Many years ago, on a twelve-hour flight from London back to California, I was seated next to an Indian woman.  She was older, with long gray hair woven into an intricate braid, wearing a flowing sari and many gold bracelets.  We got to chatting; she was on her way to meet her new granddaughter in San Francisco.  Did I have any children?  No, I replied.  Her eyes grew wide.  “Oh, you must have children!  Woman is not woman without being mother.”

I smiled politely.  I felt a mixture of amusement and annoyance.  Here I was, married, employed, acting, moderately fulfilled.  This woman’s belief that I also had to pop out a kid was both quaint and insulting.  What century was this, anyway?  I applied more lipstick, admired the new shoes I’d bought at Harrods, and eagerly anticipated the art show my husband and I would be attending upon my arrival home.

Today, I am the woman that I would surreptitiously shoot disparaging looks at, as she struggled, disheveled, onto the airplane with her baby on my cross-country flight.  Today, I am the one with a “Motherhood: It’s HOT!” bumper sticker on my family-friendly vehicle. Today, I’m sitting here typing with one hand, bouncing my 22-month-old toddler on my lap and feeding her organic crackers shaped like Elmo.  Today, I am a mother – and I’m pretty darn happy about it. 

Well.  Game, set, match to the Indian woman.

I am also a single mother.  According to the U.S. Census Bureau, as of 2005 there were 10 million of us in the United States.  And we didn’t all get knocked up at the prom: many of us are single mothers by our own decision – Choice Moms, as Mikki Morrissette calls them in her book Choosing Single Motherhood.  These women may have gone to extreme measures to start their families, investing their time, money and hearts in a true ‘labor of love.’  Some of us didn’t have a choice; some are single, divorced, widowed.  Some of us are just celebrities.  HA!  But whatever got us here, we’re all part of a very real, growing community.

Consider these statistics, gleaned from womedia.org:

Single parents account for 27 percent of family households with children under 18.
More than 2 million fathers are the primary caregivers of children under 18,
a 62 percent increase since 1990.
One in two children will live in a single-parent family at some point in childhood.
One in three children is born to unmarried parents.
Between 1978 and 1996, the number of babies born to unmarried women per year quadrupled from 500,000 to more than 2 million.
The number of single mothers increased from 3 million to 10 million between
1970 and 2000.  

I will be writing about the joys, frustrations and surprises that I’ve experienced as a single mom.  I’ll be exploring my reticence to conforming to my new, non-Kathcentric life;  I’ll discuss breastfeeding, the work/not work debate, play-dates for babies and moms; I’ll talk about dealing with the “daddy” question, with my own parents, and with the daily injuries my toddler is racking up.  I’ll also expound on the hidden joys of being a single mom, at my age in particular.

I hope you enjoy my blogs and find some things that resonate with you – as a parent, whether single or not, as a woman, as a person.  Please drop me a line and let me know what you think.

Right now, however, I have to go – a certain little someone is piling Elmo crackers on the cat…