[00:00:04] Speaker A: Welcome to start to finish motherhood, a podcast for those thinking, or already single mothers by choice. Just looking for practical advice for navigating life's relationships. When you decide to have children on your own, it doesn't mean that you're completely alone. I'm Aisha Jenkins, and I'm partnering with you every step of your journey.
[00:00:27] Speaker B: Okay. I am here today with a solo episode, and I have been in a reflective space lately.
This happens when you have enough time to just think and breathe and just reflect on your life. And so I have some time, and so I did that, and I'll be doing that throughout this season with my subtle episodes. And so this episode is about what it's like being an SMC and how it's changed everything.
And so there's just something about when you become a parent, and it's a journey that you're on as the children enter different developmental stages, you enter different stages as a parenthood. And I have just learned to give myself grace and space, to let myself evolve and to grow into the parent that they need me to be. And so I titled this list ten ways that becoming an SMC has changed me. And so I'll start with the first change. Once I started thinking about becoming a parent, and this was when I was younger, I thought I wanted to be a wife and a mother.
And then once I was staring at what life was like as a wife, there were some pretty boring.
There was just a lot of other extra stuff, unnecessary stuff to deal with. And so deciding to be a parent, and when I was faced with the possibility of not becoming a parent, if I stepped away from being a wife, I was sad. That thought made me sad. I wanted to be a mother more than anything and even more than being a wife. And that made me hold on to a relationship past its due date. And so once I made that decision, to be honest with myself that the marriage wasn't working, I walked away from the marriage. And then I had to really regroup, because it was not anything that I ever expected that I would do. And to be honest, it wasn't something that people around me, my family and friends, thought that I would do. And so folks were surprised, and I had to deal with the backlash of that decision. And so the second way that the becoming an SMC had changed me is that it made me distill what was important to me. And so there's the whole thinking phase of becoming an SMC. You're becoming, and so you are on a path. You are in a mindset. You are an embodiment of a single mother by choice before you actually take those necessary steps. So it really does start in your head and in your heart. And so I had to take this time, post divorce and talking through with a therapist what was really important to me. So I had to face some of my biggest fears, like, what did I want in terms of my career? What would people think of me once I got divorced? And if I had a child on my own, how will I manage it all? Did I need to have a partner in order to make this work? And then what were the risks there of having a partner that I wasn't married to that was just going to offer up the second half of the DNA and possibly some monetary support? And then will I be able to create a loving and nurturing environment, an environment that would be different than the chaotic one that I grew up in? No judgment to my parents, they did the best that they could, but I did not want that type of instability in my house. I didn't want that type of drama and stress in my house.
There are still some things that I can't deal with, like, I can't deal with drama. Loud noises make me feel shaken. And so I don't want my kids. I didn't want my kids in my own home to be that. I wanted my home to be a place of peace, a place of love. And so when we walk into the door, it's with a sense of release. And would I be able to create that type of environment and still be true to who I am? And I could say, yeah, I'm in the midst of that journey now. And it does have its challenges, because little kids, they fight and I yell, and so. But that's the second way that becoming and entering this journey to become a single mother by choice, has changed me.
The third way is that it really made me slow down.
I mean, everything slowed down, not just the metabolism and all of that stuff. I mean, I used to get up at 530 in the morning, 06:00 and go running. And the amount of time it took me to get ready to go to the gym, that entire process, I'm like, where did I get all of that time from? Because having these two little girls really just caused everything to slow down. I mean, I could only move as fast as the legs of a tiny toddler, and I had to do it twice. And so things really just slowed down from my career, from, you know, the activities that I did, how quickly I would recover from things, how quickly I recover from the weekend. I mean, being in the house with two kids is nothing at all.
Well, actually, let me rephrase that.
Going to the club Friday, Saturday and Sunday is nothing at all compared to being at home Friday through Sunday with two rambunctious, growing, energetic children looking to be stimulated and entertained in terms of they have active minds and active imaginations and they want to do stuff. And I am tired. So recovering in my youth from a night at the club and a night out sipping champagne is nothing on. Has nothing on life and recovering from weekends with these two little girls.
But everything really did slow down for me.
