Single Motherhood: A Journey of Growth and Self-Discovery
- Monicah Githu
- 2 days ago
- 4 min read
When I started a relationship in my first year of university, I didn’t know it would unlock a journey of pain, growth, motherhood, bitterness, and healing. I was an excited 17-year-old filled with wonder, naivety, and curiosity, believing the world could align based on the prayers and wishes I put out into the universe. One of these was to fall in love with a boy who’d eventually become my forever person.
And everything was going well—I met a boy who was also looking for his forever person. On the surface, we wanted similar things. But our methods were like day and night. Mine were passionate; his were distant. The enthusiastic dates turned into broken promises, and the nights we spent sharing sweet nothings turned into nights of longing, at least on my part. And before long, all we had between us were scattered encounters of passion, one of which turned into a child and a key turning point in our lives.
I knew I was pregnant on my 19th birthday. At first, I didn’t believe it. However, test after test confirmed it - I was indeed pregnant. He wanted an abortion as soon as he learned of the news. For him, this must have been the point he checked out of parenting. He was no longer interested in me; I suddenly lived too far, my visits interrupted time with his friends, and my phone calls were now bothersome.
Behind the unanswered phone calls and ignored messages, I was changing. I was learning to juggle school, pregnancy, and work. Suddenly, I was setting goals and pursuing them because my life and well-being depended on them. I was learning to shift my perspective of love from the butterfly-inducing fairy tale version the movies sell us, to the intentional work it takes to love another. Although I didn’t know it then, my refusal to have an abortion was the first intentional choice I made in love. At the time, it was made from religious conviction, but below the surface, it was also an act of choosing myself - deciding to believe in my ability to care for a child, regardless of the outcome. Luckily for me, it was an easy pregnancy and birth. The first few years of the child’s life were also not too difficult. Of course, there were a few sleepless nights, some sick days, and exhaustion. But what plagued me the most for a significant part of my parenting years was the father’s constant refusal to participate in his child’s upbringing, not as my partner, but as the child’s father.
It’s one thing to deal with being rejected, but it's another to deal with your child being rejected by their parent. It keeps you up at night longer than a colicky baby; it’s a puzzle with no pieces that seem to fit each other, and it turns you bitter.
It makes you jealous when you see other children accompanied by their fathers. It makes you angry every time someone asks about your child’s father. It wears you down when you turn inwards and wonder whether you might be the reason why the dad wants nothing to do with your child. You replay the film of your relationship: the promises, the days of imagining a future together, the night you agreed on the number of children you wanted...
Sometimes, you’ll look at your child and see him – in his smile, the way he crosses his legs, or the shape of his head. But you don’t hate these things, so how could he not at least love the half he gave this child? What do you do when you finally realise that he has no intention of parenting his child? That it's not the shock of an unplanned pregnancy holding him back, nor financial struggles keeping him from helping you out?
How do you accept that you are now the “bitter single mother” – the one who’s allegedly to blame for the high number of incarcerated men, the rising rates of poverty, and the increase in infidelity rates among married couples?
It took me years of reading, self-reflection, journaling, venting, reframing, and radical acceptance. It was accepting to see things as they were, not as I’d wish they were. It was looking at myself, giving myself credit, and taking accountability for not knowing or doing better. It was realising that, even if I could go back, I would probably make the same choices I did back then.
Most importantly, it led me to put the blame where it rightfully belongs. I no longer burden myself with my child’s father's absence in his life, and I do not seek to take up the role of a father. Whenever questions come up about his parentage, I give genuine and age-appropriate answers. My answers are neither laced with blame nor anger, nor do they make the child feel responsible for his absent father.
I have a lot to figure out. There are questions I still don’t know how to respond to, but parenting has taught me to cross every bridge when I get there, to find the resources I need to work through every stage, and above all, to drop the shame associated with being a teenage mom or a single mother.
It has been a long journey, but it has taught me that I could not have been chosen to be the mother of a boy if I did not have the resources, emotional capability, and maturity to raise him into a responsible adult. It has taught me to take responsibility for my actions and dreams. I have learned to see my son as a manifestation of myself and an independent human being with thoughts, opinions, and dreams different from mine.
Beyond motherhood, my experience has shown me that life might not work out as you anticipated: people will come and go, relationships will fail, you will need support from people you know and others you don’t. Some nights are harder than others, but eventually, the dawn breaks.
Most importantly, I have learned that love is a choice; one that shows up, stays intentional, seeks good, pursues growth, remains sure, stays consistent, and weathers every storm.