Image via
From the outside, there appear to be two kinds of single parents. You can do it all, strive for perfection, and pull it off. Or you can barely get by, almost fall apart, and struggle for breath. For me, though, it has always been both. Strength and struggle seem to go hand in hand.
I want to be strong and competent. I also don’t want anyone to think I make it look easy. I have been thinking about this a lot ever since I found out the rent is going up again. I have been in my apartment for five years, the longest I’ve lived in any one space as an adult. It is already too expensive. It is drafty, and there’s no central air. I spend all winter upstairs and all summer downstairs. The walls are thin, I hear any raised voice from either side. But it has a washer and dryer. The shower has good water pressure. It has normal-sized closets, a rarity in this area. It’s in a part of the city I love that hasn’t been gentrified all the way yet. And there are a bunch of children on our street so I can tell my kids to go outside and play without watching or worrying. My daughter was born here. I got divorced here, built my own life here. But the money makes the decision for me: It is time to move.
When people find out, we commiserate about how truly awful it is to find housing here in Boston. Everyone in Boston loves to talk about how expensive rents are these days. I am polite and casual on the outside, but inside I am quietly resentful. I am talking to someone who has a partner or spouse to split the rent, or someone with roommates, or someone who can get a tiny studio without worrying about school districts or streets that are too busy for little ones on bikes. But I stick to my default: be strong, be competent, be just like everyone else.
The apartment search happens mostly on Craigslist, through text and email. I send many messages. Sometimes I get one back. Usually I’m asked who will be living in the apartment, what their names are, and what they do for a living. These are not unreasonable questions, but I know this is how they find out there will be three people moving in but only one income. After I answer these questions, they usually stop writing back.
One time I actually get a viewing scheduled. I bring the kids because I have to, even though I know that hypothetical kids are more palatable than real ones. The apartment is in our same neighborhood, it’s a quiet street, it has a yard, it’ll do. The owners are a couple, and the wife is the one who takes me through the apartment one weekday evening. I tell her we’d like to move forward. She says her husband will email me an application. The next morning the husband emails to tell me the apartment has been rented out to the person who saw it after me. I never even got a chance, so it’s clear that they picked what they saw as the safer bet.
I know whenever I am up against another potential tenant, I will almost always lose. Technically it is illegal for landlords to discriminate on the basis of family status, just like it is illegal to discriminate on the basis of religion or race. But it happens all the time; two applicants present themselves and you choose the married couple over the set of friends, the professionals with two incomes over the single person with children. There is nothing I can prove and nothing I can do but go on to the next place.
The kids ask about the new house we saw and I tell them we’ll keep looking. For some reason, I know how to own my strength and my struggle with my kids. I know that I need to be solid for them most of the time. I know that it’s also important for me to show them when something is hard. I tell them when we can’t afford something; I tell them I have to work so I can pay for our apartment and our food and the fun things we do sometimes. I just don’t know how to find this balance anywhere else, not even in my own head.
I want to be strong. I want to be capable. I want to do by myself what two people usually do together.
I find another apartment, and this time I actually get to apply. I am thrilled to make it this far, but I’m also full of dread. A tenant application usually comes with a credit check and, as it often does, divorce wreaked havoc on my credit. If all I do is own my Strong Single Mom persona it could end up hurting me when the numbers say otherwise. It’s best to own the struggle, to lay it out up front, to say that my credit will have problems so I’ve been totally honest. When I talk about it, any of it, but especially the money part, I feel frustrated and vulnerable. That means there are tears, the worst part of the whole thing.
I keep going. I wipe my eyes and I return to selling myself as a responsible tenant. I talk about my career and my work and everything I have achieved since I’ve been on my own. It is hard to make that pivot. It is hard to act like I wasn’t crying two minutes ago. But this is where we need to end, with the worst cushioned beneath plenty of positives and smiles.
I get the apartment and sign the lease. I want to relax and appreciate the victory, but it is still nowhere near over. I have to borrow and delay and twist myself into financial circles to make the deposit. There are weeks of packing and organizing and cleaning ahead of me. I have to decide if I can afford movers, if it’s even possible for me to do it without them.
I have learned in my years as a single parent that you cannot rely on anyone else to help you. Should I put out a call for help and see how much assistance I can round up? If I do, there will be many well-wishes and many words, but at the end of the day there may not be many actual hands. If I do, I am showing weakness again. It is asking for yet another favor, going through yet another tough time.
Sometimes I feel like this is the only story I ever tell. Sometimes I feel strongly that I must tell it whenever I can.
I want to be strong. I want to be capable. I want to do by myself what two people usually do together. I want people to see my strength and resilience and know that they can do it, too. I want to post pictures of a room completely packed into boxes, a truck filled with belongings, a new apartment with everything in place. I want to post these pictures and say that I did this myself.
