Single Working Womens Week – SWWAN

Yes, single women choosing to become mothers is a controversial issue. Surely not a decision any woman would make lightly. And few people really believe that most kids wouldn’t like to have a mom and a dad who loved them. But consider the kids who do have both parents, one or both of whom could be judged as not having their kids’ best interests at heart. Happens every day.

This article cites research all over the place. As you know, research is like statistics–what you find is heavily influenced by what you go looking for. And to prove that kids prefer living equal time in two separate houses, this one study had to go to “kids” already in college–not likely to be representative of the feelings of little ones. I can tell you from observation, even when both parents are incredibly mature, peaceful people, it can be really tough on young kids to be shuttled constantly back and forth between homes.

But in this day when more women are choosing to remain single (because they haven’t found someone they consider a suitable mate), the idea that they “shouldn’t” become mothers is something that requires thinking through–not just jumping to a conclusion. For those who claim these single women are just satisfying their own needs–first, you’ve got to be kidding, right? Just THINK about the amount of work she’s committing herself to. And second, what are the couples who go through multiple cycles of IVF doing? Does it somehow become less self-seeking because there are two people involved? And if you’ve already had a child–unless you suffered greatly to have that baby–there is no way you can truly understand the depth for some women of that hunger to have a child.

Children of divorce whose dads abandon them. Children of miserable marriages. The kind of adults we become is profoundly influenced by what we see, endure and learn when we are kids. Even kids from the most disturbed and abusive situations can grow up to give incredible gifts to the world (Oprah Winfrey is only the most shining example). For some, all it takes is a single loving person to touch their lives. To say that a single woman who makes the incredibly difficult decision to have a child on her own could not give far more than that is just missing the point.

Saw this in a news alert today… “Single women often have low self-esteem about their single status… [but] Research shows that employers view single people as more career-oriented and hard working than their…”–presumably the next words are “married counterparts.”

Unfortunately, I can’t give you the lowdown on the rest of the article. It’s from an Irish news website that makes you register–but then doesn’t send you a confirmation and a password–even when you ask again. Makes you wonder if it’s legit… So I pasted into the Google searchbar – “single women low self-esteem” to see what else would come up.

Found some old material from 2001–some guy wondering where all the women with abysmal self-esteem were since the single women he knew were all busy, successful and going to grad school or engaged in some exciting career move. UNLESS, he said, they’re really crying inside and don’t want to reveal their vulnerability to guys-who-are-predators-anyway. And a response from a couple of young women helping the guy out by telling him where to look–basically everywhere.

I vividly recall a time–was I divorced or just working up to it?–when I studied the book called “Creative Visualization” by Shakti Gawain and practiced what it preached for many, many months. Write down the positive things you want to believe, to have happen, it said. Those are called affirmations and you’re supposed to write them down in first, second and third person forms (that’s “I am” “You are” and “[YOUR NAME] is”…loveable, a beautiful person, deserving of a good job, etc. etc.). They explained that this helps re-program your brain away from the negative beliefs you might be holding about yourself.

I can vouch for the fact that using positive affirmations is a powerful technique–it helped change my life dramatically. So if you ever have those down days or you struggle to feel worthy of the wonderful things you want to accomplish, get out your journal and start writing: “I deserve to earn $200,000 a year!”

Of course, first make sure you’ve got the necessary brains, training, experience, and guts to carry it off… ” )

This Toronto newspaper columnist wrote about a guy complaining about his wife and, boy, did she get an earful back from women. Here’s a really good one from a SWWAN in Chicago:

“From Exhausted: As a single young woman who works in a male-dominated industry I hear gripes about the wife all day long. Here’s a thought: DIVORCE! Unless children are involved (and then there are gripes about child support). You should’ve thought twice before dating and marrying that materialistic, gold-digging, Barbie-doll huh, dude? Personally, I work two jobs to support myself. I pay for my own home, make car payments, pay the bills, cut the grass, do the laundry, blah, blah, blah. If this guy (and several co-workers) is typical of what guys think and feel behind women’s backs, I’m dumping my boyfriend tonight and buying a dog.”

Read the rest of the entertaining and illuminating responses here.

The numbers hurt. Got these amazing statistics on single parents from a story in an Iowa newspaper (from an Alabama news source) about a young widowed single mom:

“According to the 2000 Census, 12 million people were single parents. From 1970-2000, the number of single mothers increased from 3 million to 10 million, while the number of single fathers increased from 393,000 to 2 million. The number of children under 18 living with single parents went from 11.9 percent in 1970 to 26.7 percent in 2000. Of those, 22.4 percent lived with their mothers.
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Now you know those numbers are even higher in 2006, and seemingly continuing to go up for the foreseeable future.

Is this the perfect time for SWWAN? Yep, a SWWAN caring for her little ones without a mate works extra hard, no doubt about it, and we’re here to help make life a little easier in as many ways as we can. We’re working on our discounts and extra services programs–starting with Chicago and moving out to the world.

