Say WHAT?

Three more days until we get moved, after which I might possibly have the time and the energy to read through my readers, blog in a more meaningful way, or spend my lunch hour doing something besides make phone calls to line up different things. Today, I called the phone company and ordered service at the new place to start on Friday, and got my new phone number. We have the option here to keep the same number when we move to a different town, but I opted for a new, unpublished number. More anonymity that way, for sure. As far as getting things set up to move in, the phone was the last thing I needed to do, so that is something of a relief.

Hannah's home-bound teacher started this morning, and I think that it went okay. I wasn't there, I just stayed at the house long enough to meet her and I saw her again when I came to pick up Hannah before she left, but it seemed like they got some stuff accomplished, anyway.

There is all this stuff I want to write about, especially the ongoing conversation on O Solo Mama's blog about single mothers and dating, but I have very assiduously trying to remove myself from conflict these days. Not that her post was at all bad, in fact I agreed with a lot of it, but the whole topic in general tends to piss me off. Then I went over to this asshole's post about it and my blood really started to boil at his last line, "Married parents are still best for kids." That, my friend, is an exact quote, and can you say holy fucking hell at the balls on this guy? I know, I know, we have heard it all before; I don't know why it made me so angry and, yes, hurt me so much today, but it did. And in such a succinct manner as well, black and white, no room for argument: this is how it is.

I beg to differ; and no, I am not going to go all crazy-ass on this guy (um, yeah. Right). Are we not all entitled to our opinion (Unless you are both wrong AND an asshole, that is. Which in this case is true. And just my opinion, not fact. He might be a wonderful, caring individual, given the fact that he both a Sociologist and a Right-Wing Presbyterian whack job who calls himself a Centrist. In my opinion.)?

The thing is, there are as many shades of gray to this issue as any other issue in the world. How can one person or group of people say so unequivocally that it is better for kids to have two married parents? In an ideal world, sure. In an ideal world where men don't abandon their children and wives, in an ideal world where neither partner is unfaithful or is an addict or an alcoholic or a criminal, of course it is better. However, I don't know about you people but I sure don't live in that world. I don't live in a world where every house has a picket fence and a comfortable margin of saving to live on, nor do I live in a world where there aren't a hundred different outside circumstances that might tear a marriage asunder.

I know that for me and mine, for all of the reasons I have blogged about and another list of ones about which I refuse to blog, my kids are better off with me as a parent than either of the husbands I have had. You could easily make this black and white as well: I chose badly, therefore it is my fault and we all would have been better off had I made more of an effort and stayed together. Blah fuckety blah, what should have been doesn't change what IS, and I guess that is why I have such a hard time when people spout off this kind of crap. No matter how much we as a nation or as an individual want to decry the presence of single mothers, we are HERE. We live next to you, we work amongst you, our kids (gasp! the HORROR!) go to school with your kids. Face it-you are all rubbing shoulders with those of us who are making it work without a partner, and for the most part, doing very well without one. We are not going away, folks, no matter what spin you want to put on it. Do I wish my life had different endings and fewer new beginnings? You bet your ass I do; but hey, it didn't. So be it-that doesn't mean that I am not just as capable if not more so of parenting my children than any of my married counterparts. It just means I might have to work harder.

Sigh...so much for trying to avoid controversy. Tomorrow I hope to post on O Solo Mama's original question about why single moms don't date. Now THAT should be interesting, should it not?