Families come in all shapes and sizes. This is the message I’ve been working to spread, accept, and teach to myself, my son, and everyone in our community. It would all go so much smoothly if people in general were able to stop assuming. Or at least stop assuming out loud.
What would happen if we all stopped thinking we know what’s going on in the family dynamics of others? What if we stopped comparing ourselves to each other, and assuming that one woman’s struggles were something she needed saving from or something she brought on herself?
We gripe when the government is too intrusive, but we have no qualms interjecting our thoughts, opinions, and critiques on the mother we don’t even know. How is this?
Recently TIME Magazine ran an interesting story with a provocative cover (thanks for writing about it RichmondMom writer Cheryl Lage – the pic of your twins at the end was also much appreciated!). When I read the cover it scared the hell out of me. Because this is exactly what we do to each other – we size one another up. “Are you Mom enough?” we silently, and not so silently, ask.
I, for one, would be floored if we stopped projecting our internal belief systems on all things family (including motherhood in all of
its forms and every aspect of child-rearing) onto each other. Because motherhood is hard enough without that nonsense.
Case in point: A few weeks ago at church a woman, who has never spoken to me, launched into the following speech:
“Hi! I’m Ella*. I head up the single mom’s support group here and – I mean, I’ve seen you coming to church for a few months now and you never have anyone with you…except for your son…”, glance down at my naked left hand ring finger, “soooo…you know, I’m a single mom too. In fact I’m a single mom with five kids! So I know exactly what you’re going through! And I know how lonely it can be.”
This woman never even asked my name. There is no way she can have any idea who I am or what I’m going through.
Unfortunately, Ella’s invitation came sandwiched between two invitations from the pastor for the same single parent’s support group. All three times I declined, politely.
Underneath it all, this really irks me because all of these invites to the Single Parent’s Support group and not a one in sight for Adult Bible Study, Mommy and Me Bible Study or Worship, or any inclusion into the women’s organization in the church.
I’m going to lay it all out on the line: Just because I’m a single mom doesn’t mean I’m sad about it. Or that I need your support group. Or that I want to mingle with other singles. Or that our family is destroyed. We’re not a project that went wrong, and we don’t need to be “put back together”. One of the greatest things we can do to help each other in our community is to simply ask each other “What do you need?” rather than state “I know what you need”.
Because the truth of the matter is that yes, sometimes this arrangement is difficult. But it’s ours and it doesn’t need to be “fixed” because it is not “broken”. It bears repeating that families come in all shapes and sizes. And we – in our family – are committed to this arrangement because it is the best one for us.
*Please note that Ella’s name has been changed.