At the end of the day, it will be a mix of the two. I will work hard and do most of it by myself. I will accept some help and call in far more than my fair share of favors. It will not be pretty or fast or easy, but it will get done. And perhaps my strength and my weakness all mixed together like this is not just how it always is, but exactly how it should be.
I read the second paragraph and thought “Yeah, this is probably Boston”.
Thanks for sharing, fellow Bostonian! I am one of the coupled and childless who always lucks out on these situations, but I grew up with a single mom. My adult life shocks me everyday with how easy it can be. That balance you talk about striking hit me so hard….
I know this is weird and it sounds like you have it worked out and may even have moved already, but… if I can make it work in my schedule I am around for Boston Toasties who need moving help.
Seconding the last paragraph…
And me.
It was the closets that tipped me off.
Boston Toasties, you are wonderful. I am actually moving this week and have had a few people offer to help, which I’m incredibly grateful for. I will take a few of them up on it and it will all get done. But your offer means SO much.
I can’t help with physical moving because I have no car, but f you need boxes or plastic totes, hit me up.
Ha, I also read this and thought “wow, she could be talking about Boston!” If you’re on any of the parenting listserves I think there is a solid crowd of do-gooders you can call in a pinch. I really appreciate this essay. So much of what I see of single parenting is this relentless optimism and parent-child teamwork that feels like a Gilmore Girls-esque lifestyle. I’m sure it is very hard but rarely hear these sorts of real life stories. I think you sound like a very strong person and I am so glad you got that apartment!
I just want to tell you that as a single woman, I totally understand what you are saying about not having a partner. It drives me crazy when friends who have never lived alone talk down to me about having financial issues due to living alone for most of my adult life. However, I do not have kids and I cannot imagine how much harder it must be for you. You are doing a great job and I admire you for keeping your family afloat!
As a fellow single mom, I get it. Good god, I get it. Whenever I hear stories from adults raised by single parents, they seem to have these stories of single parents who had it down, were pillars of strength, sources of inspiration…and I wonder, is that what I’m doing? Because I don’t feel that strong or inspiring.
“Strength and struggle seem to go hand in hand.”
Good luck on your move. You see it as struggle. And hopefully your kids see it as strength and getting it done.
I’m a daughter of a single mom who I saw cry, struggle, rack up debt, be unemployed, have two jobs (okay, I didn’t really ever see her then, but I knew she existed in the house sometimes), work on another degree, drop out of that, move here, then there, then somewhere else and I saw her and still do see her as the Single Parent Pillar of Strength and Beauty and Wisdom and Pulling It Togetherness Always Forever Wow. I bet your kids do (or will) think the same.
Your kids will grow up and talk about their strong amazing inspiring single mom.
As a fellow single mom, I get it. Good god, I get it. Whenever I hear stories from adults raised by single parents, they seem to have these stories of single parents who had it down, were pillars of strength, sources of inspiration…and I wonder, is that what I’m doing? Because I don’t feel that strong or inspiring.
I am renting and being a single mom in Boston and it’s sometimes terrifying.
My daughter was born here. I got divorced here, built my own life here.
Oh hi there, fellow single mom. You’re doing great. As you probably already realize, it gets easier. And then one day you’ve got two kids in high school, and how the hell did that happen? You’re going to be fine, and so are your kids.
I’m also a struggling but strong single mom. Sometimes it’s completely overwhelming, and sometimes I feel like I’m handling things. I wish I was always strong so my son didn’t have to witness any meltdowns, but I think it makes him appreciate all I do for him and his little sister in a way he otherwise wouldn’t. I’ve noticed when I’m having a bad day he thanks me a lot. I don’t know if I’m doing an amazing job, but I’m working my ass off and that’s all we can do.
Yet another person who read this and immediately thought it might be Boston (though I’m sure Toasties in many gentrifying metro areas could say that). You’re absolutely right about the privilege of being able to rent as a couple or in a group of roommates. And if you have to afford rent for multiple people AND childcare, the latter of which is more expensive in MA than any state in the country, on one person’s salary? Even if you get some child support? Close to impossible. You’re doing a kick ass job that we as a society make way harder than it should be.
I’m sending you all good vibes in the hopes that you won’t have to move again for a long time.
No kids for me, but a fellow Bostonian who just got priced out of her neighborhood. The lease renewal we got last month came with a $200 increase (way more than ever before), and now that we’ve said we’re leaving, they’re renting it out for $200 more than that. After 6 years in the same place it does feel like it’s time to move on, but the panic that ensued after we got that lease renewal was intense. Luckily I’ve found a new place already. And I still have a couple months before the actual move. I can’t imagine how much worse it must have been for you. I’ve been lamenting how expensive it is to move – how much money they want up front is obscene, and when the rents are already so high, who can afford 3.5x the rent upon acceptance of the application (which is what I just had to pay)?
