Raised by a single parent

 I have been divorced for 34 years.

My children were very small at the time of the divorce.

A multitude of people have made comments about how hard my life was and how sorry they were that me and my children went through that.

I have never once complained about my post-divorce life or having to raise my children.  It was both an honor and a privilege.

As of 2015, about 27% of children in the USA were being raised by a single person---80% of those by a mother,  only 20% of those mothers are not employed.  

Before you decide that children of single mothers were financially disadvantaged:

• 16.7% of custodial single fathers and their children lived in poverty
• 29.2% of custodial single mothers and their children lived in poverty

So, while over 1 in 4 kids are raised in a single parent home, only about 1 in four children raised in a single parent home, are raised in poverty.  (that's about 1 in 16 children, 1/4th of 1/4th) (while 1 in 5 children of all children are raised in poverty.)

The USA has the largest percent of children raised by a single person.

• Pierce Brosnan. Pierce Brosnan was raised by his mother, May, after his father, Thomas Brosnan, left the family when the actor was an infant.
• Oprah Winfrey. Oprah Winfrey was raised by her grandmother for the first few years of her life, and then at the age of 6, she moved with her mother, Vernita ...
• Kelly Clarkson. Kelly Clarkson’s parents, Jeanne Ann and Stephen Michael Clarkson, divorced when the award-winning singer was 6 years old.
• 50 Cent. Growing up, 50 Cent didn’t know his father and he was raised by his mother, Sabrina, until she passed away when he was 8 years old.
• Samuel L. Jackson. Actor Samuel L. Jackson was an only child raised by his mother, Elizabeth, with the help of his grandparents and extended family.
• Mary J. Blige. Singer and actor Mary J. Blige was raised by her mother, Cora, after her father, Thomas Blige, left the family in the mid-1970s.
• Actress Halle Berry and her older sister, Heidi, were raised by their single mother, Judith Ann, after their father left when she was only 4 years old. 
• Jay-Z The mega-artist and his three siblings were raised in Brooklyn, New York, by his single mother, Gloria, after their father abandoned the family.
• Stephen Colbert was raised by his mother, Lorna, after his father, James, and two brothers, Peter and Paul, died in a plane crash in 1974 when Colbert was 10 years old.
• JK Rowling was raised by a single mother.
• Angelina Jolie
• Barack Obama
• Kanye West
• Mariah Carey
• Bill Clinton
• Jack Nicholson
• Tom Cruise
• Leonardo DiCaprio
• Andrew Jackson
• George Washington

It's a long list.  Many nonfamous but successful people were raised by a single parent.  And plenty of people raised in the expected 2-parent family have turned out badly,  Just ask the Dahmiers about that.

My two are doing pretty well, 

I'm proud of them.

Stop saying "raised by a single parent" like it's a death sentence.

65

 I Just turned 65.  

I've had birthdays that seemed to mean something, 16 and driving and potentially dating, 21 and drinking and potentially finding a true love (though 16 year old hook on the same thing), 35 (it's usually 30, but at 30 I was pregnant and apparently that stopped other associations) where I suddenly realized that I was never going to get younger or be young or whatever.  It was so traumatizing that I couldn't remember how old I was going to be, telling people 37 or 32 or other things.  It's like I had a moment of dementia-like denial.  After that, 40 was nothing.

Fifty, on the other hand---half of 100, 2/3 of the years my mother had, I quit smoking, had a new grandbaby, took a day job with mostly desk work, that was a thing.  It's like the first half of my life was officially over, and I hadn't done all the things I wanted, but didn't really want to do them anymore, anyhow.  At least I could remember my age.

Sixty-five, though.

That is the gateway to old age.  

I retired at 62 to do something I loved instead of just stuff I was good at but hated.

I have painted and quilted and made things that are beautiful.

I also had the home I loved flood, sold it and bought a house for 45,000 dollars (probably overpriced, but it's paid for).  It now has 28 piers, new concrete in the garage and on the driveway (previously looked like someone broke two bags of gravel in the car space and the garage had pallets for floor, complete with termites), termite treatments, new kitchen cabinets and nice granite countertop--I save an intact bit of cabinetry and like it very much, the rest was pure survival, no one apparently ever cooked in the previous 94 years.

I'm awaiting the electrician for the garage, the house painter, and the roofer---the world is backed up, everyone has put what money they have into fixing their home--I guess that the pandemic made everyone a house-body.

After those three things, I'm painting the two bedrooms, redoing the bathroom complete with chandelier over a claw foot tub, and custom cabinets--should be cheap, the whole room is the size of a postage stamp.  Things were different in 1925.

But, this week, 65, 65, 65, it keeps rolling through my head.  I've wondered if I should have kept working.  I've wondered if I should have bought a RV and travelled--which is nuts--I hate travelling.  I've wondered how long I have left.  

That's the one.  Nothing screams mortality like 65. I can walk around looking like an overstuffed couch, bright blue eye shadow or no makeup, cut my own hair or put in 6 ponytails, wear tight clothes from the 1980's or gunnysacks,  it's all the same.  My appearance is off-limits.  

I'm officially old.  

Not ancient.

But plenty of folks never become ancient.

My next goal is to continue making stuff--art, crafts, home projects--until I'm ancient.  

I don't know what number will fit ancient yet---so far 100 sounds good but I know everyone's is different.

Happy birthday to me.

Selling the family home.

 It's been put off twice, but the closing is now next Monday.

The 2019 flood forced me to take a realistic look at the possibility of living 20+ years alone in my 60's-80's on 2 1/5 acres with lots of trees and never ending yardwork.  It forced me to consider why I needed to keep up a house that I frequently didn't even go into every room every week.

Reality is, if the survival in July and August with no air conditioning hadn't pushed me, I might still be there.

I raised my kids there.

I built my dreams there.

It was home---a feeling that doesn't happen in a minute but takes time.  I had been there 6 years before I realized it was home--not just the place I lived but the place that was home in my dreams.  

I moved out almost 2 years ago, and let a person needing a place stay there for the past year and a half since repairs were done.  He/they wanted it, but a pandemic is not that good a time for socking away savings and repairing credit.  When it became obvious that he/they couldn't buy it, I put it on the market.

It had 2 offers the first day.

A sales contract before the sign went up.

Life if weird.

But now, It's feeling both like it won't happen and like it's about to become like my grandmother's home and my parent's home---just a vague memory of something that may or may not have ever been real.

I've had a lump in my throat for days while trying hard to concentrate on finishing upgrades to the old house I bought for cash.

I may paint it many times.  I still haven't finished any of them.

So long, Home---Next chapter.

Anticipation of the end of good things.

 When I was small, I would sometimes go to bed thinking about the end.  Not some cataclysmic end, but the end of small things.  I frequently cried myself to sleep thinking about such things.  

Those small things, the end of staying at home all day with my mom because I had to start going to school; the end of sitting on adult laps; the end of my fish or the end of summer; the end of my 93 year old great grandfather that I barely knew and the end of the blue buick that was already over 10 years old.  I was a mournful child at bedtime.

I have gotten better at dealing with ends since then, but lately, I feel the coming of my ends.  Not death, precisely, but the looming end of such things as independence, strength of body, clarity of vision, steadiness of hand.  

I have jokingly referred to my 2012 car as my last car and the little home I bought as my "winter house", as I realize that I am retired, and unlikely to ever need to buy another of either.  Both of those are bittersweet, despite the fact that I am prone to staying with what I have forever unless some external circumstance necessitates an upgrade.  

Am I the only one that does this?

Maybe.