Meet 3 single mothers who didn’t let marriage dictate when to have a baby.
Three moms who didnt let marriage dictate when to have a baby
Most little girls still grow up reciting the merry mantra of love, marriage and the eventual baby carriage. But for many women these days, life doesn’t fall into place in this order, and modern wannabe mommies aren’t content to let motherhood pass them by. Some adopt, others keep happy “oopses” and still others visit sperm banks to get their parental party started. Here are three women who made motherhood happen on their own terms – and what they say about their choices.
“I Adopted”
Mom: Cameron Caswell, 42
Daughter: Alexa, 4
Location: Northern Virginia
I always knew I wanted to have children. At 30, I decided that if I still hadn’t found the man of my dreams by 35, I was going to have kids on my own. 36 came, and I got up one morning and thought, “It’s time. I have a good job, I own my own place, I have a supportive family and friends.” I looked at sperm banks, but it didn’t feel right to me. I settled onto adoption because I wanted to open up a home to a child who needed one. When I adopted my daughter, the overwhelming response from my friends and family was, “It’s about time.” I think the most surprising part of my adoption story is how much my daughter is my daughter and how alike we are. I just really believe that it doesn’t matter how my child came to me, she was meant to be my daughter. End of story.
I work full time, so it’s all about the routine. Every morning Alexa picks out her outfit, gets dressed and goes to Montessori. After school I pick her up, and she plays outside with the neighbors, or we cook dinner together. Some days she has ballet, and every night we’ll play a game or read a book. Then she goes to bed, and I have some time to myself.
For me, the biggest difficulty is making big decisions alone, like picking her name. Or, if there is an emergency, not having someone else there saying, “This is what we need to do.” But I do have a great support system. My sister, brother-in-law and her kids live down the street. And financially, I’m able to give her the things I want to give her. I think in many situations, being a single mom is easier because you don’t have to compromise with a partner. And for the majority of married mothers I know, 95 percent of the child rearing is still on them.
What scares me the most is that she’s going to start asking why she doesn’t have a dad. I don’t want her to feel like she’s missing out on something. I would love for her to have a dad at some point, but for me, I have all the things I ever wanted. The pressure I always felt to find somebody was because my clock was ticking. I was always confident I’d be good at parenting but wasn’t willing to compromise on the relationship part. Now I don’t have to.
“I Kept My Happy ‘Oops’”
Mom: Darpinian Signe, 40
Daughter: Andie, 1
Location: Oakland, CA
Two years ago was a crazy, careless time in my life. I was completely fragmented – leaving restaurants while forgetting to pay, gassing up my car and pulling away with the pump connected and getting pregnant.
It did stress me out a bit that I was nearing 40 and it was starting to look like I wasn’t going to have kids, but I considered my work my ‘life’s purpose.’ I didn’t see myself not having kids, but I also wasn’t like some of my girlfriends who were doing in-vitro and looking into adoption.
Then I met Andie’s dad, and soon after, much like the movie Knocked Up, I was! He is a bassist and I’m a businesswoman. He rolls in from playing a gig about the time I get up. So I will forever be grateful for his initial response to hearing my news. He said, “Wow, I think you’d be a great mom.” I may as well have just told him to “pass the ketchup.” Our relationship is and always will be amicable, though he’s not involved with Andie at this time. He knows he can call or stop by anytime and sometimes does. There have been some interesting moments. At my shower, in front of 50 people, one friend commented, “I didn’t even know you were dating,” and I said, “I’m not.” It was hilarious.
Most people are advanced enough in their career at age 40 to be feeling comfortable financially. I work four days a week from 1-6 and leave Andie with the most amazing woman I’ve ever met, Antonia. One thing I couldn’t have known ahead of time is what it feels like to be seriously sleep deprived. I now know why they used it in warfare! The advice I will give to any mom, single or not, is that a happy mom is the best mom. Anytime I make an investment in me, like getting a massage, going to yoga – Andie benefits greatly.
Being a single mom is greater, as well as harder, than I ever imagined. My dad and stepmom watch Andie, and my mom helps a ton, but I try to remember that it was my choice to become a single mom. I admit, I do fantasize about a dad who would be like, “No, you’re not going in there,” when she’s crying, or about the husband who gets up after the wife has pumped. But at this point, dating doesn’t even cross my mind. I feel really filled up. My focus is Andie. I do wonder if anyone will want to date me because I have a child, but I think that guy would be lucky – he’d get two of us!
