Single Motherhood Forced Me to Question the Life I Was Supposed to Want

Note: This article first appeared in Modern Women, a Medium publication, on April 12, 2026. 

I wish I could go back and talk to the anxious young woman I was before I had children.

My life was packed with activity: salsa classes, choir rehearsals, synagogue singles events, and professional meetups that I erronously thought could double as social events.

I was meeting plenty of people, but very few shared my values.

I couldn’t find anyone I could build a life with.

I didn’t realize it yet, but I was emotionally exhausted trying to force a life script that was never going to happen.

When the Life Script Breaks

People think that raising a child alone is difficult, and it definitely comes with its unique challenges. But I would argue that depending on the health of your child, your support system, financial resources, and the mental resilience of both you and your child, it can be as intense, busy, challenging and fulfilling as any other parent.

Sometimes even less challenging, especially for married moms with partners who are uninvolved.

Deciding to become a single-mom-by-choice, on the other hand, was a brutally painful and heart-wrenching path.

Firstly, because as any single woman in her 30s who would like to have a family one day, I was on an anxiety-riddled deadline. Every engagement announcement felt like another door closing. It completely demoralized me when my ex-boyfriend married a casual friend also in her mid-30s who I’d actually gone camping with, entertained at my house, sat at my dinner table and ate my food.

Second, because it shattered a life assumption.

This disruption of a life narrative — in my case, that I would get married and have children with that spouse — involved a realization that the life I imagined was no longer possible. Psychologist Dan McAdams calls this narrative identity — the internal life story we tell ourselves about our past, present, and future. When life events like divorce, illness, or job loss force that story to change, the disruption can be psychologically painful.

I can personally vouch for that.

If Happily Ever After Isn’t True, What Else Isn’t?

With heaps of counseling a funny thing happened: I was able to reframe single motherhood. Instead of it being the worst-case scenario, it was an opportunity.

I could raise a child now on my terms.

I could choose our religious affiliation. I could choose the school he or she would attend.

I could decide how much technology entered our home.

I could decide which items entered our home and which would be discarded.

I could choose a slower, simpler life and spend more time with my kids.

Building this new narrative became very cathartic. After all, the worst had happened: I was raising a child on my own. And I was happy.

I learned that many of the things I thought were necessary for a “good life” were simply things I had been taught to want. Including the idea that family life had to be expensive, busy, and full of things.

Once I realized the life script I had followed wasn’t inevitable, I started questioning other assumptions too.

Do two parents really need to work to give kids what they need? Do I really have to give my kids dance classes? An iphone? A laptop? A trip around the world for their bar or bat mitzvah? Do they need sugary treats and packaged foods, or can they eat chopped vegetables, hard-boiled eggs, and homemade applesauce?

Can they just wear second-hand clothes? Second-hand toys? Why not? Most of the toys I’ve bought break right away anyhow. The clothes get stained or holes in them or even lost.

Rethinking What Children Actually Need

Will my kids even remember all the things I bought them? Or will they remember that I played with them and took them to the park instead?

I saw how quickly my children developed, and how as babies they preferred to just play with a pot and pan versus the endless baby toys marketed to them. My son pushed his sister around in a box and she squealed with pleasure. He baked cookies with me for hours and it kept him far busier than the board games or gadgets I bought him.

I saw that after just a few months I often had to retire the baby gear anyways, and I was relieved I mostly received it second-hand.

What I Learned From My Parent’s Basement

Perhaps that was why I turned to minimalism. Of course, having only one income helped me consider it too.

But my biggest wake-up call was visiting my parents and spending hours cleaning their basement on visits every year. There were cleaning supplies, pet food and supplies, photos, dishes, old sheets and towels that needed to be ditched or given away.

There was memorabilia from the Nixon era that my father wanted to sell (people weren’t that interested to buy it). There was a Singer sewing machine that I was told growing up was valuable but it turns out Singer made hundreds of them and the value of the machine is very low. There were flower arrangements from my bat mitzvah in the basement that hadn’t been touched in decades.

All of it had cost time and money. My parents had worked two jobs to afford this stuff and other stuff for us like ballet and swimming lessons. To give us this lifestyle and pay the mortgage, we were with babysitters until five or six each night.

But what do I remember from my childhood?

Not the things. Not the lessons. Not the activities that filled the schedule.

I remember dinners with my father, him doing his very best to listen to my conversations that didn’t make any sense. I remember doing countless errands with him on weekends and loving listening to the radio with classic hits from the 60s. I remember him taking us on random trips around the area where I was from and climbing on statues and Civil War ruins. I remember asking him to show me the North Star and us driving around for hours in Western Maryland trying to find it to show it to me, upon my request.

The Story We’re Told Isn’t the Only One

In rebuilding my life narrative I began to realize that the life I once feared most — raising a child on my own — ended up freeing me from a script that never quite fit.

It forced me to ask better questions about how I want to live, what my children actually need, and what kind of memories we want to build together.

And in that process, I discovered something surprising. The life I feared most turned out to fit me better than the one I had been chasing. I learned that sometimes the life that breaks your plans is the one that finally gives you peace.