by mssinglemama on February 11, 2009
Most of you know her, but for those who don’t – Morgan aka Modern Single Momma - is a light and guiding force for single parents.
After telling her child’s father about her pregnancy he split. Completely split. He hasn’t even met his son. And now he is threatening to take her to court for custody.
It’s every single mothers worst nightmare and now, just days after arriving in Kentucky with her amazing man and her son, Lucca (that’s a photo they took on their road trip from Portland) this is happening.
For those of you who don’t know Morgan is the co-founder of iHeartSingleParents.com – the first social network just for us. She created the site along with her best friend Clare for one reason – to build a place for modern single moms and dads. She is, without a doubt, one of our greatest ambassadors.
Please visit her blog for the entire story and lend your support, advice or whatever you can muster.
She’s freaking out – as any of us would be.
by mssinglemama on February 4, 2009
This is a really, really good question.
One of you posted this comment on my Facebook page and I couldn’t resist bringing it to the table here.
Take the children out of the picture. Just look at yourself – would you date you? (This question applies to those of us in relationships as well).
The night I met Mr. Man my mother and I were polishing our faces and choosing outfits in her room – just a few feet away from the bed where my father died, the same bed I had found myself in on a hot summer night in 2006.
My son, just four-months-old, was curled up into my chest wanting to eat but finding no milk. The stress of the day had left me dry, my breasts completely empty.
A few hours earlier I had nestled him into his car seat surrounded by boxes and laundry baskets of stuff, the only stuff I would have at my mother’s house for the next year. The rest – in the U-Haul – would go to storage until I could find a job and an apartment again. Everything I had worked for in life, every object, seemed completely unnecessary. I just wanted freedom and above all, a safe place for Benjamin.
Nothing else mattered.
The tears were impressive that night and so were the immense feelings of fear and shock – wondering, “How in the hell am I going to do this?” I had left it all behind. My job. My apartment. My friends. I had no money. And now, no breast milk.
Somehow I woke up the next morning with hope and some milk, just enough – not much, but just enough – to get by. Gradually the hope grew and so did Benjamin – inch by inch, piece by piece, laugh by laugh. And on this night, nearly three years later I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror and smiled.
Sure the baby weight was gone (all 80 lbs of it) but I had also lost the bitter feelings, the regret, the self-loathing, the worry and felt for the first time that I had finally become who I wanted to be – someone I never imagined I would be, a mother, but also a woman who can take just about anything life throws at her and survive.
And then, as I put on my mom’s red leather coat and let the excitement of the impending night out rush over me, I thought – “I’m totally dating myself and this is awesome. I like me. I like myself again.”
I’ll never forget that moment – ever. I had made it.
Now granted, I met Mr. Man a few hours later but unlike in the past I was not vulnerable. And not once did Benjamin feel the sting of a break up, or see mommy “lose it.” Not once.
I did not lose myself.
I am still discovering who I am, as a mother and as a single woman. I learn something new every day – it seems. But I do know that I can safely say that now, yes, I would date myself.
What about you? Would you date yourself? What are the issues you’re trying to beat in this moment?
by mssinglemama on January 6, 2009
My blog is her blog.
And until she starts her own (which I think she may) Mia will be posting her story here.
As most of you know my best friend Mia just found out four weeks ago that her boyfriend of 6 years and the father of her daughter is leaving. Two weeks later she discovered that the catalyst is an affair with another woman.
Your comments – this picture is of her reading them intently – have helped her more than you know.
Night 1:
He is gone.
My house is empty.
Literally.
No Couch, no clothes in his closet, just gone.
There was no big talk, no special ceremony, nothing to mark his leaving. Just an awkward hug and a goodbye. And then he left. And I stayed. With an empty heart I rocked Sydney in my arms in the middle of an empty room. I rocked her and she cried, and I cried, and she watched me cry and it made her cry harder.
Until recently she thought grown-ups only acted like they were crying when they played pretend with her. She said she was crying because she wanted her daddy to make magnets with her before he went – a gift she got from Santa.
But I knew she just wanted him, and I felt for the first time that I may not be enough.
I have already called him twice, ashamed of my need to hear his voice, hoping there would be sadness in it. [click to continue…]
by mssinglemama on December 27, 2008
All of Benjamin’s life people have commented on his eyelashes.
“They’re from his father,” I say. They are amazing. Like little butterfly wings.
He also has his father’s body – his shoulders, his legs, his torso and even his little butt. But he has my smile, my eyes and my eyebrows. Like any mother, I day dream about what kind of a man Benjamin will become. But unlike most mothers, I hope against all hopes that, aside from the physical resemblance, that my son is nothing like his father.
——-
His father is the mysterious man who shows up once a week to pick him up for an overnight. We barely know each other any more. I can’t even remember what it felt like to be in love with him – I must have been delusional, I think. There’s nothing there now. Nothing at all. Just a shadow of the girl I used to be… a naive girl who would fall for a man and marry him on a whim because he needed a Green card.
Here’s the thing, when you’re a little girl and you dream of that damn prince and the castle you forget to dream about how he’ll be as a father. At least I did.
This dream surfaces, for some of us, in the form of a blinding nightmare because it’s after we’ve already had his child. And it dawns on us that we’ve bred with a rotten apple, a dud, a bad father. [click to continue…]
by mssinglemama on December 23, 2008
Because it just has to be said.
Last week I broke the news that my best friend Mia’s boyfriend and the father of her child is moving out. Catch up here if you missed it.
Your responses were overwhelming and she read every one of them. Your thoughts, encouragement and advice meant the world to her and your insights were invaluable – so Thank You from Mia and myself.
Three days later she gave me this letter, “Can you publish this? Please – it’s therapeutic for me.”
Editor’s Note: On the non-capitalizing of The Other Woman’s name – “It’s not a typo,” she told me, “I refuse to give her the respect of capitalizing her first name.” Just one day before she wrote the letter Mia found text messages in her ex’s phone to the extent of, “I can’t wait to have you all to myself.” But the worst one for Mia to read, “So soon… so soon.”
Here’s Mia’s letter to the “other” woman..
To molly, The Other Woman,
I remember meeting you last year with my entire family. I am sure you remember meeting me, along with my then 3 year old daughter Sydney. I made small talk with you about college and your plans for the future like one might do with someone younger, more naive about the world. You reminded me of myself at 23. That is how old I was when I met him. And at 24 I was pregnant. Unplanned and scared, I was making decisions that would affect the rest of my life and the life of the baby inside me. So, I know we are not faceless. I wonder if you have blocked us from your memory out of convenience. [click to continue…]
