European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - June 12, 1994, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Single and wedded to her Little boy by Anne Lamott the new Yolk times after the recent findings of the census Bureau that Many More single women Are having children i discovered not Only that i was part of a trend but also that women like me Are still being re pc Rcd to in Many circles As unwed  right off the Bat i d like to Point out that no one Calls fathers who Are raising their children alone unwed fathers. No they Call them single parents a they Call them heroes saints a they Call them Dustin Hoffman. To me unwed mothers meant my historical fore mothers All those fast girls in the 1950s and �?T60s one read about in dear Abby who got knocked up and had to go to special Homes to have their babies with glowering nuns. But that a not the kind of unwed Mother 1 am in a the other kind the Over the Hill kind a i was 35 when i had my baby almost four years ago a the Middle class kind who had a Choice whether to proceed with an unplanned pregnancy the kind who is now part of a Booklet according to a census Bureau study released last year. In other words the Murphy Brown kind. This is How it happened i had known this Guy in the biblical sense for three months. We did not have a romantic relationship As such. For instance i did not sit around singing a let it please be him whenever the phone rang. And we certainly did not expect to have a future together. But even though i was extremely careful about birth control one morning i found myself staring fixedly at a Little Beaker with a stick in it that had turned As Blue As the sky. He was significantly less excited about this news than i and we broke up about five minutes later. So what was a woman to do i was a More or less successful novelist and a feminist and a Cotlige dropout a militantly pro Choice Christian. I was completely broke scared and As i mentioned  be a first time Mother tired edgy set in my ways. But at that moment i knew that All i had Ever wanted a even More than i had wanted a Mac Arthur Fellowship a was a child. Of course i had always hoped that i would be in partnership with a Good Man or someone who was at any rate not a total fixer upper but it did no to look As if such a partnership was going to happen in time to please my kvetching ovaries. So i talked to my therapist and to All the hip funny Wise mothers i knew and to All the single fathers. And i prayed. If there was a Way we could be provided for i was willing to have this baby. But if this would not be a great life for a baby to be born into i was completely willing to have an abortion. Throughout the weeks of indecision the father called every few hours acting like a Cross Between George Bush and Beldar Bonehead. He was a Little angry. He shouted that i could not have this baby that it was wrong. His Best line of All was a fatherhood is a Choice and i do not choose for you to have this  hey i said thanks for sharing. To make a Long Story Short for any number of reasons i came to believe that it would be of if i went ahead and had the baby whose name is Sam. He is so Beautiful that people Stop us on the Street. And he a turning out great a confident smart gentle and hilarious. Single women spend time with him and sometimes decide to have a child themselves and ask me what i think. I say i done to think you need to have a child to have a great life but it your heart s deepest longing has been to have a baby you can do it. And i also say it s really hard to be a Parent especially a single Cess Candice Bergen As single mom on Murphy brawn Parent harder than you can Ever imagine 1 used to go around saying that life was so Lime consuming. That was before the baby. Having  really Isnit at All like having cats. Its More like having Eva Peron a with pms a come slay at your House. You re so tired so much of he time that you Start to look and act like Michael Keaton in . You often have no idea what you re doing and things keep going wrong and your child is no help because he or she does no to speak English yet. Every scrap of self doubt gets magnified. You feel like a fraud everyone thinks you re so tranquil and evolved but secretly you have multiple personalities and about a third of them Are criminally insane. Then you discover you really done to even like children and this May be a real problem because your child is a year  and you lost the receipt Long ago your own childhood in this culture left you so damaged that its a Miracle you can even dress yourself let alone do the Bataan death March with a Colicky baby for six hours a night three months running. And you should probably go get your tubes tied at the emergency room to avoid making this mistake again. And no one Ever Ever says How Boring it can be alone with your drool needy Clingy babbling hysterical new Roommate