A new trend shows smart, educated women are choosing to have
children by themselves in record numbers. Politicians and self-proclaimed
"family values advocates" predict certain doom in the form of delinquent,
uneducated kids living below the poverty level.

Is single parenthood a good choice?

A good friend of mine recently became a mother for the first
time. She is over 40, educated at Cambridge and financially secure. She is
also unmarried and plans to stay that way.

Before I met her, I always thought of single mothers as the
responsible parents in unfortunate circumstances -- the ones who kept care
of their children through divorce or a surprise pregnancy.

But I also joked to my girlfriends (who hasn't?) that if I
didn't meet the right guy by the time I hit 35, I'd head on down to my local
sperm bank and take care of matters myself.

I would rather be a mother alone than try to do it with the
wrong guy.

And while many of us grew up believing that the average family
consists of Mom, Dad, a couple of kids and a dog named Rover, in reality,
those types of families are now in the minority.

Even in 1995, the New England Journal of Medicine was reporting,
"Public figures depict the typical American household as though it consisted
of married couples and their children; in fact, such families make up only
26 per cent of American households.

Similarly, according to the 2000 Bureau of the Census,
non-marital cohabitation, separation, and divorce have become more common,
as has remarriage. Children living with only one parent (24 per cent) or
with "melded" sibships of children from several families (15 per cent) are
increasing in number; half of all children in the United States lived or
will live with only one parent before reaching adulthood. Most one-parent
families (86 per cent) are headed by mothers."

The New England Journal of Medicine also reported that
out-of-wedlock births are not just an American phenomenon. "Rates in the
United Kingdom, Canada, and France are about the same as those in the United
States; rates in Sweden and Denmark are more than 50 per cent higher. The
structure of the family is changing rapidly throughout the Western world."

Bad for the kids?

There's a mountain of research showing children raised by single
mothers are more likely to suffer from poverty, poor grades and
psychological problems. However, a 1998 U.S. study at Ohio State University
found that the problems were not related so much to the lack of a father but
rather to other background factors, such as income, education and
occupational prestige. Douglas Downey, co-author of the study said, "Parents
with higher socioeconomic status are usually better positioned to create
positive family environments."

Cornell researcher Henry Ricciuti says what matters most "is a
mother's education and ability level and, to a lesser extent, family income
and quality of the home environment." Ricciuti found links between those
factors and a child's school performance and behavior, regardless of race.

While much research is focused on single-parent families created
by divorce or death, researchers are just beginning to look at single
parents by choice.

Louise Sloan, author of Knock Yourself Up: A Tell-all Guide To
Becoming A Single Mom says, "I think when a family is set up differently
from the beginning -- it's not the traumatic thing that happens when you
lose a dad."

And the reality is we've all seen single parents who make it
work. They raise great kids, and they do it all by themselves.

But does opting into motherhood mean you're opting out of
marriage?

Choosing kids over love?

"I wanted to have a baby before it was too late," says Margie,
mother of two-year-old Sarah, "but I didn't realize the only time I would
ever get to wear white was in the maternity ward. I decided to have a baby
because I hadn't met the right guy yet. It just didn't sink in that having a
baby would eliminate most of my dating pool."

Tom, a 39-year-old man says, "If a woman goes out and has a baby
on her own, I think, 'What does she need me for?' I may sound like a pig for
saying this, but I'm not the only one: Most guys I know don't want to raise
somebody else's kid -- even if that somebody is a test tube in a lab in New
Jersey."

But many single mothers by choice would make the same decision
to have a baby again even if they knew it meant possibly forgoing marriage.

Danielle Young-Ullman, a married mother of a baby daughter, and
author of Falling Under says, "If you'd asked me that before I actually was
a mom, I'd probably have said no, and at that point I didn't have any idea
what a massive life change it would be! But now, even knowing all of that,
I'm surprised to find myself saying yes.

"Because now I also know what it feels like to be a mom, to
watch this little person grow, to hold them every day, to stand there
blinking, jaw dropping as they say and do the most amazing things. So, yes,
I'd do it. The love you feel is unfathomable. The work, stress, fatigue and
loss of independence is also unfathomable but I'd have to say it's worth
it."

Sloan says, "Being a single mom makes it more difficult to
date -- if you're a working mom, your time is so valuable. You're not going
to go on that terrible blind date that you would have gone on." Sloan says
dating as a single mom is, of course, possible, just not as easy as when you
have all the time in the world.

While dating as a single parent is a lot tougher, for many, it's
a lot better than opting out of love.

According to Sloan, "Some women I talked to were putting their
social life on a shelf for 20 years -- I don't think that's healthy."

And whether you're a single parent by choice or by circumstance,
the one thing you're probably pretty good at is love.

Dating expert Lisa Daily is the author of Stop Getting Dumped!
and the upcoming novel, Fifteen Minutes of Shame.

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