Louise Sloan - Knock Yourself Up: No Man? No Problem: A Tell-All Guide to Becoming a Single Mom

1. Oops! I Forgot to Have a Baby!
Deciding to Go It Alone

2. Buying Dad: How to Make the Most
Natural Thing in the World Unnatural

8. What About Sex?
(Will I Ever Have It Again?)

10. And Baby Makes Two:
Surviving the First Year

11. Infinity and Beyond:
A Peek Into Your Single-Mom Future

On the Politics of Single Motherhood and the Purpose of This Book

M y friend Lucy became a single mother by choicesort of, a woman told me over the tapenade at a friends fortieth birthday party. She wanted a kid and she was getting older, but shes from a conservative family and she really couldnt deal with what their reaction might be to her doing it alone.

So, the woman explained, she purposely sought out a really passive man, and within three months they were married.

Uh, I said, channeling Dr. Phil, hows that working for her?

Not so great, the woman replied. I mean, she has a great daughter, but she has to deal with this guy who has fifty percent say in everything.

Marrying a guy only because you want kids, no other reason? It sounds a little outrageous in this day and age, but its really as traditional as it gets. In this book, youll meet nearly fifty women who bucked that tradition. We had childrenor are thinking about having thembecause we believe we have a lot to offer as moms. About the only thing we didnt have to offer our kids was a guy named Dad.

Not that we were against the idea of a dad. Most of the women in this book would love to find the right guy but, when push came to shove, decided finding a husband just wasnt their number one priority. Having a child was. Of course, not all of us wanted a husbandI talked to at least one woman who prefers being single, and another who likes having boyfriends but prefers to parent on her own. Then a handful of us are gay, like me, so having our romantic partner be the father of our child was never an option. Still, most of us gay girls would have preferred to have had a child with a partner as coparentthats certainly the case for mebut, like our straight sisters, having the child was the nonnegotiable part of the equation.

SINGLE-PARENT FAMILY VALUES

A ll the women in this book pursued parenthood because we want and value family. In fact, you might say we havedare I say it?family values. But fifteen years after Republican Vice President Dan Quayle threw a fit about the fictional single mom on the sitcom Murphy Brown, creating a family without a father still sets off some right-wing folks. My original intention with this book was to start with the idea that a mature single woman with adequate resources having a baby thoughtfully on her own is an OK thing to do, and move on from there. But then I realized I should probably at least acknowledge the political and cultural debate. As I was writing the book and falling in love with my new baby boy, I watched a fairly negative talk-show segment on women who are single moms by choice and read several scathing opinion columns calling moms like me selfish, man-hating, immoral meanies. Ouch.

Actually, the single moms I have talked to seem like great parents, and before they went down this path, most spent a great deal of time thinking aboutand prioritizingthe needs of their future children. Most held the idea of having a baby alone up against fairly traditional notions of family and morality and decided in the end that what they were doing was a good thing. And I think it is. Ive been impressed by their courage, their thoughtfulness, and their love for their children. Their kids are lucky.

Knock Yourself Up does make a few apparently controversial assumptions: Single moms can be great moms. When raised in a safe, loving environment with their basic emotional and physical needs met, kids turn out OK. Being raised by a good single mom is a lot better than being brought up inside a bad marriage. Love makes a family.

As it turns out, theres a fair amount of research to back up these assumptions (for a look at some of it, see chapter 7). Still, like many of the women I talked to, I had a lot of serious concerns about choosing single motherhood. You might, too, if youre considering this path. Youll read about some of those concerns and how we worked through them. But although I discuss concerns, I offer no apologies.