I really had to surrender to motherhood. And when I had my first, it was easier. She was an easy kid. She was. She wore, you know, her emotions on her sleeve. I can read her.
And she was just an easy pregnancy. My second is she is a joy, but she has always made her presence known. From the time I conceived her, I. All the way through, and she just takes up space. And one way that I knew that this was going to be a different type of this was going to require different stuff of me is as soon as I brought her home from the hospital, she did not like the car seat, and I like long drives, and this child cried every day. I could not even enjoy my maternity leave and having free summer camp because every time I had to drop big sister off, that meant getting. Getting in the car. And baby girl did not like the car seat. So for 14 weeks, I had to roll with it. So I knew from that point forward that I needed to surrender to motherhood. And so. And then also the pandemic. So the pandemic and everything, I just melted into whatever a heap of a person I was, and I just gave into the transformation that was happening before my very eyes. And so being a single mother by choice really made me slow down. The fourth way that being a single mother by choice changed me was that it forced me to think really hard about my legacy and my legacy, like what someone's going to say or think about my life's work when I'm gone. My children. Right. And so. But not just my legacy. It also forced me to think about how I conduct myself, how I conduct myself on a day to day basis, especially behind closed doors. Because when you have children, even though the doors are closed, they are always watching you. They want to emulate you. They are trying to figure out a. How to be themselves in the world and how to engage with the rest of the world. And so this means that I have to think about how I speak about them both in their ear, where they can hear and when they can't hear. Because the things you say impact the way that you think or the way that you think about people impact the way that you talk about them. And so I have to be cognizant of how I talk about my children, especially when I'm frustrated, especially when they are so dissimilar to me in the ways that they are different.
How do I talk about myself and my friends?
Because after having children, your body changes. After becoming a parent, your energy level changes. And so sometimes we can have negative self talk. And when we talk about ourselves negatively, we are teaching our children how they should talk about themselves. And so I have a rule in my house that we don't talk about each other's bodies. And that keeps me honest for not talking about my body in negative ways or not, you know, over sensualizing different parts of my body. I love myself. I love my body. And while I do love all that is me, the external does not necessarily matter as much as who I am as an internal spiritual person.
Knowing that they're watching allows me to extend a degree of grace to them, to myself, and to those who are around me. One, because I'm not too focused on what other people are doing. Because these children, this life can sometimes be very all consuming. And so I am human, and I have to give myself grace. And I also give them grace because they're allowed to have good days and bad days, just like I am on the weekends. Things get intense. We're allowed to both. To all go to our separate corners. And we do that.
We all need our time to decompress.
We have different ways of handling our extreme emotions. And I am learning about both of my little children. And they both handle their stress, their emotions differently. And I appreciate them both. So I parent to who they are.
One needs to be hugged, right? They have different love languages. One needs to be hugged. One needs to be stroked. One needs to explode for a second. And so I have to give her space. And then she comes to me and she curls up on me.
I have had to learn my humble limits, that I, too, have limits to being a good person, a gentle person, a person who doesn't raise their voice. And I lose my shit sometimes. And that is okay.
I go back and apologize as needed.
When we apologize for doing something harmful, I taught my girls to not say, that's okay. They can say that. I appreciate that, but the damage can sometimes already be done.
When I think about my legacy, I try to behave and act in a way that when my children are grown and they don't need me to provide for them and keep them safe, that they will be proud of me and that they would like the person that I am and that matters to me. I don't want to be their friend, but when they become an adult, I want them to choose me the same way that I chose them.
Being a solo parent has forced me to really reevaluate my estate planning, and that includes my health maintenance. And so while these are both priorities have been priorities to me in the past, they have become more and more of a priority because they feed into one another.
And so I have to look at the big picture, and I can't look at everything in kind of black and white, because as a single mother, by choice rules don't always apply to us across the board. So there are some things that we have to do to stretch the budget or some ways that we have to juggle life just to make things flow.
