I am a single and a single parent and I like it. Once we had the BOM. It stands for a deliberately unmarried mother, in English a DUM.
DUM isn't equal to dumb. It's not a heavier task than raising children together. In reality "together" is rarely the case. My grandmothers raised alone, all people I know do it. My friend says her boyfriend is after twenty years a bigger child than her children are. He's the spoiled child that will never leave. Leaving is what she would do if... she had the money.
Leaving is what I did. I do not like to raise big babies, adults who never grew up, people who are too lazy to make their own sandwich, and take you for granted.
One of the neighbors I asked her to mow a part of my garden for me (I paid to support her) started complaining about the old guy she lives with. True I would have killed that worm on day number one but she's amazingly enough still with him. The main reason is she has no place to go.
"What will you do if he dies", I asked.
The answer was she would go with him.
"No one will miss me, I have no family."
She's a mother who lost her two children to her ex-husband because she tried to cut their throats.
After a day of hard work when she arrives home the old, lazy man sits in his chair and complains, sights about what he should eat. No worry he's an alcoholic and drug addict and before she showed up in his life he was single and made his own food for at least 60 years. He's not charming and I have a very good reason not to be close with them. As soon as he opens his eyes he starts drinking and doesn't realize how lucky he is he found someone crazy enough to waste her life with him.
It's the reason why I hit the road, I am single and will always be. Why should I waste my life, time, and energy by taking care of a big baby? My life is this way so much easier. No discussions, no fights about raising, cooking, money, friends, and family. No humility. Each day I can do more what I like, my children are kind, well raised, attentive, and take responsibility. No way they will ever change into a person, a dumb, ungrateful drunk like neighbor Dicky.
The drawing in the header is made by (c) vampiremeerkat exclusively for my series "buurman en buurman".
Single good can be lonley