I worked for a parenting website at the time and was overwhelmed with great material to pour over while I sat at my laptop -- funny and poignant posts written by all kinds of parents, product reviews for drool-worthy gear I knew I could never afford but loved to imagine owning, and news and studies and reports that cropped up every single day on how to keep kids healthy and mothers and fathers sane.
I knew then that I was giving her a courtesy commitment that I'd never follow up on. And I recall thinking, "But I already have so much to do, so much to read. I don't relate to single parents. I can't take that on."
Then, as life happens, I did relate to single parents. In what seemed like one fell swoop one fall afternoon, I began a new life as a single mother to my preschooler son. His father is still in the picture, but I am decidedly the primary parent and the only one who gets up in the night twelve times when he is sick, does his soy-butter stained laundry, arranges play dates and is concerned with the curriculum at his preschool. That's not much different than what I was doing when I had a partner in parenting, but now it's official.
Now there's no pleading with the other parent to please handle breakfast and making lunch so I can sleep in a few more minutes, no girls night out without a sitter, no one else to phone in the pizza order while I immerse myself in Lego building with the kid on the floor.
This is what I now have no choice but to take on as a single mom, and I would have it no other way. I've become as passionate about single parenting as I think that woman I met a few years ago was and I now find myself telling other people often about the amazing, honest, funny, supportive community of single parent writers I've found online.
In becoming one of those parents, I've become one of those bloggers and I've become one of those devotees. In books and blogs by single parents, I've found strength and support that I haven't found elsewhere. At 2 a.m. when I up working or at 8 p.m. on a Friday when I am home giving myself DIY spa treatments or at 9 a.m. when I am wondering how the hell to manage dating in all this, these are the places I go to and these are the people who really get it.
Whether you are a single parent or not, whether you ever think you will be or wonder if that is what is in store for you, I am now giving you my big pitch for the single parent writers who I think are worth far more than a polite smile and courtesy commitment to check out. Stop by and read what they are writing. I promise you will, in some way, relate:
Ms. Single Mama writes candidly about dating, sex, getting time to herself and raising her toddler son. She also posts video responses to reader questions on negotiating single motherhood.
Matt Logelin became a father and lost his wife in a 27-hour period. Somehow, he's emerged. And is startlingly centered. He writes posts like poems, puts up amazing pictures and will lure you in with his humor in the midst of such heartbreak.
Single Mom Seeking is one of my favorite places where one of my favorite voices on the Internet speaks about dating while raising a little one. Check out her blog and her book. She's just so so so good.
Dad's House is where I go when I want to read a real, raw and funny conversational-style post about hooking up, hanging out and other realities of sex and the single dad.
What single parents inspire you?
[photo credit: Getty Images]