Confessions of a Single Mother

I was raised by a single mother and while it’s true that my grandfather played a big part in raising me, (that's a story for another time) this article is about a woman named Janet W and the struggles she went through with being a single mother.

After serving his country during World War Two, my grandfather married my grandmother in 1947 and had their first child, Karen, in 1952 with my mother following in 1955 and the youngest, Cheryl, born just two days after Christmas in 1962. Karen tells me, “Janet and I were born in Detroit, so we lived there when we were babies and then moved to a small suburb of the city where Cheryl was born.”

What was your life like growing up, I ask them? They both smile as the memories come flooding back. “We weren’t rich, but we weren’t poor either. Dad worked midnights in a machine shop and Mom was a waitress. They were strict, but we knew they loved us unconditionally.”

And for fun?

“We lived right across the street from a park,” Mom tells me. “I used to spend my days playing sports while Karen and Cheryl were more than happy to sit in the house and watch cartoons.” She goes on to tell me, “I used to play football with the neighborhood boys and ended up having knee surgery.”

Did you ever want children? Since I’m old enough to understand, she doesn’t hesitate to tell me the truth. “No. Never. You were definitely an accident. A happy accident."

In the Spring of 1989, two very important things happened to my mother. The first being that she learned she was pregnant with me and the second being that she learned that her live in boyfriend was a drug addict, later learning that he was addicted to Heroin. When she learned the scope of his addiction, my mother made the bravest decision I think she could ever make and decided that she was going to become a single mother.

A decision that, 31 years later, she’s never regretted.

Over the years, I’ve asked her the same question: Why do it? Why choose to become a single mother?

Her answer, “Because I didn’t want to raise a child in that kind of environment.”

So, with the courage and strength that I think only a mother can summon, she kicked Mike out of the house and moved her father in who had agreed to help her take care of the baby while she worked.

My mother says, “It all worked out for the best. Papa was losing his apartment and I needed someone to watch you while I worked so he was like, ‘if you let me move in, I’ll take care of the baby while you work.’ It was one of the best decisions I’ve ever made.”

Those nine months of pregnancy, she says, were a breeze. Well, almost. “You never moved [she laughs]. I used to look forward to going to the doctors just to make sure you were okay. She continues, “I worked in a machine shop the whole time I was pregnant, and you never moved, yet the one time I decided to go to the state fair with the family and you kicked up a storm. Never again!”

I asked my mother how she felt about becoming pregnant at the age of thirty-four and after some hesitation, she finally answers, “you definitely weren’t planned. When the doctor told me I was pregnant, I was so overcome that he wouldn’t let me leave the office until I was calm again. By the time I left the doctors, I was overjoyed.”

At any point, did you consider having an abortion or giving the baby up for adoption?

She doesn’t even hesitate. “No. Never even crossed my mind.”

Still, being a pregnant woman in her mid-thirties, did and still does come with some risk. “Because of my age, they thought you might have Down Syndrome or something else and they wanted me to go for an Amniocentesis to see if you had it.”

The result: “Right after the procedure, the doctor held up this vile of clear liquid and said that if my baby had Down Syndrome that the vile would be cloudy. Mine was clear so we knew that you were going to be healthy.”

I ask her if she wanted to know the sex of the baby and she smiles. “No. I wanted to be surprised, but my step-dad was dying of cancer and both he and your Nana wanted to know so I made a doctor's appointment.”

And?

“A girl. I knew I was going to be a single mother, so I prayed every night for a baby girl and my prayers came true.”

Still, she was worried that the father of her unborn child might try for custody so one of the first things she did was contact an attorney. “I remember going to see this lawyer and the first thing he tells me is to leave his name off the birth certificate and even if I did put his name on there, that didn’t give him rights to my baby.”

On January 15, 1990, my mother gave birth to a healthy baby girl, weighing in at seven pounds and eight ounces. I ask her if it was an easy birth, and she shakes her head. “Hardly. Your due date was January eighth, but you wouldn’t come out. A week later, I went back to the doctor, and they said you would be born sometime that day so after I left, we, (my grandparents and my Aunt Cheryl), decided to get something to eat at my favorite Mexican place.”

