Mom
on her own Deciding
to have a child is one thing. Raising one is another
By Tammerlin Drummond
Once upon
a time, there was a very happy lady named Marianne who had one thing missing
from her life. She wanted a baby. But since Marianne didn't have a husband,
she went to a doctor, who gave her seeds from a kind and generous man called
a donor. Nine months later, out popped a beautiful baby boy named Sam. That's
the story Marianne Boswell, a single mother in a suburb of Boston, tells her
five-year-old to help him understand why he doesn't have a daddy. Like many
single moms who become parents without a husband or partner, Marianne doesn't
have an easy life raising a son on her own. But perhaps the biggest challenge
is trying to answer Sam's inevitable questions. "He knows that we're a family
with a mommy and a nana," says Marianne, 47, an executive recruiter. "But I
still cringe on Father's Day."
More and
more women are facing the same issues. According to the U.S. Census Bureau,
32% of all births today are to unmarried women, up from just 5.3% in 1960. While
teenage pregnancies have declined, there has been a dramatic upsurge among college-educated
career women like Marianne. Some got pregnant by accident. But many more have
made the conscious decision to have a child on their own because they haven't
found Mr. Adequate, let alone Mr. Right. "Now almost everyone seems to know
someone firsthand or secondhand who has done it," says Jane Mattes, founder
of Single Mothers by Choice, a 4,000-member international support group. "That's
a huge cultural difference."
Several developments
have helped boost the popularity of single motherhood. With better-paying jobs
and greater career opportunities, more women can afford it. Advances in the
technology of conception, such as in-vitro fertilization, have made it much
more feasible, even in the later childbearing years. Meanwhile, adoption by
single mothers has become a more accepted option.
Not so long
ago, this breed of single mom was considered eccentric at best, man hating and
antifamily at worst. A woman whose husband had died or whose boyfriend had run
off could be regarded as a victim, but one who deliberately set out to have
a child without a father was a threat to traditional family values. Who can
forget Vice President Dan Quayle's attack on TV single mom Murphy Brown eight
years ago? Well, it seems many people have. With increasing numbers of middle-class
women parenting alone, the stigma of being a single mother is fading.
Still, single
mothers are not immune to their own doubts--not least, wondering whether their
child will suffer from the lack of a two-parent upbringing. Some research has
indicated that children of single mothers are more prone to academic and emotional
problems, especially during their teen years. However, those studies tended
to focus on poor families headed by teen mothers and kids of divorced parents.
A Cornell University study of six- and seven-year-olds found that the mere fact
of single parenthood does not mean that a child will have trouble academically.
Henry Ricciuti, professor emeritus of human development and author of Single
Parenthood and School Readiness, found that the mother's educational level and
ability, rather than the absence of a father, have the most influence on a child's
school readiness. Says he: "Single parenthood shouldn't be seen, in and of itself,
as a damaging factor to the child."
To most appearances,
the kids of single mothers seem as happy and well-adjusted as their two-parent
schoolmates. "I don't think there's any difference at all," says Ean Kessler,
12, whose mother Karen is a member of Single Mothers by Choice in Hamden, Conn.
"It's the same with one person telling me what to do." Yet it's too soon to
make any firm judgments. "We will probably need a generation of kids to grow
up to find out the answers," says Barbara Dafoe Whitehead, co-director of the
National Marriage Project at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, N.J.
Single mothers
already know the job of raising a child alone is far from easy. Marianne first
began considering single parenting in her late 30s, after she broke off a four-year
relationship. "I decided I wasn't going to turn 40 without at least exploring
having a child," she says. "I wanted it to be a conscious decision, as opposed
to something that just didn't happen to me." Money was not an issue--she was
part owner of a thriving software company and owned a condo in Cambridge, Mass.,
and a house on Cape Cod--but she still underwent two years of therapy before
she made the decision to go to a sperm bank and conceive a child by herself.
At first,
after the baby arrived, Marianne kept her same hectic work schedule, taking
along her infant son and a baby sitter to out-of-town conventions. After daylong
meetings, she'd return to her hotel room and nurse the baby. "I made it work,"
she says. "But I sure don't miss those times." Since then, Marianne has changed
jobs to cut out travel. Her mother lives with her and helps out with baby sitting.
"I don't have all the answers," Marianne says. "But I trust myself and the people
around me to help me make the right decisions."
Marianne's
financial situation makes her more secure than many single mothers. Brennetta
Simpson, 44, an assistant dean of music at Northwestern University in Evanston,
Ill., wasn't thrilled about going through childbirth, so she decided to adopt.
But she had serious concerns about whether she could afford to do so on her
university administrator's salary. Another problem: Who would take care of her
child if she were to die unexpectedly? She got her best friends in California
to agree to step in as surrogate parents in that event. Shortly after the adoption
agency called her on Christmas Eve 1996 with news that a baby girl had just
arrived, Brennetta had a quick dose of reality. Imani-Brenae, 17 days old when
Brennetta adopted her, woke up screaming every two hours all night long. "I
thought, Oh, my God, it's just me," she says. "What was I thinking? That I could
raise a baby alone?"
To make ends
meet, Brennetta slashed her living expenses and took a second job teaching a
youth choir. It was an exhausting time. She set up a playpen in her office to
keep Imani with her at work. Even the smallest tasks could be a trial. "Try
taking a shower holding your baby in your arms," she says. She remembers talking
to a student one day when her mind suddenly went blank. "I was so tired," she
says. "I was an emotional wreck." Things are smoother now that Imani is nearly
four and relatives are nearby to pitch in; indeed, Brennetta has applied to
adopt a second child.
Sara Hansard,
49, a journalist from Arlington, Va., adopted a 11Ž2-year-old girl from China
more than two years ago. She faced the strong objection of her mother, "who
always imagined me getting married and having kids the normal way." Mom has
come around, but since she lives in an assisted-living facility 90 miles away,
she can't be much help. So Sara has organized an informal network of single
moms in her area, who are on call to baby-sit in emergencies and who trade child-rearing
tips.
Having a
child later in life is rewarding, Sara says, but she knows her choice is not
universally popular. She says she has lost out on jobs because some bosses wouldn't
accommodate her needs as a single mom. Then there was the stranger on the subway
who struck up a conversation and when she found out Hansard was a single mom,
railed that what she was doing was morally wrong. Sara told her off. "I wanted
to be a parent, and in my case, I happened not to be married," she says. "I'm
not apologizing to anyone for that."
C
O V E R COVER: Why Marry
When You Can Stay Single?
Once, women who were still "on the shelf" at 35 resigned themselves
to a life of bleak solitude. For today's young women, staying single seems
not only bearable but increasingly desirable.
Mom
on her own: Deciding to have a child is one thing. Raising
one is another
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