Solo Mother

A single mom rant.

by christina on December 12th, 2006

I suck. Everything was going well, on the surface. A friend picked up the King of Everything for a playdate with her daughter — his bestest friend in the whole wide world. Great! I show up to make dinner for everyone, and he’s happily playing, pretending to ice skate on some old carpenter knee pads. I can have grown up time with my friend, cook a real meal for once, and chill. It’s going to be great.

But he’s whining and arguing a lot. He’s testing his boundaries, I can hear the developmental books expound, sagely. What he’s doing is being a pain in the ahem. Another friend comes over after dinner, just as I’m beginning the inevitable countdown to leaving. The kid won’t leave. He begins to cry, real tears coming down his cheeks, he’s screaming, “I don’t want to go home, I want to stay here!” You know, I’m tired of the same fights, day after day. You’d think I’d have it down pat, by now, but this always gets me. I try humor. “Well, kid, you can’t stay here, so I guess we’d better see if we can find a nice patch of front lawn somewhere for you to sleep on, and I’ll pick you up on the way to school tomorrow.”

Nope. He doesn’t want to go home, doesn’t find sleeping on the street particularly amusing. He wants to stay at our friends’ house, where there are tons of toys, and other children, and a family. At home there’s just a rat for company. And mom.

When the other kid left, we could finally leave, too. It’s way past his bedtime, I’d given up on the idea of a bath, and we had three or four blocks to walk home. I was tired. I was cranky. I was worried about money. I’ve got a million excuses why I lost my temper on my kid when we got home… where he started whining for a snack. For dinner. For dessert. For books. For bath. For video games. For everything we either didn’t have time for or had already done. When I tried to say no, argued with me, he burst into hysterical sobs, and was so generally nuts that I finally thrust a  into his hand, yelled at him to eat it, and threw a temper tantrum that put anything he could ever dish out to shame. Then I went upstairs to give myself a time out. He came up after me and was arguing some more. Basically, we were both too tired and too stubborn to back down and just listen to each other. At least we can always call a truce.

“Are we done, buddy?” I asked him, close to tears. He nodded and wiped the tears from his own face. “Can we fix this now, baby?” Another nod. We curled up in his temporary bed, a lumpy futon I’d dearly love to replace with something big boy and fun and comfortable. Something with a slide. Something that screams, home. Instead of just screams, like his mama tonight.

I apologized. I apologized for being mean to him, for making him think maybe his mama didn’t love him. He patted my cheek and told me that I’d made his heart hurt. I’m sure I had. I told him how hurt my feelings are sometimes that he doesn’t want to be in our magic yellow house, after how hard I have to work to keep us here. I don’t know if that’s too grown up for him to hear, though I really did try to keep any angst or guilt trip out of it. But it’s true. It hurts. I know it’s not great, but it’s ours. We’re not homeless. It’s warm at night if you don’t go downstairs. Besides, the rat has run of the first floor when the lights go out. I’d hate to distrub him.
But part of me isscreaming, “IT’S NOT FAIR!” tonight, now that the little guy is asleep and I can wallow in my self-pity. I can see thousands of nights where I have to come home because I don’t have a sitter for the kid: dinners declined, romance unkindled, friendships left by the wayside. At the end of the day it’s just me, myself, and I… with Red Chief. And the self-pity is ugly. It’s going back in its bottle tonight, and I’m not going to let that genie out again. Imagine all the thousands of sacrifices, big and small, that single mothers (and single fathers) make for their children. I can’t even begin to name all the little stuff I do, how second I put myself to my child sometimes (no, not in a way that would give him a complex…) My ex is plastering himself all over the Net on social boards and alumnae associations, no doubt looking for old friends and perhaps a woman who might finally understand him. I’m just looking for a night where I don’t have to get up at three AM to go snuggle with a three year old who can’t get back to sleep without a little extra love from his mama. My ex is free to go on dates, begin another relationship, without worrying overmuch about what it might do to his children. He can pee with the bathroom door closed. He can eat whatever he wants and not have to think about whether it’s to spicy for the kid. He can go on vacation. He doesn’t have to worry about what to do over the summer and holiday vacations. I get to worry about everything, go without things for myself so that my son has what he needs. Heaven forbid I should own more than one pair of comfortable shoes! My life for the forseeable future is inextricably tied to my child’s happiness. I’m going to have to surrender to this reality, or run the risk of being a bitter old lady with a kid who’s not speaking to me.
The thing that gets me the most? My kid is truly wonderful. I tell him almost every day what a lucky mama I am to have such a great boy like him. Sheez. Get over yourself, Solomother.

I think that’s my new mantra for 2007.

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POSTED IN: blame, emotional pain, mother's guilt