A SINGLE MOM’S STORY OF CONTINUING TRIUMPH
These past twenty-three years of parenting have been more than a blessing, and for most of the journey, I walked alone.

Neither of my two children came with an instruction manual on single parenting. They did not come with guarantees, warranties, or road maps.

When my marriage ended over seventeen years ago someone told me that it was important for my sons to be raised in a home with their father and taking them out of a two parent setting and deciding to raise them alone would do more harm to them than good. It did not matter that my marriage had become a cauldron of verbal abuse, mistrust, and constant arguing which my sons were witnessing each day.

The sad truth is, many women who raise their children alone believe their lone efforts do not measure up because they lack a partner for “balance.” Unfortunately, and sometimes, with tragic consequences, they opt to stick it out for the sake of the marriage or to hold “it” together. I decided my sons and I would not be victims. I was doing badly with a partner; I believed I could do well by myself.

I was just seventeen about to enter my senior year in high school when I became pregnant with my first son Macario. I didn't plan on getting pregnant, but I was happy that I was because like so many insecure, lonely, and misunderstood teenagers, I too believed that having a baby would finally give me someone I could love and who would love me back. My dad had died two years prior which left me in shock, afraid, and feeling alone especially because my relationship with my family wasn’t the greatest, being the youngest of four.

At the time in 1983, pregnant teens “Babies having babies" was the term being used, were barred from attending high schools and it was suggested that we enroll in an alternative school system known as Satellite, schools for teenage mothers which allowed us to continue our studies while also learning the basics of childcare. I understood the school's fears about medical emergencies and about the negative influence a pregnant teen would have on other students; and their belief that we should commune in a setting together that “prepared” us for our future roles as young mothers. But that was not the road for me, so I decided to drop out of high school, opting to pursue night school to acquire my GED which I received before Macario’s first birthday.