Absent Presence: Reflections on Solo Parenting

Single mamahood is not all rainbows and butterflies. It is not everyday euphoria about being able to parent your offspring as you want with no interference.

Single mamahood is messy, frustrating and lonely.

Granted, this could be said about any parenting. But the journey of a single parent in the absence of involvement from the other parent is something quite different. Single mamahood is rough. No question. It is not something that you can do halfway. Single mamas don't have the luxury to be lazy. We get all the highs but we also get all the lows.

I've been on this single mama road for the past six years. It has not gotten any easier. In some ways, it has gotten harder because AB is now aware. She has memories of her (inconsistent) father. She realizes that her family is different than the other kids. She knows. She knows more than I would like based on her own (not so great) experiences with her father. Yet at the same time, I am grateful that I don't have to explain or skirt around the issue of why her father is not in her life. However, I am not proud of the fact that when she wants to talk about him with me (and only me) she whispers in secret her thoughts about how she loves him but does not like him.

As she grow older, more of her features and mannerisms are similar to his. The look on her face when she is dancing or finds something truly hilarious. I look at her and see him. This brings up new feelings for me. Just when I thought that I had successfully mastered the emotions of parenting alone, when I see him in her, his failures as a parent feel like my own. I wonder if my feelings of shame, embarrassment and failure will ever go away. I wonder if I will ever stop trying to (over)compensate for his absence.

It is rather amazing how someone who is absent can have such a presence in our lives. It is because I give his absence power. The power is fueled by hurt. That is what these feelings are really all about. My anger stems from the fact that he hurt me by not living up to my expectations.

I need to let that go. It is time to let that go.

Because despite his failings, AB is her own person. Those smiles and shuffling feet are hers, not his.

She is not him.

She is not me.

She is the best of both of us.

I need to remember that. It is time to remember that.