Out of curiosity, I ask if she remembers what she had to eat and she shrugs. “Who can remember after thirty-two years. I just remember getting this sharp pain in my stomach and we had to leave right away. I don’t even think we finished our meal.”

Did you go to the hospital?

“Don’t ask me why, but Dad drove us home first and Mom called the doctor who said to get to the hospital right away and we were off again. It was unreal”.

I ask my Aunt Cheryl what she remembers about that day. “It was crazy. Dad was driving and Mom was in the front seat yelling at him and telling him how to drive. Your Mom and I were in the back seat, and she threw up and right after that her water broke. [she laughs] I think I rode the whole way to the hospital with my head out the window.”

What happened once you got to the hospital?

Mom tells me, “We pulled up and this nurse comes up and tells me that I’m going to have to get out of the car and walk because they couldn’t find an available wheelchair. I was in so much pain that I couldn’t walk. I remember the nurse asked me how far apart my contractions were, and I told her they weren’t. I was in constant pain. A wheelchair must have dropped from the sky because she came up with one and bundled me into it and did an ultrasound.”

What did they find?

Mom frowns, the way she does when she’s worried. “They couldn’t find your heartbeat and had to do an emergency cesarean where they found out that the umbilical cord was wrapped twice around your throat. As soon as you were free, your heart rate shot right up.”

With the whole family waiting anxiously in the waiting room, I can’t help but wonder, was Mike there?

“No, but he somehow found out which hospital I was in and called the room. This was several days after you were born.”

What did he say?

“Blowing smoke. He starts telling me all kinds of things and even tells me that he’s going to send me his lawyer.” She trails off and I ask her, what did you say?

Mom straightens her shoulders and lifts her chin and it’s in that moment that I can see the mama lion come shining through. “I told him to go ahead and send me his lawyer and then I hung up.”

Did he?

“No, but a nurse overhead the whole conversation and noticed how upset I was. I had no idea she called Security until they came into my room later that day and told me that any man who came up to the maternity ward had to show identification, including family members.”

I ask her if she ever heard from Mike after that day in the hospital and she nods. “Only once when you were about seven or eight. He wrote me a letter, telling me he wanted to be part of your life. It scared me.”

Did you ever write back?

“Yes, and I told him that we could talk things out, but he had to get clean first. That was a deal breaker for me. If he couldn’t do that, then we would have nothing more to talk about.”

Do you know if he ever got clean?

“I never heard from him again, so I assume not.”

When I was thirteen years old, Mom learned from her best friend, who just happened to work with one of Mike’s brothers, that Mike had died from complications of drug abuse and Diabetes and I have to know, how did that make her feel?

“Sad. I so hoped that one day you would be able to get the chance to meet him. I really hoped that he would turn his life around, but I guess he couldn’t. Not even for his daughter.”

I ask her if she wishes things had turned out differently.

“Sometimes, but then I look at you and see how great you turned out and I know you wouldn’t be the well-adjusted woman that you are today. If Mike had been around while you were growing up, I know you wouldn’t be the woman you are today. He had the kind of mindset that children were to be seen, not heard. So no, I wouldn’t change anything about what I went through.”

Finally, I get to the real reason of why I wanted to do this article in the first place: What do you want other single mothers to know?

She’s silent for a few minutes and I think she’s not going to answer. Finally, she tells me, “That it’s all worth it in the end. I was fortunate to have a great support system, so I think it’s true what they say: that it really does take a village. Besides that, just love your children. Tell them every day that you love them and just do the best job that you can. That’s what I did, and I couldn’t have a better daughter.”

One last question: Given the chance, would you have any more children?

She laughs long and hard. “Absolutely not. I’m in my sixties now and too old to have any more children. Besides, I did it right the first time.”

Indeed, she did.

Michael Travis 1955–2003