I’m sick of society feeling sorry for single moms.

My
single mom fucked up and I’m not sorry for her.

Ok, so if you’re a single mom by choice do not read this, or maybe read it to avoid the mistakes
my mom made. I don’t know. I never got to verbalize a lot of these things. Now I’m in my mid-20s
and I’m realizing all the things that were fucked up in my childhood and that were not it my fault.
I wish I had had two parents. I wish I had a supportive family. I wish my mother would have put
me up for adoption and she was not my “mom”. My mother had me at 38 with a man who
obviously did not want a long-term relationship with her. She did not care. He visited a few times
and lived a bit with us when I was a child and left when I was 3. My mother never got with
another man and I do not have siblings. We were never close with her family.
I was traumatized by him leaving. My mother said he left because he did not love us enough. She
said he could not love me enough but she loved me more than anything so it did not matter. I
took it as “I was not lovable enough for him to stay”. I was not worth it. I remember feeling shame
around at age 7 when I realized most children had fathers who had stayed. Now obviously I
realize that she should have cut all contacts with him to protect me as she knew he would not
stick around.
As a young child I would follow my mother everywhere and ask her to please stay with me at all
times. I had trouble sleeping alone until age 7. I would constantly ask my mother if she still loved
me. When she said yes I felt complete and secure. As soon as my mother felt angry with me I felt
completely unsafe, unsecure, and like I was going to be abandoned. She used it against me
because she was tired a lot of the time, and it was easy to get me to behave by making hate faces
at me, saying I was bringing her shame, or just lashing out in anger about how “unmanageable “ I
was. I heard things like “you’re killing me” and “forget I’m you’re mother” from a very young age.
She would complain about being exhausted in front of other people who would empathize. I
would feel ashamed and like I was a burden. It seemed other children were better than me and I
was not like them, I was not worthy. It was not true as I worked really hard at school, did not
misbehave as a child or as a teenager. Things did not get better as my mother got cancer when I
was 8. I was made to feel like I had to walk on eggshells around her because she was sick. I was
too noisy, too demanding. She survived but she was not a parent to me as a teenager.
Here’s the thing about a lot of single parents. As a child you’re not deprived of one parent, you’re
deprived of both. My mother was constantly exhausted, tired, resentful, snapped a lot, barely
engaged in play or activities. Money was an issue too. We did not go on holidays. I do not have
memories of “family moments”. I don’t have any family pictures. It feels like I have no identity.
Christmas sucked because my mom insisted we would go with the rest of the family who did not
give a fuck about us. We were usually at the end of the table and did not get any gifts. I
remember begging a few times for a Christmas at home once, the both of us. She never did it
because “2 does not feel like a family”. I remember being confused as why she had had me then. I
was taught to smile and fake happiness. Me feeling bad was me being mean to her. It was always
about her and how tired and brave she was. Meanwhile I was miserable, lonely, anxious, self-
hating and I was never allowed to express any negative feelings. My mother acted as if she was a
martyr who deserved sainthood for a choice she made.
This impacted me heavily growing up, I was lonely, unhappy, I had trouble making friends or
defending myself from bullies. I had trouble trusting anyone. I was terrified of men as a teenager
as I never had any positive male figure in my life. I was scared of intimacy with men when I tried
to start dating. I struggled with depression. I don’t think I can have children. I feel like I have
nothing to give emotionally. Like I don’t have a foundation to start building upon. I feel pain in my
chest when I see friends engaging with their families. I wish I had that.
For a very long time I could not express any of this as saying your mom was bad is taboo, let
alone a single mom who did it by herself, the saint ! Well fuck you mom. If you felt lonely a pet
would have been a better choice. I deserved better than a worn out resentful old woman who
never had the time, energy of even desire to be there for me. I was not a bad kid, you were just a
sorry excuse of a mother.