(HUMANITY) Single motherhood…..true stories

*Janice is drop dead gorgeous and runs a successful construction company. She had been too busy to care about her social life till 33. Then, she met what she thought was the man of her dreams. He was good-looking, well to do and very well mannered. Their relationship went on nearly 4 months and then she found out she was 3 months pregnant. She was ecstatic when he proposed to her. They decided to have a quick, private ceremony for a wedding and worry about a big wedding later. A day before the ceremony, a pregnant lady turned up at her doorstep with 3 small children and claimed that she was his wife of 10 years. As she showed her proofs of photos and other paraphernalia, Janice felt her world come shattering down. Thankfully she managed to keep a presence of mind and rationalize her situation. She couldn't bring herself to abort, so she decided to keep her baby and politely told him to leave after getting him to agree to give his name for the child. And also, being a rather magnanimous person and in the spirit of sisterhood, she felt sorry for the wife’s situation and offered to pay for her household bills that the husband been neglecting. Life went on and till the day of delivery. She went into labour pain around 3 o’clock in the morning and she decided to call him since he lived just 2 miles away from her. He told her he couldn’t make it and told her to drive herself. She had no choice as she lived alone and she was too proud to ask for help as she never told anyone the truth of her relationship. As she drove herself to the hospital, her pain started to get worse and her water broke. Right in a middle of a highway, she got out of the car, her clothes bloody and frantically waved for help. One speeding car nearly rammed into her. Extremely shaken, tears blinding her and in tremendous pain, she gladly welcomed the first car to stop regardless of her safety. She was lucky to get a genuinely helpful couple get her to the hospital. The father of the child didn’t even turn up after the baby was born.
Today she is a single mother with a baby boy and she gets by since she is financially independent. However she can’t forget what happened to her that night to the hospital. In fact, each time the memories engulfed her, she broke down and cried. She never wanted her life to turn out as it did. But she need to cope.

*Sandra is a vivacious, successful PR lady, married with a 3-year-old daughter. She thought her marriage was perfect till she caught her husband in bed with her maid. After he moved out, her husband’s best friend offered his shoulder to cry on. Since he was also married and she knew his wife well, she felt comfortable confiding in him. She threw herself into work and shut out everything else. A month later, she was having a really bad day and she decided to go home. Something was bursting out of her. He daughter was at the babysitter but she needed some time to compose herself before she picked her up. As she reached home, the friend called her and when he heard how upset she was, he offered to come by. Before she could say no, he had hung up. Fifteen minutes later he was at her doorstep. Seeing a familiar face, she broke down and cried. All the pent up emotions of betrayal, frustration, anger, loneliness and sadness of the past month finally caught up with her. He offered to fix her a drink. She gulped down the first, second and into the third one….she started to lose her consciousness. She first thought perhaps it was her emotions getting to her …then as she started to worry, she passed out altogether. She got up hearing the door-bell ringing incessantly and her daughter calling out to her from outside the front door. No one was inside the house. As she got up, her skirt slipped and she realized she was half naked. Then it hit her. No! Her heart screamed. Can’t be. He had drugged her and raped her. Life went spiraling down for her after that. She went through a nervous breakdown, she lost her job and the worst blow, her husband gained temporary custody of her daughter and declared her insane. It took her 3 years of counseling, therapy and sheer will to pick her-self up and continue with her life. Today, she is trying to build a career in social services and managed to get a joint custody of her daugther. Life has not been upscale all the time but she goes by.

*Maria and her husband were married for 16 years and they had three wonderful children, 15, 13 and 10. One day, he left for work as usual on his motorbike. Two hours later, the police was at her doorstep requesting her to follow them to the hospital. Her husband, on his way to work, was knocked down by a car and dragged under a truck for 20 meters. His head was completely crushed under the wheels. She went numb for a few days, she could hardly even remember the funeral taking place. A week later, aunt jolted her out of her numbed existence and told her to pick herself up for the sake of her children. She didn’t have much in savings and she had no skills. She didn’t know how she was going to cope. After the initial sympathies and obligatory offers to help, some of her own married friends started shying away from her. She sensed they no longer felt comfortable having a young widow around their husbands. One even chided her for keeping her front door open since she claimed men would consider it an invitation. A neighbor’s teenage son whistled and exposed himself to her from his window when no one was watching one night. When she did confront the family, the boy's mother hinted she was imagining things and when she persisted, that she probably 'asked for it'. It was shocking, this difference in treatment she was getting now than when he husband was alive. She was traumatised and felt helpless to do anything. So she closed her front door for good, withdrew her curtains and somehow she picked her self up. Today she is struggling with two jobs to keep her family going. She only lives because of her children.

(*names changed)

These are true stories of three single mothers. They never ‘asked for it’ and they are not waiting for favours. It doesn’t make them less a human that their lives had turned out that way. In fact, there are thousands of them out there and we’ll never know all their stories. We have no idea what they are going through each day just to survive and provide a decent living for their children while coping with prejudices, discrimination, abuse and fighting to maintain their sanity on top of it all.

Let’s cut them some slack. We can afford that.