There is something unspoken in the otherwise much written about world of parenting. Whilst a proliferation of witty opinion pieces and humorous columns abound of perspectives on being a parent (especially from the sexy dads we once fancied as single men down the pub, now blinking charmingly into the bright lights of the new day dawning in their lives), one angle isn’t really rating much of a mention. The single parent.
The popular image of the single parent isn’t sexy, so it’s understandable why it doesn't come up much. What comes to mind is suburbia, failed marriages, excess weight, parenting orders, obnoxious teens and obliterated dreams. Or worse still, the Current Affair styled single mother dragging three, four, five half-dressed, sickly, neglected toddlers from beaten-up car to Coles, screaming and slapping them into muted obedience, all the while rorting Centrelink. No wonder no one is talking about it.
It certainly isn’t being chatted about between wide eyed new parents desperately clinging to one another’s hands as they navigate the terrifying and joyous new world of raising baby, holding onto a simulacra of their inner-city lives as they hoist the little one into the sling and join their friends down at The Standard on a Sunday afternoon. It isn’t even brought up much amongst exhausted and over-worked partners of two or more snotty toddlers, for whom the initial wonderment of new life has worn off, yet enthusiasm for their shared project of creating a family remains, successfully, for the most part, navigating bigger mortgages and larger gardens.
That makes it very interesting for someone like me, for example. I am a single mother of one. I live in the inner-city and work several part time jobs along with being a writer. I had my son at about the same time as all my friends started reproducing so I am happily accompanied in the discussions of nappies and teething and cafes with space enough for prams. But we never talk about the empty house that my son and I will go home to at the end of the day, or what that emptiness means. I failed the relationship plus baby scenario. I didn’t pick the right man, or the right way to go about raising a family or whatever other multitude of things that might up-end a family.
My family model doesn’t fit. No one that I love, not in a million years, would ever suggest that I failed, and they really don’t think I have. But that is the cold, hard reality of the situation. And despite our politically correct talk and broad education, the nuclear model is still God, even amongst my very cool and happening inner city mates. Come the weekend, when everyone is home from work and precious family time is at stake, my son and I are often alone. The absence (a dad) of our presence somehow takes the shine off the lovely, lazy image of the mum and dad and child(ren) basking in one another’s company.
And it is not just in the nuclear living rooms on Saturday afternoons that we stand in sharp relief. Down at the park on any given day questions inevitably arise, given the age of my kid, about when I will be having another. As he quickly approaches four, it becomes stranger and stranger that I am at the park with only one child. Pregnant women waddle after chubby toddlers and my long limbed boy and I are smiled at politely as I explain that there is no one with which to have another child. Startled fathers striking up friendly chit chat with me, given that I am obviously a woman-as-mother marking me as safe to talk to, hurriedly make their excuses to leave as they discover I am without a man-as-father in my life.
Its not as if I walk around with this information on a t-shirt, or hand out flyers to passers-by, but when you get about with a small person in tow, the general population feel it quite appropriate to discuss reproduction and marital status with you. I have been consoled by an old Indian man at the playground after he inquired about my situation that this was surely just my karma and I would do much better in my next lifetime, after working off my debt. I have been menacingly warned by a taxi driver, whose ethnicity I was not privy to, that I, having conceived out of wedlock, and now a solo mama, would have been stoned in his country. Suffice to say, I didn’t tip.
I used to be the picture of the young person about town –studying, creating, working, drinking, loving, living, shopping, art gallery attending, theatre going ad infinitum. I moved to Melbourne
There is a lot to give up when you become a parent. There is a lot to be gained too, of course. When you are going it alone, for the most part, the highs and lows, and everything else about the parenting journey is intensified. There is less flexibility in structure, but obviously more choice in how to do things. I never have to confer on the day to day matters. I make the decisions, but likewise I have to live with the consequences. I remember realising when my son was about two that I had gotten into the very bad habit of asking him his opinion on things. Would you like to go to bed now? What would you like for dinner? Do you think it’s a good idea to go to the park in this weather? I just really wanted to share the burden of responsibility of these simple matters, which can in the moment appear to have so much weight. I broke the habit, luckily for him, and have become clearer in my decision making. But another grown-up to throw a question to now and then would certainly feel good.
Obviously, even though the veneer looks so delightful and appealing, there are plenty of circumstances in which couples would probably like not having to open the questions of baby raising to discussion, or times in everyone’s lives when it seems like there isn’t a partner there anyway. And I have lots of support around me, even if it is just an early morning phone call to one of my parents to cry my eyes out in sheer weariness.
I have come to some peace with the day to day living of being a single parent. What is curious to me now, as I begin to have a moment to look up and around me out into the world, is how underrepresented this parenting perspective is. I would like to see some of me reflected back though the mediums that I have always identified with – the cool, hip world of the inners of my city. And as the artist in me recovers from those early stressed fill years of baby rearing (and writing was always part of that survival strategy) I am keener than ever to hold onto my self as creative being.
The question of representation of the single parent won’t be my only pursuit, but having survived the stress, the isolation, the loneliness, I want to know its worthy of some exposure! We do not often get to choose the road we take to the parts of our lives that really matter. Certainly, the twenty-one year old version of me would be shocked at the way things worked out. But somehow I am still me, perhaps even a better version of me.
So, I offer this out to those parents, single or otherwise, who for whatever reason are doing it alone, and still think of themselves as that hip, young thing who took the wrong boat to the land of self-discovery, but got somewhere good all the same.
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