Single Mother Not By Choice
But still a great life
I got the call from my son’s school that he isn’t feeling well and I should come pick him up. It was almost like a scene from a movie. We had just returned from a spring break trip to New Orleans and the kids were back in school giving me time to catch up on my business and carve out some time for myself. I had finished all the urgent tasks for my business and had just sat down on the couch with a cup of tea and an electric blanket to finish the last few chapters of a book I was engrossed with. Chapters I had saved for as a treat for making it through a logistics heavy vacation where I had to figure out where we were eating for each meal, sightseeing tours, jazz clubs that would allow minors, and meeting up with two different groups of friends. It was fun but not relaxing. I was just taking the first exhale in a week when I got the call.
He had a sore throat and an upset stomach and said he would have thrown up if he had to go to PE. I believe him, PE is his favorite class and he wouldn’t just skip it. Every once in a while, I wonder if I made the right choice. Leaving a corporate career to be a stay at home mom and start a business out of my house that I could run mostly from home. It was risky but I had made it through some major hurdles and I could finally draw enough to live on without dipping into savings. Handling the unpredictability of motherhood was the main reason I chose to be a solo entrepreneur.
I recently noticed the LinkedIn profile of a former colleague. She was a colleague of mine who had moved to New York City. Her career trajectory was impressive, management consulting and then c-level positions at well known companies. Her profile had “Single Mother By Choice” listed prominently in her tagline. I wondered how she would handle a child needing to be picked up from school. Tweens and teens are too old for a full-time nanny. Maybe backup childcare? It’s a service I used when I was in corporate America. I’m also a single mother but it was definitely not by choice and the circumstances defy quick summarization.
Her profile made me think, ‘that’s a life I could have had if I had stayed in corporate’. My life lacks glamour and recognition but it is a spacious life. I buy fresh ingredients most days and start cooking before the kids get home so the aroma fills the air when they walk in the door. It’s a detail I would never have considered when I was tripled booked for meetings. I can be at my son’s school in 15 minutes to drop off his uniform if he realizes he forgot it before a track meet. I can drop everything and pick up my son if he’s sick and be home with him for four days without apologizing to anyone about missing meetings. Mom is a fixture in my kids life who can be depended on for any last minute problem, the reliable shock absorber who will fix anything that goes wrong. My son and I watched Star Wars, A New Hope, and acted out scenes with lego characters. We watched the whole trilogy together that week. No regrets about any of it.