Reply to My single friend wants to be a mom

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[quote=Anonymous]I'm a single mom (not really by choice) and I have a number of friends who are single moms by choice.

1 - if she has enough money, she can make this work.  If she has room for an au pair, that might be the best option.  If not, she'll need to look for a nearby daycare that has good hours.  (ours were 7-6.)
2 - she's not wrong about dating.  Unless she is very attractive, it will in fact be harder to date after a kid.  The few single moms I know who have found real partners are either super hot (so guys ignore the potential deal breaker in the room) or they approach dating like a job.  (which means you have to prioritize dating over time with your kids, often.)  I don't generally have much time to date between my full time job and my kid-related volunteer commitments and time spent with her.
3 - one friend spent $70k on IVF to have a baby.  It can take multiple tries.  What is she prepared to spend on this?  (I was "lucky" in that I got pregnant the old fashioned way - alcohol and bad decision making.)
4 - the thing I've learned about having a kid is that while it fills that "I want a kid" hole in your life, it doesn't fill the others, and it can make existing holes bigger and add new holes.  You fill the "I need a kid" hole but then it's harder to kick ass at work, so the career area of your life suffers.  And it's harder to date, so you can start to get lonely.  There's less money to go around so you can start to miss the things you were able to do before - like travel.
5 - being a single mom can be lonely.  You can end up feeling stuck in the middle between your "married with kids" friends and your "unmarried/no kids" friends and it can feel like you can't relate to anyone.  And you think you'll bond more with your single mom friends, but it can be surprisingly hard for everyone's free time/custody schedules to coordinate.  And everyone's situation is slightly different in terms of father/family support.

Anyway, good luck to your friend.  When I turned 35, I was a little depressed because I had assumed I'd be married with kids by 35, and I was nowhere near either.  I decided to stop putting pressure on myself and just enjoy my life, and I decided not to take any measures to have kids on my own.  I got pregnant 11 months later, and it totally threw everything into chaos.  I love my kid, but I admit, I probably would have been just fine without a kid.  I had a good life before her.  Life is good now, but so different![/quote]

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