a its almost worse than being with the most awful Boyfriend you Ever had. But you will probably completely fall in love with your child and be unprepared for the depth of your love and commitment. And you will find places in. Your heart you did no to even know existed. Being a single Parent will teach you to do the hardest things life has to offer a to slow Down to ask people for help to stay in the nov children drag you into the now. And they Challenge everything that seemed so important in your former life like order and control and Workaholic Bliss. If we Are what we do i now do Sam along with my other work and if we Are whom wre love i Jove Sam. Of he does no to have a father around and that does leave a Hole in his world but look at the men he does have a Quirky devoted Uncle Steve who wrestles and reads with him a tender Grandfather a actually my late fathers Best Friend of 30 Vears a if r who lives for him a steadfast hilarious big brother who has been coming by for three hours a week since Sam Quot was 5 weeks old and my Best male friends a i Tel my single friends who want babies that i would give anything for Sam to have a great father because he wants one so badly but i will not risk giving him a bad one. I Tell you life could be a whole lot easier around Here but honest to god it could t get much better. A be land cart is a Rcpt in and   of pc i re  Parl Laos 1553a  of to son s 1 re your. The conflict Between work and stay at Home by Karen Stabiner los air i Gehy a times. Jeez., done to the rest of you sometimes wish. Wed just shut up and take care of the kids if. Was so much quieter Back when we were Little girls in the 1950s arid Early l%0s, when the sounds of our mothers discontent were limited to a Little late night Bru ism and the solitary scratching of Betty Friedan a prophetic pen. A but then the women s movement shoved open the door of possibility and a Rowdy crowd of Dames stumbled into a new future we could do anything pc could mimic men and Stampede up the ladder of Success to a Point we would liter learn but nobody knew that at first we could postpone childbirth until we owned fewer eggs than a foreclosed Farmer and if we wanted in we could have it All career kids happiness. Except guess what most women hit their late 30s and 40s feeling not that they had it All a but rather to their exhausted brain shredding dismay that they had too much and none of h quite the Way they wanted it. Having a career meant hot seeing enough of the kids having a kid meant hot being committed enough to a career and the husband top often took the backseat. So a new Breed of women emerged live Stock Tak cars determined to make sense out of chaos. Writer Nina Barrett is one. Her first Book i wish someone had told me was the Story of her first pregnancy and her Early experiences As a mom. Now comes barrettes the playgroup three women contend with he myth of motherhood Simon amp schuster. Its about Nina and , Sam and the two other women who met weekly for a play group a Grace and her daughter Phoebe and Angie and  Gabriel Barrett Speaks for a disenfranchised group the mothers who slay at Home not because they Are economically or emotionally predisposed to do so but because circumstance conspires to remove them at least temporarily from the work Force. Barrett showed up very pregnant for her new York times Job interview and was greeted by a ices than Emu spastic interviewer. When  Sam turned out to be a Colicky baby she put her dreams of a journal ism career on hold and eventually started writing about what she knew Moshood. Grace wanted to he a theatrical director but there was no Way she could dovetail Long evening rehearsals w Ith Phoebe a nurse on demand schedule. And Angie the most troubled of the three took on parenting As her full time career with a passion that would eventually be her undoing Barrett did no to see their play group As a Book project while it was going on. When the Light bulb went off in her head she backtracked and tried to reconstruct the triangular Friendship based on interviews with her friends and a lot of her own Well footnoted soul searching. Her method is responsible for the. Books rolling Structure. Graces vis id memories of her first childbirth almost demand that it be the scene that opens the Book while the three fathers who exist Only in the women a reminiscences Are painted in Pale wat Creolor Gray. Heaven knows we could afford to pay a Little attention to tire plight of american moms. Society still tells us that the Best mom is the full time mom yet women who assume that role As Barrett did become instant a disappeared a a ignored or if noticed often ridiculed and resented. Forkim moms have tire unenviable Opportunity to Jive their lives feeling they be done nothing As Well is do v in in tit. Karen a on a .1 t r i.�?���.? a r a a a by go lit cd or a Nuj i. S s ail or by i it 1 f