As single mothers, my friends and I have to deal with a certain elephant in the living room (this is where I would usually insert a joke about my weight, but I’ll give myself a break today). Whether asked aloud, whispered behind our backs, or silently wondered about, the question is always there in other folks’ minds:

“Who’s the father of her kid?”

Taken as a group, my circle encompasses most of the possible reasons a woman finds herself as a single mom.  One of us is a divorcée; one, a widow.  One is a woman who stopped waiting for Mr. Right and decided to go it alone, via a donor she chose at a sperm bank.  One is a woman (who stopped waiting for Mrs. Right) who chose her best friend to be her donor.  And one of us is just a good ol’ fashioned “oops” brand single mother.

And I’m not telling you who is who.

Because that’s the point.  With all due respect to those people who are dying to know, it’s really no one’s business but ours.  Whether we actively chose our situations or fate thrust them upon us, it is our private matter, and one we can choose to share with you, or not.  But it has to be up to us.

I understand that the majority of mothers in our society are, in fact, with partners.  So yes, it is natural to assume some things when you meet a woman with a child.  But when I was pregnant (and oh-so-hormonally cranky), nothing sent me into a tizzy faster than going to my weekly check-ups in the same office, with the same chart (albeit different doctors) that held the same personal information, and having the doc-du-jour placidly skim my information and say “so, will your husband be joining us today?”  I finally made them put “SINGLE PARENT” in big block letters on the front of my chart.  And still I was asked.

The same goes for house-hunting.  On every walkthrough I went to, the real estate agent would ask “will your husband be wanting to see the property as well?”  One time, after I said “no, there is no husband,” the agent paused and said “soooo… it’s just you that would be making this decision?”  I smiled tightly and said, “Yup.  But I think I just made it.”

Well-meaning strangers in supermarkets get a lot more slack.  But sometimes it’s still hard.  “Oh,” cooed one woman, “I bet she’s Daddy’s little girl, isn’t she?”  “Well, it’s just Mommy and Nana, really.”  “But she’s mostly Daddy’s little girl, isn’t she?”  At this point, you just have to smile and push your cart down the next aisle before you throw a can of stewed tomatoes at someone.

It’s not to say that all single mothers are reticent to tell you their stories.  But speaking personally, if I feel backed into a corner by a blunt question, I do get riled.  I think I expected society to judge me harshly, so when the issue comes up, I automatically go on the defensive.  But it’s not to say I won’t tell you – on my own timetable. 

Certainly, if you’re dating a single mom, I think you have the right to know, if you’re planning on pursuing a serious relationship with her, whether or not some other person is going to factor into the equation.  But if it’s not an issue for her, hopefully her date will see it’s not an issue for him/her, either.

Until we single moms decide to say “hey, by the way, about that thing we haven’t talked about…”, please: just walk around the elephant.  And watch where you step.