15 Ridiculous Things Single Moms Put Up With

15 Ridiculous Things Single Moms Put Up With ©iStock/margaritabezkrovnaya

Raising children isn’t easy for two parents, let alone one. While the definition of what constitutes a family has changed over the years — thankfully for the better — there’s still a stigma single moms face on a daily basis that makes their jobs even harder (and a lot more unfair).

  1. The “Mommy Wars”. This is when moms try to one-up or shame one another based on parenting skills. Single moms often receive flak from moms who have the luxury to stay at home, simply because of the fact that they’re single and doing things on their own. While no mom is completely exempt from being entered into the world of Mommy Wars, it’s safe to say that single moms often get the worst of it, and that it’s almost always due to no fault of their own.
  2. Dealing with deadbeat dads. It’s insanely hard to keep a roof over your and your child’s head without child support. For single parents, this often means fighting tooth-and-nail for every little penny they get. The worst part of it all is how these same deadbeats often seem to crucify single moms for having the audacity to ask for a little help — even if the dads initially said they wanted kids!
  3. The stigma. Clearly, there are a lot of people out there who believe that women get pregnant all on their own, and that birth control never fails. As a whole, single moms are maligned as women who “made bad choices” and now are forced to “deal with it.” Why don’t guys get this same treatment?
  4. The parenting double standards. When a guy brings his kid out to the park, everyone fawns on him for doing right by his kid. When a woman brings out the same kid, but forgets to bring organic, sugar-free, gluten-free, everything-free snacks for her kid, she’s the mom who doesn’t have her act together.
  5. Dealing with your date’s family. So many people are leery of a guy who dates a woman with kids, and it’s most frequently seen when the guy introduces his date to his family. Instead of treating single moms like damaged goods, we should be seeing it as a potential modern-day Brady Bunch scenario.
  6. Having no time for dating. Date night is a lot harder to schedule once kids are in the picture. After all, kids have their own schedule, and it’s very hard to go from being mommy to being a sex kitten at the drop of a hat.
  7. Dealing with the Madonna/whore complex. Some guys who just can’t get turned on by a woman who’s currently raising kids. The fact that this actually happens is pretty terrible, and at times, can even be the reason why a new mom ends up being single in the first place.
  8. The impossibly high standards to live up to. Does anyone else notice the insane sacrifices women are expected to make when they’re single moms? It’s as if people expect them to just give up all of their old selves in order to be a supermommy. This isn’t healthy for the mom or her kids, who might end up expecting everyone to drop what they’re doing to make them happy at any given point. To make it worse, single moms are expected to “do it all” and do it with a smile — regardless of how little support they have from everyone around them.
  9. Dealing with messes without being unkempt. Seriously, how do single moms deal with their kids’ food fights while keeping their hair perfectly prim? It’s impossible, or at least it seems like it!
  10. Having people assume things about their love life. No, not all single moms are single because they slept with a loser who bolted and couldn’t man up to deal with having a family. Some guys do die early. Some women just fell out of love with the man who they were with. Despite all the possibilities, people seem to have their ideas about single moms stuck in stone.
  11. Dealing with being the “evil baby mama”. When a deadbeat dad dates the woman after the girl he knocked up, the first thing that he’ll do to make the new girl feel sorry for him is to badmouth the baby mama. Do the single moms out there deserve this? Usually not.
  12. Trying to find a guy who likes your kids. It’s hard to believe that most guys even want a family, and it’s harder still for many single moms to believe they’ll find a guy who will (at least) tolerate their kids. It might be easier to find a unicorn that poops tacos.
  13. Figuring out how and when to introduce a guy to your kids. Because you shouldn’t put your kids through the heartache of thinking they have a new dad, only to find out that the guy bailed a week later.
  14. Not sounding desperate when you tell your boss that you’re a single mom. It can get awkward really quickly.
  15. Dealing with the hurt of being abandoned by the father of your child. It hurts like a bitch, and if we had a fair universe, none of us would ever have to feel this pain.
Ossiana Tepfenhart is a New Jersey based writer and editor with bylines in Mashed, Newsbreak, Good Men Project, YourTango, and many more. She’s also the author of a safe travel guide for LGBTQIA+ people available on Amazon.

She regularly writes on her popular Medium page and posts on TikTok and Instagram @ossianamakescontent.
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