Wednesday, June 24, 2009

Hello!


Being a single, middle-aged mother is not easy. I will be fifty in three days. My daughter turned five about six weeks ago. The nearly forty-five years between us is like a wormhole, the type they traverse in Star Trek and other science fiction space movies. The years collapse and expand at will. They appear as a long and lengthening corridor down which I can slide and perhaps end up somewhere completely different. At other times, they are that impossible distance that I dare not attempt to overcome because I am the Mom. That counts for something.

This blog is about being a single, middle-aged mama, African American, educated, and working. It's not a complaint page, though there will be times when I complain. More, it is my opportunity to talk about the life I'm living. I don't think many people really think about the lives of well-educated single African American mothers. We are swept into the same category as poor and working class single African American mothers. Those are hard working women with fewer opportunities for money-making and further education than I have. Grouping me with women whose prospects in this economy and culture are quite different from mine is not fair to either of us. To take my case as representative of the lives of African American single mothers is to misrepresent the lives of a class of women whose lives deserve elucidation and respect. I am of the group who has been given a modicum of class privilege.

Nonetheless, I recognize and acknowledge my sisters' struggles. In some important ways, her struggle is distinguishable from mine, especially economically. In other ways, these matter most, perhaps, our struggles are identical.

Here, I will write and read (hopefully) the experiences of women like me. I won't write everyday. But, I will write as often as I can. Write back. Enjoy!

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