\n<\/p>\n
I\u2019m a single mother of what doctors and insurance companies cheerfully call an \u201cadvanced maternal age,\u201d which makes me sound like an appliance with an expired warranty. In reality, I\u2019m a 42-year-old woman with a toddler who is having\u2014against all cultural expectations\u2014a genuinely good time.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s a particular pleasure to being an older single mother* that goes largely undiscussed. Women are sold single-mother extremes: the exhausted martyr, the cautionary tale, or the immoral welfare queen\u2014the latter, historically weaponized against Black single mothers in particular. As a group, single moms are supposed to feel shame and embarrassment. But what I feel is something else entirely: joy.<\/p>\n
Before my daughter, I\u2019d already lived several lives in several cities. I\u2019d been (briefly) married. I\u2019d been to therapy. I had a career, a passport, a mortgage. By the time I became an unmarried mother at 39, I was fully directing my own life.<\/p>\n
While newly pregnant, I had a long talk with my then-boyfriend about how I did not want to be a single mom<\/em>. The agreed expectation was that after our baby arrived and everyone was settled and healthy, he and I would get engaged. I was scared to mother without a husband. I didn\u2019t think I could do it alone. I didn\u2019t want the stigma.<\/p>\n A few months after our daughter was born, however, it was clear the engagment wasn\u2019t happening. Even in my postpartum haze\u2014which included being laid off from my job shortly after returning from maternity leave\u2014I was sure that I didn\u2019t want my daughter to grow up with the version of her mom romantically attached to her dad. Single motherhood was the better parenting choice. So, just before my 40th birthday, I officially became an unemployed, single mom with an infant.<\/p>\n Of course, there was stress and fear and sadness in those early days. But after a few weeks, my focus shifted from grief for the fantasy family I wouldn\u2019t have to the scaffolded network of dependable relationships I\u2019d already spent four decades building\u2014a solid structure of grandparents, grown siblings with their own kids, life-long friends, former colleagues, neighbors, and other mothers. People I trusted.<\/p>\n From there, motherhood, on my own, started to feel less like misfortune and more like creative control. I could enjoy parenting without negotiating my identity, time, and wellbeing inside a romantic partnership. In my house, when I\u2019m with my daughter, the vibe is\u2026 calm. Really calm. Decades of taking care of myself taught me to put systems in place that I know work. The house reflects me and my daughters\u2019 thresholds\u2014for mess, for noise, for emotion, for stimulation, for fun. There is no low-grade domestic tension humming beneath the day; I set the tone.<\/p>\n The parenting work is constant, of course. I worry about money and the future, but so do partnered parents. Daycare pick-up times and costs aren\u2019t open to compromise. But when the labor and responsibility are fully mine, it feels different. I\u2019m not keeping score. I\u2019m not wondering if I\u2019m doing enough. I\u2019m simply doing it. And I like<\/em> doing it.<\/p>\n I like knowing that if my daughter needs something, I\u2019ll find a solution. I like meal-prepping on Sunday afternoons while she helps from her perch on a toddler tower. I like taking her to the beach and on bike rides and to story hour. I like hearing her observations and unfiltered thoughts. Before she turned two, we visited friends in Italy and the whole international trip was a breeze\u2014even navigating Rome\u2019s airport by myself with a toddler and no stroller. Every stage she\u2019s gone through has been my favorite stage. I\u2019m not sure I would have been a capable single mother in my 20s or early 30s. But at 42, I\u2019m unflappable. I don\u2019t spiral when my daughter has a meltdown. Her moods don\u2019t trigger mine. The decades and past mistakes have taught me to regulate my own feelings so I can help her with hers.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n