by Emilie Godwin

Created on: August 12, 2010   Last Updated: August 15, 2010

Some time ago, I read an article in a parenting magazine touting the benefits of being a single mom. It provided a list, numbered one through fifteen, of the reasons that single moms could give thanks for their position in life without a partner. Now, I am not a single mom. But, I am a Marriage and Family Therapist and I am a mom, albeit married. I remember that I thought to myself, “Well, it’s about time.” In therapy, I infuse into every conversation I have with clients the importance of perspective in life – the need to find the positive in every situation – as a way to make meaning, create hope, and inspire enthusiasm for whatever situation it is that gives us pause. My position is not that people should embrace a “Pollyanna” approach, blindly accepting all fate as good. Quite the contrary. We must, I enthusiastically proclaim, accept the challenges. Yet, at the same time, I require of my clients a willingness to turn every obstacle on its side and search for the good and the positive that must be there. Never is it possible, I explain, for a situation to be %100 bad. Every quality, every label, every situation or event – I insist – can be seen from infinite perspectives. And so, I read the article on the benefits of single mom-hood with inspired connection… that Ah-HA moment.  Certainly, as I know from my many friends who proudly claim the role, the challenges that come with being alone in the task of parenting are not hard to define. And, if single moms in some rare situation are hard pressed to identify those hurdles on their own, society doesn’t miss a blink in providing a bulleted list on their behalf.  Still, as my professional credo dictates, there MUST be one benefit, even if it is only one, Right? The article laid out, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that there was not only one benefit; there were a minimum of fifteen.

Lately, I have been noting the parallels that American Middle Class society throws at us between being a single mom and being a working mom. By the way – I AM one of those. And, what I see is that from the pages of parenting magazines, the mouths of bus-stop moms, the smiles of happy children in the content stay-at-home-mom worlds of television commercials, the message is clear: all members of a working-mom household have an unequivocally harder cross to bear. Clearly, the world shouts at me, my children suffer. They miss my lunches packed with care, my

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