Life
May 6, 2024

Single mother: "There are many advantages to being Single Mom!"

It appears appropriate to the topic to our meeting in Berlin with a child in the arm and easily rushed. The journalist Caroline Rosales has separated from the father of her children at the age of 34, has been a single mother ever since? and also extremely annoyed that it always sounds like precariat and bad luck. That's why she wrote "Single Mom", a very entertaining, smart book in which she tells how difficult but also liberating it is to educate her son and daughter alone.

Barbara.de: You want to use your book to prove the term "Single Mom" positively. What is the best thing about being a single parent?

Caroline Rosales: There are so many advantages to being a single parent. It is much easier to organize everyday life, if no one sparks in between. I'm the boss, I make the laws, I do not have to vote with anyone. I do not have to argue about education, that makes a lot easier. In addition, there is less mess, less laundry, less orga. I also do not have to marry, to lead a marriage is work (she laughs).

"The word family is for me, too, an unequaled ideal"

Were there still moments when you missed life in the classic family constellation?

Naturally. First and foremost, I missed the idea of having a family. I still find love and familiarity important and beautiful. The word "family" is for me also a piece of an unequaled ideal. In the meantime, I wonder if this is the ideal. I make my life as a single parent now different. In a partnership you live more comfortable and withdrawn. I am more active in this single mother state. I go out more and take the kids with me, I try not so much to be alone. You can also be lonely in a relationship.

The word "single parent" somehow always sounds radical. The father of the children educates in your case yes, he is currently with one of the children on vacation ...

This is just a laboratory situation, the total exception. I am a single parent, even by law. I am alone with my children, who see their father every two weeks on the weekend, on the days that I work. That's zero free time relief for me. I live with them alone, I organize our everyday life, all appointments, the school, the kindergarten, the piano lessons. There are three of us, there is no father to help. I also do not call him for education tips. They like to be with their father, they look forward to the weekend with him, but it's all about fun. He is very busy and that's okay.

"I had stark existential fears after the separation, but I was also free."

Is the decision to separate you difficult?

Yes very. I was unhappy in the state I was in. I was just home, did not work and looked after the kids. My son was not in the kindergarten because I loved having him with me. But at some point I was so finished, there was nothing left of me. It was a huge step for me to go back to work and then I saw that I had to part ways too. Of course I was scared, I did not know what to expect. I had stark existential fears after the split, but I was also free.

In what way?

That was a departure, it was bad but also exciting. We drove a lot to friends, did a lot. There were some people who caught me, it released new energies in me. I was always just a mother, suddenly I was a wife and a worker again. I suddenly found myself in completely different contexts again. Of course, there was a lot of pressure from all sides, I broke all the rules, one does not separate from the father of the very small children.

How did people react?

To this day, they either react with totally exaggerated inappropriate sadness or they eye me critically. However, curiosity often wins and people are interested. Mothers invited me to ask questions, wanted to know how expensive the whole thing is and how I did it. Many are afraid to take off, most try to cling to their ideal, even if they are unhappy. It's a bit of a betrayal of the troupe because I did it differently. One has to get together as a woman. That's the way it is.

"Things happened in the crisis that I did not think possible before"

You write that it bothered you that people praise you for doing well as a single mother. Why?

Because even positive discrimination remains discrimination. If you tell a single mother that she does that great, it's like saying that you're a Turks living in Germany for 20 years, but that he speaks good German.You can tell the condescending attitude already in the formulation.

Did you quickly find your way around the new role?

Yes, after learning how to accept help? which was very hard for me? It went surprisingly well and life had many positive surprises for me. Things happened in the crisis that I did not think possible before.

What for example?

I had love stories, got together a lot with friends, got married again, drank wine with a friend in the beer garden and let the kids play. I was surprised how much you can do together with the children. Even when my daughter behaved badly at a business meeting and knocked over her glass of apple juice and screamed, I had to laugh afterwards. That is life.

When did you start dating again?

Quite fast. At some point I had very selective a few Tinder dates that were really positive. I thought they would go away when I said I had two kids, but most of them did not care. That was a very positive experience. Of course, there are also online dating people who are happy because they think they finally have a chance, because lone parents have to enjoy every bit of sex(she laughs), But that's the exception.

You have a new friend. Was he shocked that you have children?

I met him through friends, not Tinder. Incidentally, he told me later that he was a bit shocked at first, but not because of the children, but because he knows how bad mothers can be. I also experienced it myself because I had someone who I found quite exhausting as a father. That made him look terribly unattractive.

"I do not need pity and no daddy for my kids"

Is it really something about single parenthood that you have a boyfriend?

No, I always insist that I am a single parent. We do not live together, we are not married. We see each other twice a week and on weekends when the children are away. He's good for me, but I do not need pity and I do not need a daddy for my kids. My friend is responsible for love, not to make everyday life easier for me.

Speaking of everyday life. You write that you have stopped apologizing and justifying ...

I do not ask many questions. I do not have time to make the advent calendar of my children myself, I never go to parents evenings. That's a motto of mine, no one else dares to do that. I do not do any school work, I'm a single parent, I can not afford that. In the end, I always pay for my parents' lessons. Of course you will be blown for that, but then you just have to endure. In France it's all very different, nobody would ask you to bake a birthday cake. Since all are working. It is a feminine gesture to apologize for everything and question yourself. Men do not do that.

Do not you really have a guilty conscience? How you do that?

Of course, sometimes I have a guilty conscience. For example, if I have late duty and have not seen my children all day. But we all have mothers.

You tell a lot of personalities in your book from your life. Also from your parents. Was it difficult to write that down?

In part already. After the chapter about my parents' divorce, I cried for four hours. That was very therapeutic, that had to get out. Recapitulating my own story emotionally, remembering everything that happened, that hurts, of course. But I had to go through that because that's an important book, not just for me. The topic of "single parenting" is always put in the vicinity of incurable diseases, the defect is already in the word. It always sounds precarious, after a social flaw, it has a negative connotation? for whatever reason. "Single Mom" should change that. It is necessary at this time that the whole thing is expressed positively.

Would you say that as a single parent you are happier than before in your marriage?

Yes, definitely. But I do not propagate this as a model of life. In the 80s there was the first big divorce wave. My parents are divorced too. Of course that was sad, my mother always said that herself, but she suddenly looked much better, she went to work, she was more content and suddenly outgrown herself, a role model. She did not see that, but I did. I wanted to be like her. It is not generally better for the happiness of being a single parent, but I have accepted that it does not even fit our generation to dream of marrying forever. Sometimes it's better to be a single parent rather than cling to old ideas that make you unhappy.

"Single Mom. What it really means to be a single parent" by Caroline Rosales was published by Rowohlt Taschenbuch Verlag in August 2018 and costs 9.99 euros.

Caroline Rosales, born 1982 in Bonn, is the author of several non-fiction books and works as an editor and columnist, writing mainly on cultural and social topics. She lives with her two children in Berlin.