The other day I had a huge fight -- with my answering machine. When I hit the "play" button, I heard the voice of my son's class mother, a woman I consider to be a friend, cheerfully reminding me to have my son bring in a pound of pinto beans for a class project the following day. As she explained in earnest just what they were planning to do with the pinto beans, she added, "Honestly, Pat, I can totally relate to what you go through as a single Mom. Rich was away on business this week and it was just crazy around here just trying to get the children back and forth to school, dance lessons and basketball practice! Now I know exactly how it feels to be a single Mom!"  At that point, I began to yell at my answering machine. 
   
As a single parent living in Bethpage, Long Island, I've had my challenges, but nothing frustrates me as much as when my married friends or relatives claim to understand exactly how I feel being a single parent. In reality, they have no idea. Unless you, yourself, are a single parent, you can never understand the crazy roller coaster ride that makes up my life. I'm not complaining (well, ok, maybe just a little), but holding down the home front while your spouse is away on business for a few days doesn't constitute being a single-parent. It's not easy, but eventually you know help will be on the way. 

In my life, the Cavalry rarely comes. When I need help and look around for volunteers, there's usually only one person's hand up--mine. And I'm luckier than most single parents are; I have great family support from my Mom, my sisters and my brother. But I use their help like lifelines on Who Wants to be a Millionaire. I only use them when I'm out of answers. Unless the situation is critical - - four days off from school and my baby-sitter canceled and I have to be at a meeting with my boss and his boss -- I try to solve the day-to-day hysteria myself and save the family support for bigger issues.  

Take the pinto beans, for instance. By the time I checked my answering machine, it was eleven o'clock at night. That is my normal "Me" time. By " Me-time" I mean it's time  for me to listen to my answering machine, pay bills, load up backpacks, get clothes ready for the next day, pack lunches, sort laundry, review homework, check my calendar for conflicting  appointments, check email, work on projects for my own job the following day and then get ready for bed.  By adding in something like buying a bag of pinto beans, I then have to coordinate my morning schedule with the same precision that NASA plans a space shuttle launch.

On a normal day, in order to get to work by 8 a.m., I have to drop my son off at the before-school program by 7:30 a.m. If you add in time to get to the supermarket, find where the heck the pinto beans are, buy the beans, stuff them into the backpack, argue with my son that a 7-ounce bag of beans does not grossly add to the weight of the backpack, explain why he needs to bring the beans in the first place, then drop him off and sit in traffic on Hempstead Turnpike for at least twenty minutes, you are adding at least another forty-five minutes to the morning routine.

Being a single Mom there's usually no one else I can turn to and say, "Hey, can you go out to the all-night supermarket and pick up a bag of pinto beans while I get the kids to bed?"
  
There's no question that being a parent is work, but take away another person who can provide a regular source of support and assistance, and you're left with one person constantly working on overload. There never seems to be enough: enough time, enough patience, enough money. The only thing I always seem to have plenty of is guilt. And love.

I know parenting in general is no easy task and I commend and admire the couples who stay together these days in times of rising divorce rates. These unique couples not only make their marriage work, but raise their children successfully to adulthood. I always planned on being one of those couples, but unfortunately fate had other plans. 

My eleven-year marriage ended in divorce four years ago, much to my surprise, when my ex-husband turned in horror at my suggestion that perhaps it was time to give our son a brother or sister. "I need more time to find myself. I need to find my space," he said sorrowfully patting my hand. As it turned out "his space" was located in another woman's bed, twenty miles away. Today, my ex lives in Tennessee with wife number three and has enough space around him that it takes over two-hours for him to get to the nearest town. His idea of sharing the parenting responsibilities is a ten-minute phone call every few weeks, a box of gifts at the holidays and a yearly visit that never last more than a weekend. When it comes to the day-to-day hustle and bustle of our lives, he isn't there, and it's his decision.  

I've spent hours trying to persuade him to be more involved in the parenting of our child, but to no avail.  I know it's hard on my son and I wish it were different, but I now realize in trying to "find himself" my ex lost one of the most important opportunities he will ever have in his life: parenting our son.  

Unfortunately my ex's decision left me in the position of having to learn the ins and outs of parenting alone, on the job. There is no one to help me provide a united front when my son gets that "I hate you" glare in his beautiful brown eyes and likewise, no one sharing in the  joy. 