Fellow single mom here, in the Bay Area rather than Boston. I’m so moved by your sharing this, this thing that is essentially my nightmare; I’ve lived here since my younger son was born, and I’m bookmarking this for the fast-approaching day when we are priced not just out of this home but almost certainly also out of this town and out of this area. Thank you for addressing this as something hard but possible. Being a single parent is, to me, to constantly face the impossible and survive it, but maybe I’m more struggling than strong, and any reminder that we move forward is as precious as gold.
(Well, maybe not quite gold, with which I could pay the rent, but close, this.)
What is hardest for me is the specific loneliness, the sense that there is this fierce tribe of women who know my circumstances well but who are too overwhelmed themselves–just as I am too overwhelmed–to form a meaningful community around our mutual struggle. So really, thank you. I don’t know that I’m wordsing all that well here, but it means a lot.
So it’s funny. When I need something, it’s almost always my overwhelmed and overworked friends who volunteer to help. The loneliness has been really hard for me, too. And I get frustrated that it’s like pulling teeth to just meet my married friends for drinks or coffee. So I’ve started to build my own circle from scratch and gather the fierce people who will drop what they’re doing and help and try to build it into something. It’s only been a little while, but so far I already feel better and hopeful that maybe I can make that community work.
I hope so too, and that is so kickass of you!
There have been studies on that. People with fewer resources are more generous. https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/08/110…
If we had more resources, we would be less lonely. I’m impressed to see you scratching together your circle.
I know that feeling of loneliness and the sense of our silent fierce tribe. Every time I’ve been with another single mom, she’s been so diamond-sharp and hard working and I know we would get along great, if we ever had the time, which we never do.
I’ve been a single mom for over a decade now. My daughter’s getting older and I have time to go out to socialize with other adults. I’ve forgotten how to do it.
Ooo, I have no useful advice for this. I’m just a couple of years in and my kids are still quite small, and I’ve definitely just about forgotten how to socialize with anyone over the age of six, except for conversations concerning humans under the age of six. I wish you the very best with your socializing! You’re super amazing, so hopefully you can coast a little on people figuring that out.
While I can’t speak to your specific circumstances, I’ve found joining things to be a really helpful way to socialize in the post-college learning to make friends phase: it meets at a set time (easier to fit in), we already have a Thing in common (stuff to talk about!), and other people are also here to socialize (I feel less like a needy friendship squid). Plus, for me, it’s been a great way to make friends outside of my age group, which has been a joy: I love getting to talk to the moms in their forties and single women in their sixties that belong to the same knitting circle, and it’s nice to feel like we really are all friends. It took some time, but that built-in structure goes a long way towards easing the process.
Okay but that discrimination is so so real and so exhausting. When I worked retail, I stopped getting shifts once they found out that I have a kid, because they felt that I should be home with her. Great, sure, but who is going to put food on the table?
Not to mention financial aid cost of living discrimination. And the way that people expect us to be either pillars or that fictional ghost “welfare mom” story which makes things so awesome for us.
I hope by the time this is published that your move is done and you survived.
You’re doing a good job! i wish you the best in your move. My mom was a single mom to me and my sister and I think it’s better to do like you and show your kids that some things are hard. And I know the feeling you are describing, not so much that you are trying to get them to appreciate you, but rather to help them know that life is tough but with strength you can get through.
I just want you to know that you’re doing a good job. I know you probably already know that, but sometimes it’s good to hear. You are doing a good job.
I was raised by a single mom from the time I was five years old. It was me, my mother, and my big sister. The only reason we were able to live in the same place all my life was that our landlord never once raised the rent on us in twelve years, even at times when my mom had to work two, or sometimes three jobs to keep us current on that rent, or we had to go to our church’s food pantry to be able to afford the rent, even when my sister accidentally started a grease fire in the kitchen (yeah, that’s a fun call to make).
But as someone who was raised by a single mom, I just wanted you to know that I wouldn’t trade it for anything. It was hard, and sometimes I wished my mom had it easier, but for myself–I learned how to hustle, and that being a family means being part of a team, and that a home is about the people who live in it. So really, I’d just like to offer you some internet hugs and high-fives, because really: you’re a great mom.
I can't help with physical moving because I have no car, but f you need boxes or plastic totes, hit me up.
It seems to me that the stigma of single motherhood is far more the issue. Parenting is beautiful and hard and rewarding all in one breath. But I see a lot of assumptions about being married as a mom, as though parenting somehow becomes magically easier. It assumes that being married means your partner is and will help. It assumes there is a great relationship and that none of this is impacting parenting. It assumes that as unmarried moms, we have really nothing in common with married moms- that by default simply by being single our parenting is just harder period. We are no more pillars, or moms to be mourned, or pitied than any other mom. We are a discriminated group, who issues and circumstances are as varied as married moms, but the impact of stigma and how we all process this, is by far the biggest issue affecting mothering in general, but that much more so as an unmarried woman who is also a mother. That is my take- parenting is tough, but let’s try to assume and stigmatize less. We are mothers and we need help raising our families.