You could leave us with him to go out for lunch with friends. He redid our basement and did all kinds of man things around the house. He mowed the lawn. He lifted heavy things. He yelled at us kids for you so that you could be the nice one. He stayed at home with us in the evenings so that you could go to school and become a nurse.

 You weren't a single mom, mom. You are a good mom, and I'm so lucky to have you, but don't even again tell me that you were a single mom.

You have no idea what a single mom is, and I'm honestly offended that you would even callously throw that phrase around.