And as being one person, like I am currently taking care of a health condition, which means that I won't be able to keep as close an eye on my financial savings and things of that nature. I actually have to sit down with the financial planner to decide a strategy for making it through these next few months so that I do allow myself the time to breathe, to heal, and also spend quality time enjoying my children while they are young. And I am so grateful for having such a diverse, single mother by choice community that I'm able to ask people who have done the very same thing ask them how did they do it? How did they recover? And they have been so honest and so generous in their conversation, their resources. And so I am so glad that I have such a deep, meaningful relationship with the people in my community because it made me realize that there were other options that you could do this life different. And I am so glad for the opportunity to explore what that could look like for me and decide what my next paths are going to be.
And so I take a look at the whole big picture and not just, you know, going from month to month to month.
I am both a black woman and a solo parent. And so the intersection of those two identities also means that certain financial risks will hit me differently, certain career risks will hit me differently. And so I have to be aware of that.
And so in the meantime, I plan to just enjoy my summer with my girls and sleeping in and trying to heal. Being a solo parent has helped me to keep things in perspective.
So there's an Elizabeth Withers song that we listen to as we're driving to school. And it goes like, to somebody, to the world, you might be somebody, and to the world, you might be nobody. But to me, to me, you mean the world. And so that's who we are, the three of us driving in that car. It doesn't matter who the world thinks I am. They can think I'm a superstar. They can think I don't exist. But what these kids think and what I think of myself are really and truly the only things that matter to me at the end of the day. And so. And that they're happy. And so that really helps me to keep things in perspective as life happens.
I brought these kids into this world, and I want to be here with them and loving them for as long as I can. So I do keep my health in mind.
They soften me along with that perspective. I don't have to be a hard rock.
They allow me to just nestle and snuggle on them. And that feeds my soul. They keep me grounded.
If ever I should think I'm too big for something, I'll trip up the stairs and they'll remind me, and they'll laugh at me. And I'm just human, and so. And I have to keep my responses measured. Like, that's not nice.
But they keep me grounded. They keep me in alignment with what's important. And they are why I do what I do. To carve out a space for them to thrive, as when they become adults, doing what I can for the environment, to make sure that a piece of it still exists for them and in good standing when they become adults.
Being a solo parent has allowed me or forced me to reclaim the simple, the simple things.
So when I think about how my oldest talks about the stuffed flounder that I cooked for her, it breaks my soul because I was trying something new and I was trying to get fancy. And she just said that thing was the worst thing that she'd had ever eaten. And I can't fault her. That's her opinion. She's allowed to have opinions. It breaks my soul. But I've learned that the best way to get them to eat different things and expose them to different things is to put it first on my plate and look like I'm enjoying it. And then they'll come over and inevitably, they will get curious and want to bite.
And my biggest, my oldest girl, she will. She gets so excited when she likes the things that I like because it makes her feel like a big kid and she can run around and say, yes, I want sushi, or, yes, I'll have strawberry shortcake, or yes. And I just love to watch that little twinkle in her eye because she feels like such a big person. So I learned to keep things simple.
They like scenic road trips, just really simple. So sometimes they will say, can I bring the tablet in the car? And I know that the drive is going to take us through farm country. And I'll say, no, it's a beautiful day. Look out the window. And then inevitably, they will see a buddy, they will see a deer, they will see cows, they will see horses. And it's just. We can just be quiet and just be together. They like watching movies at home with freshly popped pop popcorn and building pillow forts. And so they have really allowed me to reclaim the simple things. And it just brings me such warm, calming joy to hear them downstairs giggling and playing together while I'm upstairs watching a Netflix movie.
They forced me. They have forced me to walk my talk. So every day, I reflect on how I did with my interactions with people.
How did I care for myself today? Was there anything that I did that was out of alignment with who I am as a person? And do I need to make any apologies?
Did I fill up their cups?
Did I give each kid what they needed in terms of just a little piece of me and some time and some snuggles? And so the other way, it's made me a better communicator. When I talk to them, I have to actually see them because my words have impact. But also, sometimes as adults, we talk high level, and they will look at me like, I have no idea what that means. And when they say stuff, I get tickled because I will hear my words coming out of their mouths, and so it tickles me. But they have caused me to really look at the people that I'm talking to and understand that my words have impact to them, and they get triggered differently, and they respond and react differently. And so that has forced me to parent them differently. They have different love languages. How I heal from a wound that I've caused with my words looks different for each kid. I also date differently. Well, okay, so let's say I'm no longer searching for a life partner. It will find me eventually because I give off that kind of an energy.
