dear single mom,

The children will be fine. She raised an okay teenage boy so far. Sure, there have been the normal ups and downs of raising a boy on her own, but nothing she cannot handle with the help of her parents. Her friends have been a constant figure in his life. Seeing him grow from a pudgy wee boy to a fine young gentleman. He has seen men come in and out of his mother’s life. Most of them were chased out of her life, if he was being honest. She was, is, not an easy person to live with. She has always been skeptical of love. What can a man bring to her life. Would there be a value-add? By normal standards, she can manage on her own. Being financially independent goes well with the kind of men that are being raised and let out into the world nowadays. Raising her boy became her life mission to make sure her son did not turn out like the men she knew and dated. “Ma! It is my turn!” the screams of her younger children broke her train of thought. She was not really thinking about anything i...

It has been 16 years since I first became a mother and 14 since I went at it alone. It was easier to focus a hundred percent attention when it was just one. Finances would have been better managed if I still had only one. I have, however, been blessed with two more when I decided to remarry. And soo headed to another divorce.  Relationships with the firstborn are like being on a roller-coaster ride. Start out slow and easy. At every transition, anxiety-inducing. At its peak, nerve-wracking and involves a lot of screaming and self-questioning of "What have I done?" or "What did I put myself through?" But at the end,  a sense of satisfaction. That makes us want to take that ride again or abandon it altogether. Sometimes, I am guilty of pushing the single mother stigma on him. How? When he misbehaves in school or shows acts of being irresponsible, I turn it to be about the way I raise him. "Your teacher will think that you are disorganized because your mother is a...

Everyone everywhere is talking about the importance of having me-time and how it can help in maintaining our mental health. The belief is that our mental health affects how we think, feel and act.  I also believe that when we become mothers, we are mentally prepared to make - being our own person, an employee, a partner, a spouse, and any other roles we play in our lives - these all work in our favour. There is an emphasis on a work-life balance in the workplace. Depending on where you are working, the balance would actually help you draw a line between work and family. Or, if I am being blunt about it, the lines are between salaried work and housework. If we put it down to the minutes and seconds, time with the family is not all that balanced.  I do not bring work home. Or at least, I try not to. And by bringing work, I mean physical items from the office that I would attempt to   complete at home. Mentally, I do think about work once in a while.  I teach. As a teac...

In the blur of divorce, a job, and motherhood, it was much appreciated that I had the support of my parents and a supportive community at work. This is, of course, said in hindsight. Rewind this to more than a decade ago, I was filled with doubts and insecurities that made me feel I was not enough. I was not doing it well enough. I was not loving enough. I was not working enough. I was not learned enough.  Parenting does not come with a handbook.  The child does not come with a manual. And the experiences of others, may not necessarily fit my situation. A little bit more than a decade ago, I had friends who were still in school or enjoying life, single or otherwise.  There I was, with a child, dealing with raising one and grieving for another. That is another story for another day. And this is the frustration of being a young mother with the help that she did not realize, back then, she needed. Having just got started with the dream job and facing a divorce, the self was ...