The older I get, and the more my friends have kids, the more the adage “it takes a village to raise a child” means to me. When I was eight or nine, I vowed I would never get married, because marriage meant divorce, pain and poverty. Most of my friends’ parents were divorced, and all the moms were struggling to raise children on their own, with little support from their ex husbands, while their ex’s remarried and lived comfortably in nice houses, and somehow justified to themselves that being a dad four days a month was good enough. What woman in her right mind would get married if she knew at nine years old that exhaustion, poverty and nervous breakdowns are what women get out of marriage?
When kids are involved, divorce disrupts Maslow’s hierarchy of needs at the “Safety / Security” level, and everything above that becomes so much harder to achieve. Divorce is tantamount to natural disaster to a kid - it destroys everything you know, and you have no control over it. It ruins self-confidence and self-esteem, takes away the joy and freedom of being a child, splinters families, destroys the stability children need to grow emotionally, fractures siblings, and makes kids grow up way too fast - and that pain never goes away.
Human beings are at their best when raised by two parents (same-sex parents included), in a loving home, who work together to do right by their kids, no matter what. Our species has evolved this way, and the ideal of the species can only be achieved this way. If we were turtles, maybe having absent parents would be ok. If we were lions, being raised by single moms while our dads wandered off might be ok, but we’re not. If you or your partner is not 100% committed to raising kids, don’t even consider it.
For one thing, raising children is exhausting and everyone needs a break once in a while. When you only have one parent, she doesn’t get a break. And I’m not talking about every-second-weekend, I’m talking about twenty minutes here, an hour there every single day. No one could be a single parent for very long without losing their marbles from pure exhaustion. One woman cannot be the provider, the caregiver, the disciplinarian, the teacher, the shepherd, the romantic advisor and the breadwinner all at once; no woman can be a whole village on her own.
My friends are all now becoming parents, loving it and being exhausted by it, and experiencing all the ups and downs that go along with it, and I can’t imagine any of them doing it alone. And this is a generation who waited longer, and had careers before having families, so you’d expect that they’d be better equipped to be single moms if they had to, and I still can’t see any of them considering it. This generation of men devotes an extraordinary amount of time and love into being parents too. Maybe being raised by single moms taught them just how hard it is to be a good dad, and how important. Ironically, maybe the 50+% divorce rate of the ‘70s and ‘80s has reset the human race in North America, and we’re now back to cherishing the key to survival of the species – good marriages, and good parenting.
Divorce simply isn’t an option for most people I know. They’ve witnessed first hand the destruction it brings, so they have been patient and chosen their partners carefully. They’ve experienced life before settling down, and relinquished the desire to wander. They’ve completed their essential Hero’s Journey, faced their own worst enemies – themselves – and become a mellower, more humble version of their impulsive, rebellious teenage selves, and have the skills to make marriage and parenthood work pretty well. They also seem to realize that being a parent is the most important job on earth, and they do this warmly, lovingly, selflessly and joyously, and with their “village” of friends and family around to help, instead of giving up when it gets too hard. I’m very much looking forward to watching your kids grow into amazing little people, and eventually into great adults and great parents themselves. This goes out with much love to all my mommy & daddy friends – thank you for letting me be part of your village, and for showing me what good marriages and good parenting looks like. You've given me faith in both.
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