If you have a little one, here’s a simple online story about baby swans (the bird kind). It comes with questions to spark your child’s curiosity. Enjoy.

Is it insensitivity when a guy falls asleep right after sex? This article talks about the chemical reasons why guys might feel sleepier. Well, I guess everybody’s different, but no matter how much science you hand me, if I have a choice between a guy who says he loves cuddling afterwards and a snorer, my biology’s gonna be all over the first guy.

NYU (the home of the blog where this aricle appears) accompanies the story with a photo of a full-frontal-nudity sculpture from 200 B.C. Just look at the pecs on that guy…

Did you know that there’s an official bureau, The Donor Sibling Registry, that maintains listings of the children born of semen donors to single-mothers-by-choice!? And if your baby and you are the only two members of your family, or your siblings aren’t interested, and/or your parents are old or gone, you can get your child connected to half-brothers and half-sisters–in the case of prolific donors, LOTS of them–by registering with this service.

Thanks to Jennifer Egan for her wonderful “sperm donor” story in a March issue of the New York Times Magazine. Have absolutely no idea how I got a copy of this magazine in my possession, but I have no doubt that it was put there so I could help SWWAN moms who don’t yet know about this great service. So here’s their website. Co-founder Wendy Kramer puts her email in there so you can write specifically for information. Very cool stuff, Wendy and Ryan. Blessings to you and to all SWWAN moms-by-choice and their families.

Ever been to a car dealership where they pretty much ignored you when you walked in? That’s one of the things we’re working on changing with SWWAN. We’re looking for car dealers whose executives–yes, the salesperson and the general manager, but also the leader of the company–are willing to get behind the idea that women who come in alone to buy a car deserve the very best treatment.

Do you guys (I usually use that term to mean anybody, but the fact is most car dealership owners are men) know how women talk to each other? And maybe her husband doesn’t want to hear about how his wife was treated when she went in there alone, but the single woman who’s talking to her single friends is sure going to tell them when she has a bad experience. And we single women listen to each other because we know that we’re all pretty perceptive about when we’re being given the business.

So send us your stories about your experiences–good or bad–buying a car here.

Does this ever happen to you? You live alone. It’s 4 in the morning. You wake up and start worrying about something. At times like that, I find it hard to keep things in perspective. There are times when I’m obssessing about some issue, and then later when I mention it to a friend, that person looks at it in a completely different way. It can feel like such a relief to see another viewpoint.

I remember several years ago when my life was more complicated. I owned and lived in an older home–a rental property–that required constant repairs and maintenance. Plus I had another rental property in another part of town. Being a single mom at the time and working full time, it was a continual hassle to find people who would look at the things that needed to be done, give me a fair estimate, and agree to set an appointment to do the work. Because of course, most of the time the repairs were too small to be of interest to a lot of repairpersons. So they’d agree to come and look (for which I had to find time for an appointment and often have to arrange to stay home from work for it), after which they’d simply never respond to my phone calls because there wasn’t enough money in it for them. Then I’d have to start the whole process over again.

Well, anyway, I’d go to my 6 a.m. aerobics class where I would see several women friends (all married). And I would describe my woes to them. One day one of them said to me, oh, you’ve always got some drama going on! I was taken aback.

Went home and thought about what she’d said. Next day when I saw them all again I said, hey, you know, you guys have your significant others to talk to about things. In my case, you ARE my significant others–so I naturally want to bounce everything off you guys.

Friends are treasures anyway, but when you live alone, they’re like gold.

Soon you’ll be able to see our SWWAN logo in a beautiful silver pin! All founding members receive a copy as our thank you. Welcome, all. Our great adventure in earth shaking has begun…

Let me tell you, there are some brilliant women out there kicking butt and sharing their knowledge and success with other women. Check out single-working-woman Kirsten Osolind’s website and blog about connecting enterprising women with corporations.

This lady has the ticket to what it takes to uncover and highlight the successes women are having, to point to resources for those who are on the way, and to hold a shining beacon high for those who are only dreaming so far. She talks about finance, venture capital, bootstrapping yourself up, applying for and winning awards, and every other thing it takes to build a successful lifestyle–single or otherwise.

Listen to her story:”

I speak from experience: I’ve held multiple jobs, been fired, been rehired, been a corporate exec, an entrepreneur, a blonde, a brunette, weighed 50 pounds more than I do today and 15 pounds less, recovered from a fluke stroke (yes, you read it here), made money, lost money, been homeless, lived in 15 different cities, dated multiple good and mad men (one of whom told me all I was good for was shopping for shoes)…and bounced back each time. I’m not afraid to admit it — I love reinvention!”

And here’s one of her early blog entries about why women who start businesses have to run in the red far longer.

Hats off to you, Kirsten. Thanks for the incredible energy you’re putting out to provide information and help women succeed. Truly inspiring.