Macon Magazine

April/May 2025

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April/May 2025 | maconmagazine.com 43 a babysitter nearly non-existent. But still, we elected men who campaigned against my family as a family. Still, no one else is truly obligated to Oscar. Still, Oscar is my joy and I want more obligation to all of us and from all of us. "I'm sure the same is true for you," my friend said, "that you don't identify as a mother." I nodded. But later, I texted: Actually, mothering is the central part of my identity. To be a single mom is my dream for expansive care. My political self and my mother self are inextricable. My stance is single mom. But you're right, I don't feel like a mom. I'm not a real mom like that woman over there. I didn't push this thing out, I couldn't mother in public, so did it really happen? I'm not a mom and totally existentially a mom at the same time. I will never not be a new mom parenting under Covid. Long after Covid has ended, and even if I sometimes find myself coupled, I will always be a single mother in a pandemic. I am not divorced from reality. The situation has changed. My child is in school; we have vaccines (for now); I take him to restaurants; he has play-dates, and aunties, and guncles. Dating, having sex, and kissing goodnight are no longer (at least physiologically) scary. But I am forever changed. Single mother is my core, and still I'm not sure that I'm good enough. Last summer a friend from my activist youth and I brought our kids to Legoland. We strolled them around buying bubble-wands and green ice cream. We coated them in sunblock, cajoled them into potty breaks, and pulled out packs and packs of peanut butter crackers. "Look at us," she said, "real moms!". Real moms are not still riding ferries to topless gay beaches. Real moms don't teach their children that the police can be bad and to always ask for a lawyer and the warrant. Real moms are not single mothers with erratic dinner plans (some goldfish?). Real moms have it hard, but never publicly complain. Real moms drive Subarus to theme parks armed with the right snacks. Embracing "illegitimate" mothering, the kind that makes nonsense out of respectability, dismisses this straight, white, and middle class imaginary. It favors the mother who refuses to disappear into the bathroom floor. The unreal mother joins the struggle against the forces of domination that marked her as illegitimate in the first place. She loves that she is needed and needy. Her relationship status is neither coupled nor single, but friended; friendship is her way of life. This mothering need not only be done by those with children nor only by women. This mothering envisions living, working, fighting, desiring, and not being enough with a baby in one arm, and the other clutching comrades who sit, march, and care together. RIGHT Among adventures with Oscar, the "real moms" trip to Legoland with friends.

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