“I Used A Sperm Donor To Start My Family”
Mom: Ellen Andrews, 43
Son: Henry, 10 months
Location: Washington Heights, NYC
I always wanted to be a mom. I was a nanny and referred to the kids I took care of as “my kids.” But my first serious relationship didn’t happen until I was 31. I was 33 when it ended. I started thinking, “I’ve always wanted to be a wife and mom. Just because I’m not a wife doesn’t mean I can’t be a mom.” But at the time, I was acting and not making enough money.
At 39, after another long-term relationship ended, I decided to look for a sperm donor. I had been dealing with severe endometriosis, as well as fibroids and cysts on my ovaries. I knew if I had time at all, I didn’t have time to look for a man who was ready, willing and able to step up to the plate. I chose not to adopt for several reasons. First, it was cost prohibitive. Second, I really wanted to have a baby. I can remember being a little girl and pretending to breastfeed. I wanted to feel that kick and hear that heartbeat.
If getting pregnant past 35 is important to you, you have to be proactive about it. I worked three jobs to bank as much money as I could and met with a reproductive endocrinologist and acupuncturist for a year and a half. If you’re considering this route, it’s important to have your gynecologist or a reproductive endocrinologist do a basic fertility work-up. The sperm bank I chose wasn’t fancy – just basic medical history and great customer service – but it was more affordable than the ones with all the bells and whistles. Shortly after I turned 40, I had my first intrauterine insemination procedure. A year and a half and 10 IUIs and 1 IVF procedure later, I conceived my son.
Most of my friends have been very supportive, especially here in New York. Non-traditional families are not uncommon. I also found support at sites like Single Mothers By Choice (singlemothersbychoice.com) and Choice Moms (choicemoms.org). As for relationships, I do still really want to get married. As wonderful as my son is and as happy and content as being a mother has made me, it doesn’t take the place of a partner. This will not solve your loneliness issues. A counselor helped me work through my issues with being single before I got pregnant. It’s what we call, in the single-mom-by-choice world, “grieving the dream.”
Unfortunately, single motherhood doesn’t always work out so good for the child or for society.
SINGLE MOTHER HOMES
37.8% of single mothers are divorced, 41% never married, and only 6.5% widows. Brookings Institute, Assessing the Impact of Welfare Reform on Single Mothers, Part 2, 3/22/04
The strongest predictor of whether a person will end up in prison, is that they were raised by a single parent. C.C. Harper and S.S. McLanahan, Father Absence and Youth Incarceration, Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Sociological Assoc., San Francisco, CA, 1998
In 1996, 70% of inmates in state juvenile detention centers serving long sentences, were raised by single mothers. Wade Horn, Why There Is No Substitute For Parents, IMPRIMIS 26, NO.6, June, 1997
72% of juvenile murderers, and 60% of rapists came from single mother homes. Chuck Colson, How Shall We Live? Tyndale House , 2004, p.323
After controlling for single motherhood, the difference between black and white crime rates disappeared. Progressive Policy Institute, 1990, quoted by David Blankenhorn, Fatherless America: Confronting Our Most Urgent Social Problem, New York, Harper Perennial, 1996, p.31
“(I)n a recent study by the Baltimore-based Annie E. Casey Foundation. Comparing statistics for its Kids Count report, the organization reported that Detroit ranks No.1 in unmarried births among the nations 50 largest cities. Of the 16,729 babies born in Detroit in 1997, 13,574 were black, 1,679 were white and 817 were Hispanic. Seventy-one percent were born to unmarried mothers. This compared with a state average of 33 percent and a 50-city average of 43 percent.”
Detroit is the worst offender on our list of America’s most dangerous cities, thanks to a staggering rate of 1,220 violent crimes committed per 100,000. ”
Girls raised without fathers are more sexually promiscuous, and more likely to end up divorced. Wade Horn, Why There Is No Substitute For Parents, IMPRIMIS 26, No.6, June, 1997
70% of teen births occur to girls in single mother homes. David T. Lykken, Reconstructing Fathers, American Psychologist 55, 681,681, 2000
86% of American teen births are out of wedlock. Dr. David Popenoe, The Future of Marriage In America, Rutgers Univ., The National Marriage Project, 2007
America has more than twice as many teenage births as other developed nations. Isabel V.Sawhill, to House Committee on Ways and Means, Subcommittee on Human Resources, June 29, 1999
There are more than 400,000 teen births annually in the US, most of them to unmarried mothers on welfare.
