by Nokomis Tatiana

Created on: October 10, 2008

It's not easy - being a single mother - no matter your age or your child(ren)'s. But, then who said being married or in a committed relationship with children was easy? I am a single mother of a four-year-old son. When I discovered I was pregnant, I was in a relatively new relationship (I use that term loosely) with a man that I knew little about. He was the first person I told of my newfound joy, and his reaction immediately set the mood for what would be an uphill battle on the road to parenthood, alone. Through my sharing with other mothers that were in a relationship, however, I discovered reasons that I could find the positive in this situation I found myself in. Many mothers were dealing with husbands or long-term boyfriends who were acting like children themselves. They were having to work double time to make their men feel more secure, growing less secure all the while. Suddenly, they felt unattractive and vulnerable and some even felt that their pregnancies were the end of romance as they knew it.

Being alone in a pregnancy was not all peaches-and-cream, but I only had to worry about myself and my child. I did what I was supposed to, in every way I could. I am a researcher, I read everything that is available to me, and pregnancy was no different. I read all about breastfeeding, birthing options, and parenting methods. What I soon realized, even others' stories in parenting magazine articles, is that I didn't have to discuss and disagree with anyone in these matters. I had no one to consult with before making any of these oh-so-important decisions when it came to having and raising my child. I did not have to stroke anyone's ego at the end of the day and make sure they knew that I still loved them just as much as I did before I was spending all of my waking hours with a new baby. I didn't have to think about what made anyone uncomfortable when I decided to breastfeed my child in the middle of the livingroom while watching Oprah, and I wasn't obsessing over the baby weight coming off and getting back into a sex life after 6 weeks for fear that my man would stray.

Even now, my son is a pre-schooler, and I hear about absent-minded daddies that forgot to pick up the child from daycare or that just doesn't get it when it comes to keeping the baby on a sleeping schedule. Daddy seems to be the fun one that stays up and plays with the little one, then leaves mommy to deal with a cranky toddler to dress before work the next morning. I am not glorifying being

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