This week I have had no less than three conversations {I say no less, because I’m also having a fourth via email} about the huge decision to, and path of, becoming a mumma on your own.
Not vague, passing comment conversations, but sit down, ask all of the technical questions, air all of the doubts and fears kind of conversations. Two with girlfriends who have reached their mid-late 30s having had varying degrees of success with relationships but find themselves single; one with a friend of a friend and one with a girl who was referred to me for a chat because she didn’t know anyone else who had traveled this bumpy path.
These conversations have raised for me – again – the notion that it is too easy to click next. In a world of online hooking up, dating and matchmaking, the fate of a potential relationship is sealed with the swipe of a finger or the click of a button. The relationship landscape has changed, but I have to wonder some days if it has changed for the better?
I can almost hear people in relationships {okay some people} saying the things they always say: you won’t be alone forever; stop looking; he’s just around the corner; take a class; try online dating; go speed dating; the grass isn’t always greener; he’ll come by when you least expect him, etc. I can feel the pity stare boring into my soul at times too.
As a very old Italian lady said to me when I was late in my pregnancy, we are very lucky that we live in a time where it is possible for us to become mummas on our own. We are, no doubt.
Better alone than badly accompanied certainly, but if you have a single friend who is considering parenting alone, spare a thought for them: they do not want pity, but wouldn’t mind some empathy. Before they reach the life changing moment where their decision is made, they will probably go through hell for a while beating themselves up about why they are in fact facing this alone.
Show them some love, they probably need it!
The fact is, sometimes it’s really hard to walk in a single woman’s shoes.
That’s why we need really special ones now and then to make the walk a little more fun. Carrie Bradshaw
bumpyroadtobubba 
It seems that so often I hear the ladies at work tell each other, ‘dump him’ – over any bump in the road they experience in a their relationships. This is the default answer: end the relationship. Or as you aptly put – click ‘next.’
Somehow all the time and effort already invested in this relationship is pointless.
Pity???? OMG. Admiration is more like it. I know how tough it is to be a single dog-mom. My imagination can’t even get to how a single parent of a tiny human does it! Courage up close.
I am at the point of wondering if I am going to have to do it alone, and reading your blog and ‘knowing’ you is so inspirational. But it is also a reality check, if someone as brilliant, witty, clever, talented and beautiful as you can struggle to find someone then there is no guarantee that I won’t end up doing it alone too (I hope that comes across better than it read). I had a friend on the phone last night telling me about her current relationship, she feels undervalued and isn’t sure about what to do. I asked her if she loved him, she said she did. Pre the ex I would have been dishing out the ‘you deserve better’ advice, ‘find someone that deserves you’ but this break up has changed me and so I encouraged her to sit down, talk to him honestly and openly and then fight for her relationship. People walk away too easily now a days, if it’s broke try to fix it don’t just throw it away!!