I don't have the answers yet, but I have learned enough to be dangerous, and ask better questions..

You know, motherhood is a wonderful thing. Very fulfilling. Also mind-blowing - it was a terrible shock to learn that I was no longer the center of the Universe. Something had replaced me in it, and become my new center in the process.

But single motherhood sucks. Though little else changed in my life economically, in fact my economic fortunes improved after my divorce, becoming a divorced female cost me a great deal of stature in society. I was especially surprised by this because I wasn't expecting it. I still had several platinum cards, a job with a salary in the 6 figures, a Mercedes, and other acoutrements.

But suddenly I had less credit card offers than before. Why? I had always made more money than my husband.

Apparently unmarried women are a higher credit risk. Even those with great salaries and fabulous credit.

I was invited to fewer timeshare mini-vacations. Single women don't buy these things, apparently. Too busy working to take vacations.

My child wasn't invited to play in the playgroups forming around town. Why not? Married women socialize together and create playgroups for their children. They weren't socializing with me - birds of a feather and all that. So by default, my child wasn't included.

I wish I could say this was conscious. It isn't. That's what makes it so indidious. It's completely unconscious.

Married couples with children at my daughter's school tend to not want to socialize with me. I am regarded as some sort of dangerous free floating electron, capable of destabilizing the happy couple. Three's an uneven number. Four is much better. Less awkward. The ones who do socialize with me, well, they're kind of odd too. They're interracial, artistic, or entrepreneurial. Different in some way.

Otherwise, I don't fit in the formula. Rather than make room, it's just easier to stick with those you know.

But it creates exclusivity. And my child suffers for it.

We went to a fundraiser the other night for her school. It was held at a local restaurant. Many families were there. Two families in my daugher's class were there with their boys. We've been travelling through the same classes together for three straight years. We've been room moms together for three years.

Yet, they were comfortable having dinner together, with their boys. It was clear they'd planned this beforehand.

And we weren't invited.

They were pleasant when we arrived. But I noticed they didn't ask us to sit with them.

Everything gangs up on you as a single mom, I think. You are doing two jobs, and there is no infrastructure handy to lighten the load. I burden my friends with helping me care for my daughter when I have to travel for work, or go to school.

It's ironic that the capitalist consumer system views children as a non-essential group. Children don't contribute to the economic welfare of the nation, at least not until they grow up. Or unless they're child actors. So, no provision is made for them. Child rearing is this largely invisible function, off the radar in the GDP, unless you have to pay someone else to do it.

Scratch that. Child rearing is a target  market for advertsisers. Motherhood is a largely invisible function. There's great praise for dads who take off early to pick up the kid, take them for mom on Saturday morning, or attend their soccer games.

There's no praise or support for the lone female trying to ensure her child has as many advantages as possible in this society, while continually sliding down the social ladder in the process.

As I do the dishes, rearrange her room yet again, fold laundry, and then flop down to tackle my books, I feel squeezed between two extremes. The nurturer in me wants to be her mother, wants to be there for her. Yet I must work, earn money, or drain my savings. I must finish grad school. In trying to fulfill my ambitions, I cut into her time and her needs. I look into her eyes, and have to tell her I am not available to her right now. In fulfilling her needs, I must sacrifice my own ambitions and needs. It's a losing game, and I sit and wonder how I got tricked onto being on this field.

Lone motherhood sucks.