Mothering doesn’t have to follow one script to be real, valuable, or worthy of respect. Every kind of mother and every kind of love deserves to be seen. This reflection names and honors the many forms motherhood can take, while challenging the narrow, dominant ideals that so often erase us.

We have been socialized to view the caretaking of people as solely the responsibility of women when really caretaking is people’s work. Not women’s work.

The way that we are taught to parent and raise our children is to have domination over them. But children aren’t our property nor are they the location where we should find our healing.

The expectation is that women who become mothers are supposed to not look like we’re mothers.

When I think of the term single mother, it literally means to me a woman who is single and is a mother. Single, meaning her relationship status only, and not the essence of her parenting journey. The term doesn’t really say enough or provide enough context.