Many times I feel a lot for single mothers, it is still fair when the woman has a kid and it becomes something when two or more children are involved.
A lot of them are being judged wrongly because they are single mothers, I will use this opportunity to tell the world that many single mothers are responsible but they are just unlucky with relationships. There are faulty ones as well but not all of them are the same.
Mom at 40+
My mom is a very beautiful woman and living as a single mother was quite challenging. She is not officially a divorcee but her husband tied the knot with another woman in a foreign land a long time ago.
Despite the hardship, her beauty stood out wherever she went. She doesn't use make up and her fashion sense is as poor as mine.
Sometimes I wonder what she would look like if she never had to suffer. We lived in a rowdy area and it didn't take long before men noticed she was single, they shoot their shot but she is very hot-tempered and things usually turn into a huge fight.
I wasn't happy with how people talked about her whenever she fought but deep inside me, I am super proud of her. We had this discussion and we(her children) advised her to get married again if she finds a responsible man.
She was pissed that day but after breaking down our reasons, our suggestions made sense. I was barely 14 years but she doesn't treat me like a kid. I was her number one advisor so I know everything happening with her.
Mom became calm with her dealings with men and it wasn't long before a big businessman took interest in her.
He is an Igbo man, he claimed to be a divorcee but we weren't sure if he was lying or saying the truth. The man does call her and spends lots of time on call with her, we usually laugh at her then.
The man knew she has kids but didn't ask in detail about us. On a fateful weekend, he decided to visit us.
We prepared food and were expecting a visitor. He arrived and we didn't leave our rooms, we allow them to talk for a while in the sitting room.
The man asked for us and when mom called out to us, we came out of our rooms.
The shock on his face was huge and I didn't understand why.
He even stammered while greeting us, we are all tall in the family and he definitely taught us we were adults.
This man didn't use five minutes before he took his leave and we never heard from him again.
We left that area to a new place where mom started making snacks and small chops for sale. The job I and my sibling were doing then didn't give us the chance to go to her shop often so people don't know we were her children.
I went to assist her on a particular day and I saw men of her age flocking around using their patronage as an excuse to relax and gist. I didn't let her introduce me to anyone and it wasn't long before another admirer came up.
He wanted to visit as well so that he would meet her children, he reminded us what happened the other time and we couldn't stop laughing.
Mom allowed him to visit and surprisingly, he was cool after meeting us.
He didn't believe at first that my mom had given birth to grown-ups and we didn't believe that mom had just found herself a new husband so easily.
That night, he didn't call to say hello as usual and he became a joke to the family. After that day, he stopped calling as the previous man did, and mom doesn't worry about men approaching her. She invites them home to meet her kids and the next thing we know is that they are gone.
Her friend usually says that we (children) are the demons who didn't allow our mom to remarry and I usually tell are that we don't bite.
If her admirers have pure intentions, they wouldn't have disappeared just like that. She didn't get the chance to remarry but she is happy today.