My family tries to help, but they have their own lives, and their own responsibilities. Try as they might, they can't help in the daily struggle I face to not only make the right decisions for my child, but to make ends meet, make time stand still, and not let a tidal wave of guilt carry me away with thoughts that I am not doing the best by my child. I don't have another person I can turn to when I'm tired, frustrated, angry, or need a bag of pinto beans from the all-night supermarket. It's me, me, me, all the time, every day, every night, and frankly, there are times I get sick of it always being just me.  

There are times I find myself depressed and overwhelmed and I wish for another adult around, even for a day, to help lighten the load. This partner could be there so I don't have to stand outside the men's room at a restaurant and yell to  my son, "I'm right outside Honey, if you need me!" 

I could certainly use someone else to shuttle my son to all his extra curricular activities that often stretch my schedule (and my patience) to the breaking point. There are days I could use another person (and paycheck) to hand off the piles of bills, the piles of laundry, the piles of piles waiting to be sorted through and say, "It's your turn to deal with it. I did it last time!"   

Once in a while, I'd like someone else to be around just so I could head out the door and stretch my legs or go off to see a movie that doesn't have a Disney soundtrack. It would be wonderful if there was someone I could call who could hold down the fort if I had to work late, or someone who would  pat my back and say, "Gee, you look tired, why not go take a nap and I'll clean up the dinner dishes."   

Many times I'd love to feel someone's arm around my shoulder when I'm frightened, discouraged or worried. There are the days when I look at the balance in my checkbook and the condition of my son's sneakers and the calendar merrily announcing that Christmas is coming that I want to turn to someone and say, "How are we going to deal with this?"  And hear the comforting words, "Don't worry, somehow we'll manage." 

And on those frightening nights when my son is burning with fever I want to  turn to someone and say, "You stay with him and I'll run to the drug store for the prescription," instead of having to bundle my sick child into the car. There are times when the anger at my child threatens to wash over me so completely that I want to shout out to someone in frustration, "You try talking to him, he won't listen to me!"   

There are so many times I yearn for another shoulder to cry on, another hand to help out, another soul to understand, to confer with, to turn to at the parent-teacher conferences and say, "I think she's wrong about his reading skills, what do you think?" Or squeeze a hand in pride at a school play and say, "Isn't he just terrific!"  

As the saying goes, "it's lonely at the top," and as a single mom, I have learned I am the top, the bottom and the in-between for my child. And for the most part, I'm getting better with dealing with the fact that I'm probably going to always be the only parent on duty. Despite the loneliness, the frustration, the guilty moments I battle with, I know it's worth it all because I'm raising one heck of a human being. He is my masterpiece.   

I constantly remind myself there are benefits to being the only parent. I always get to play Santa; I always get to pick out and wrap all the birthday presents and I'm always the parent who gives the goodnight kisses. I get to choose the vacations, I get all the artwork and "I love you Mom" notes.  I was the one my son ran to when his first tooth wiggled and I was the one who ran behind him that wintery day when he first wobbled down the sidewalk on his two-wheeler. I am the one that gets to hear the praises for his triumphs and I am the one who holds him when he's scared. And years from now when I have all the time in the world for myself, it will be those moments I can relive and know that somehow, I held it all together and my child grew up knowing he had one parent who loved him enough for twenty.  

I hope my friend on the answering machine will never have to learn exactly how it feels to be a single Mom, but if she ever does, I'm sure she'll feel the need to yell and at a machine herself every now and then. I also hope someday my ex will realize that the best way to find yourself is to give your heart and soul to a little child and discover the magic they can create in your life.   

After I finished my tirade the other night with the answering machine, I tiptoed into my son's room to shut off his light. As I pulled up the blankets he sleepily muttered, "I love you, Mom." Smiling, I whispered back, "I know exactly how you feel!" 

Pat Brucato lives and works in Nassau County. She is a freelance writer and works full-time as the Senior Manager of internal communications for 1-800-FLOWERS.COM. She is a former member of the Village Parenting Center of Huntington, (VPC) an affiliate of NAMC. Pat became a member of the VPC when her son T.J. was nine-months-old. She created that organization's first Working Mother's Support Group. Her son T. J. is her pride and joy and is now age 10, and in the fourth grade.

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