Having thought about starting this blog for sometime now, I have pondered a lot over what the first thing I would write would be. Well, today I knew that this would be it...
I have no idea if anyone is reading, but just in case, I will explain a little more about me than what I have shared in my ‘About Me’ blurb. My son, Louis is nearly 6 years old (still coming to terms with that one, harder to swallow than turning 30 for some reason!). So, I have been a single mother proper for nearly 6 years. Although, I think of it as having been longer than that. Louis was, shall we say, a happy accident! His Father and I were together for a while but when I discovered I was pregnant, he was unfortunately not massively keen on the idea of the 2 of us becoming 3.
With some persuasion from me, he came round to the idea (or so he said) and we stayed together for a while but it was clear he was never really going to step up and play Dad. I suppose I got fed up with pretending that there was a second parent around and decided that rather than thinking there was someone else to share it all with but really being on my own, that it would be easier (ha ha) if I was actually on my own. So I asked him to leave when I was 4 months pregnant.
As I am sure you can imagine, I have told this story many times over the years. The usual reaction is comments on how brave I must have been, but I don’t really think I can take the credit for bravery. Stupidity, maybe. Naivety, definitely! Yes, I had thought it through to the point that I knew I didn’t want my unborn child to go through his parents breaking up and that it would be better for him to grow up having known no different, but other than that, I don’t think I had thought it through at all.
I was very young (although at the time, ever so grown up!). Just 23 when I fell pregnant, I really had no idea what I was letting myself in for. How hard could it be having a baby? I’d get a bit fat, pop it out and life would pretty much go back to normal, right? No, it wasn’t brave because at the time I had no reason to fear my decision or what followed. For a long time, I thought that his Dad and I would be friends and raise our child together... at one point, I even suggested that we live together but just weren’t together... I blame Friends for that one – it worked so well for Ross and Rachel!
Needless to say that things did not work out for us as they did for Ross and Rachel, and so by the time Louis was 1, 2 had become 3 had become 2 again.
I think any single mother will agree that it is difficult to fit anywhere. Single but not really single. A family but not really a family. I definitely feel those things as a constant but with the additional feeling that I don’t even fit into being a single mother. I didn’t plan to make a baby whilst in a loving relationship, which just didn’t work after the baby came a long and I didn’t get pregnant by accident and then get ditched by my low life boyfriend. I asked him to leave. I didn’t plan the situation but I suppose I chose to do it on my own. So where does that leave me? Well, right here I guess.
Single, with a gorgeous almost 6 year old boy, muddling through. Louis and I have a pretty good life, it could certainly be a lot worse. I think he is happy as am I most of the time, but as any Mother, single or not, it is not always easy and sometimes, things take you by surprise. Like today.
I work for myself as a mobile beauty therapist and today had a new client. I tend not to talk to much about myself at work as really, I am being paid to be interested in my clients, however, somehow we had got on to the subject of Louis. Out of nowhere my client, quite innocently asked,
‘Are you raising him on your own then?’
I have no idea why but the question floored me! I wanted to run from the room and cry. I am so used to telling people I am on my own with Louis, but I don’t think anyone has ever asked me before I have volunteered the information. For whatever reason, the fact that she asked took me completely by surprise but not only that it was the wording of the question.
‘Are you raising him on your own then?’
‘Yes,’ I replied having composed myself, ‘Yes, I am’.
And so reality bit hard today. It’s not just that I am ‘on my own with my son’ as I have put it so many times before. I am ‘raising him on my own’!
So here I am, raising my Son alone.... now could someone just let me know exactly how I am supposed to do that please?