National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy.
The public cost of births to teens 17 and younger is estimated at $7.6 BILLION per year. The children are more likely to be in foster care, less likely to graduate from high school, daughters are more likely to have teen births themselves, and sons are more likely to be incarcerated. Saul Hoffman, Univ. of Delaware.
70% of drop-outs, and 70% of teen suicides come from single mother homes. Wade Horn, Why There Is No Substitute For Parents, IMPRIMIS 26, N0. 6, June 1997
70% of runaways, 70% of juvenile delinquents, and 70% of Child murderers, come from single mother homes. Richard E. Redding, Its Really About Sex, Duke Univ. Journal of Gender Law and Policy, Jan.1, 2008
63% of all youth suicides,
70% of all teen pregnancies,
71% of all adolescent chemical/substance abusers,
80% of all prison inmates, and
90% of all homeless and runaway children, came from single mother homes.
Bob Ray Sanders, Hey Yall, Lets Fill The Hall (Of Fame), Ft. Worth Star Telegram, Oct.28,2007
Mona Charen, More Good News Than Bad?, Washington Times, Mar.16, 2001 (citing Bill Bennett, The Index of Leading Cultural Indicators: American society at the end of the 20th Century., New York, Broadway Books, 1994)
Children brought up in single mother homes are:
5 times more likely to commit suicide,
9 times more likely to drop out of high school,
10 times more likely to abuse chemical substances,
14 times more likely to commit rape,
20 times more likely to end up in prison,
32 times more likely to run away from home.
Chuck Eddy, The Daddy Shady Show, Village Voice, Dec. 31, 2002
600,000 out of wedlock births in 1979. Patrick Fagan and William H.G.Fitzgerald, Why Serious Welfare Reform Must Include Serious Adoption Reform. Heritage Foundation Reports, July 27, 1995
In 2003, there were 1.5 Million unwed births, and less than 1% were put up for adoption. Fagan and Fitzgerald (above)
Less than 1% of children born to never married women were placed for adoption from 1989 to 1995. U.S. DHHS, Child Welfare Information Gateway, Voluntary Relinquishment For Adoption, Numbers and trends, 2005
Only 4% of college graduates have illegitimate children, and only 16% of college graduates get divorced, compared to 46% of high school dropouts, who marry in smaller numbers to begin with. Dr. David Popenoe, The Future Of Marriage In America; The Frayed Knot Marriage in America, The Economist, May 26, 2007
50% of single mothers are below the poverty line, their children are 6 times more likely to be in poverty than children with married parents. Chuck Colson, How Shall We Live, Tyndale House.
85% of homeless families are single mother families. Barry H. Waldman and Stephen P. Perlman, Homeless Children With Disabilities, The Exceptional Parent, June 1, 2008 (American Academy of Developmental Medicine and Dentistry
90% of welfare recipients are single mothers. Jason DeParle, Raising Kevion, New York Times, Aug. 22, 2004
There were 3 million single mothers in 1970 and 10 million in 2003. U.S. Census, Table FM-2, All Parent/Child Situations, by Type, Race, and Hispanic origin of Householder, 1970 to 2003
The illegitimacy rate went up more than 300% since 1970. House Ways and Means Committee, Nonmarital Births to Adults and Teenagers and Federal Strategies to Reduce Nonmarital Pregnancies, appendix M, 2003
The long-term health effects of broken families were often devastating. Parental divorce during childhood emerged as the single strongest predictor of early death in adulthood. The grown children of divorced parents died almost five years earlier, on average, than children from intact families. The causes of death ranged from accidents and violence to cancer, heart attack and stroke. Parental break-ups remain, the authors say, among the most traumatic and harmful events for children.
The Longevity Project ,By Howard S. Friedman and Leslie R. Martin
(Hudson Street Press)
A 2008 study led by Georgia State University economist Benjamin Scafidi conservatively estimated that single mothers cost the U.S. taxpayer $112 billion every year.
But in fact, Scafidi underestimated single mothers’ burden to society by excluding additional costs of single mothers to poverty programs such as the Earned Income Tax Credit.
That makes his estimates very low: Single mothers are six times more likely to be in poverty than married families. More than 80 percent of homeless families are single mothers.
Scafidi’s study also did not consider the burden single mothers place on law enforcement because of their higher likelihood to neglect or kill their children.