But I really feel content.
And being. Being a mom can be very full. It can be overwhelming at times. And I don't always have the bandwidth to deal with an adult and the level of attention that they need early in a relationship. I don't have the energy to get jealous. And for some people, it matters that you get upset that other people want them in that way. And I just don't have the energy to give that to a person, even though I know in some masochistic kind of way that bonds people closer together. I don't have the energy. If you're going to cheat or if you're going to stray, I can't stop you. And frankly, then, okay, then just let the gap get wider, because my time with you is limited anyway. So if somebody else is going to fill that time and that gap, then by all means, that's a better situation for you than me. And I'm okay, you know, walking away or, you know, being left. And, you know, because life is pretty full right now, so it would take a really patient person and the right kind of person and spirit to come into my life because I really can't risk the peace in my household for a piece.
You saw what I did there. Peace for a piece.
The other way that it has changed me is that if you like it, I love it. So aside from people being overtly mean and physically abusive, there's not much that other people can do that will trigger me to care.
I will say one or two things. I will go just about so far, and then I'm just like, yeah, at the end of the day, if you like it, I love it. And that also triggers people because they want you to fight and I don't have.
And then the last way I think that becoming a mom has changed me is in how I eat. I used to want to do all of this fancy cooking, and they're not there yet. They are coming along slowly. So I followed their meal plan, and I will tell you that has kept a lot of processed foods out of the house because one, I watch how much sugar they eat, even though they still eat more sugar than I would like. Um, we keep whole foods in the house. Um, matter of fact, I was just laughing with a friend of mine because we were like, there are certain foods that once you run out of, you can have a whole refrigerator full of food. But if you run. If I run out of butter, eggs, cheese, bread and milk, I'm in a panic, I can't sleep. I need to go to the store and restock those things. And maybe it just comes from the way I was raised, but when I am out of those staples, I get nervous. But those are also. And fruit, but those are also staples that the kids will eat because it's quick grab food. It's healthy food for the most part. And so that's what I stocked the house with. And so instead of swimming upstream, instead of pushing a boulder up the hill, I just surrendered. And, you know, if I want something fancy, we'll go to a restaurant. Win win for everybody. And so, ultimately, becoming a parent has changed me, especially becoming a solo parent.
The mom me and the single me, they were two different people, and I honor who both of those people were. We had different needs. We dressed differently. I definitely wore my hair differently. We ate different things. I had a different social circle of casual friends. My core group of friends are still with me, but I had different desires and different priorities. I will tell you, I loved both versions of me, and I really leaned in to both versions. And I remember when I was at the tail end of dating and kind of at that intersection between thinking of becoming a single mother by choice and, you know, do I do it using a sperm bank or do I do it using a friend? And I remember telling the person I was dating who was like, I don't want to have kids. And I was just like, okay, so we're going to date up until the end of the summer, and then nothing will be radio silent. You don't contact me, I don't contact you. And I was so resolute on, I am going to have one last hot girl summer and do all the things. But at the end of that summer, you will not hear from me. I will transition into the me who was the thinker and the tryer, and eventually I became the mom. And so I thoroughly lived both lives. I lived a single me up until I was 37, and now I'm ten years into being a solo parent. And so I've got probably a good 2030 years more before, you know, I am done with this side of life. And so becoming a parent will change you. It's changed me. And I just say, honor all of the different variations of yourself and don't compare yourself to yourself. Live a good life so that you don't. And there you have it. That's what it's like to. To be a single mother by choice and the way that it has changed me.
And that's it.
[00:28:31] Speaker A: Thanks for listening to start to finish motherhood with Aisha. If you want to keep the conversation going, follow start to finish motherhood on instagram or email
[email protected]. if you love this episode, please share it with anyone who's thinking of becoming a single mother by choice. Anyone who's already parenting as a single mother by choice and just looking for advice on navigating it all. Or a friend or family member who's looking to support someone else's single mother by choice journey. Until next time.
[00:28:59] Speaker B: Time.
[00:29:00] Speaker A: Bye now.
