Experience of a Single Mother

When becoming a mother, I thought it would be a great experience.

I did water aerobics, prenatal yoga, and reassured myself I was capable of giving my children the best possible lives. I breastfed all three of my children for at least six months. I used the best bottles, did the research for sports, schools, and extracurriculars - everything to make sure my sons and daughter had the best possible life I could offer as a recent college graduate.

But having kids by the wrong person is a true nightmare. There aren’t enough words in the English language to describe it. I am stuck single-parenting two out-of-control sons in urban society, where Black boys are counted out from an early age in schools, mental health spaces, and society in general. And of course, they don’t even understand the statistics they are walking into simply by being born.

Broken homes are deeply detrimental, and I speak from the only experience I’ve known—being a struggling single mother. After a failed relationship, Black men often have an extremely hard time putting their ego aside for the best interest of the child. Too often, they decide the mother should be solely responsible. That decision needs to be studied and confronted, with resources created to counteract it. The thought is, “she’ll suffer.” And she will—her career, dating life, and freedom will all be rearranged around her kids. But the child will suffer the most. That selfish irony is something I will never understand.

For boys, that absence often turns into resentment toward the mother who stayed. As they grow, they notice the gaps: sports games where other kids’ fathers show up, field trips where their dad isn’t there, the difficulty of navigating hormones and emotions without male guidance. They look at their mother, “just a girl,” in their eyes and feel misunderstood.

For girls, it shows up in unhealthy attention-seeking, in constantly defending themselves, in the feeling they are never enough even though they were born enough. They watch their mothers in permanent survival mode and believe that’s all adulthood has to offer. Too often, they repeat the cycle.

Mothers, single mothers, are impacted by the removal of a father from the home in ways that spiral quickly. We don’t have time to process until something traumatic happens. We go from survival to crisis mode, which is the worst spiral of all. And if you have multiple children, good luck regulating your own emotions while managing theirs.

Still, I often wonder where society would be without single mothers.

We show up regardless of failed relationships, misogyny, or abandonment. Imagine having to self-heal, pity, loathe, and still keep a human alive. God’s work in human form lies within a mother’s daily journey—you can’t convince me otherwise. Many of us build our own villages or lean on family support to maintain sanity, but even that comes at a cost, and too often the children end up paying it.

Once, “it takes a village” was a mantra in Black communities. We built positive third spaces for women and children. But post-pandemic, those support systems are crumbling. The economy is hostile. Co-parenting allies are rare. Families are fragmented.

Even grandparents can be negligent, not understanding how damaging unchecked screens or unhealthy food can be. Too often, they dismiss or undermine a mother’s boundaries. Neighborhoods, too, are unrecognizable—kids roaming during school hours, no community connection, no one caring who lives next door or what happens while parents are at work.

Social media has convinced us that we can’t be the “new adults,” the ones hosting barbecues and family gatherings. But most of us aren’t homeowners. Many don’t have traditional jobs. Most are in survival mode, without the energy to plan kid-friendly gatherings or build intentional spaces.

This has created a solitude problem for single mothers.

We are raising socially awkward kids consumed by gaming and social media, while realizing not everyone belongs in our children’s lives if they can’t respect boundaries. Sometimes struggling alone feels safer than accepting help that does more harm than good.

Still, I am hopeful.

I hope single mothers begin to create the spaces we need, to cultivate meaningful communities and build villages together. Our kids deserve childhoods without trauma, safe spaces to grow and flourish, and the chance to become pillars—not statistics, not burdens passed onto grandmothers who “gotta have a life too.”

It’s time to end the generational trauma of single parenthood by creating mutual aid and cooperative solutions that repair the Black family. Single-parent households should unite, forming communities strong enough to fill the void left by absent parents—so strong that those parents eventually resent their absence.

Together, we can raise our children with a level of excellence that proves we are greater together.

Written by Ambirr Momon