Being a single mom and dating can be hard. Add into the equation that, as a single mom, one more than likely has to work. Add another layer on top of the equation: attempting to go through college in order to create a better life for your child. Guess what falls to the bottom of the line? Dating. You look at all the things on your plate, and dating seems to hold the least amount of value. "Why?" someone might ask. Well, if you were to ask this single mom, I barely have time for myself at the end of the day, and I already have someone else I put before myself as my number one priority, so I do not have time to put another person’s thoughts and feelings into the equation. It also puts forth the problem of taking away more time from my child than I already sacrifice. And for what? Putting in the time and effort for a relationship that may or may not work out for me at the end of the day is not worth putting in the energy a relationship needs to be successful. Does that make me a bad person? Does that mean my child may suffer because she does not have a male influence in her life as a father figure? I don’t believe so. I do not think that just because a child has two parents in the home that somehow that person has a leg up on my daughter. Some people look down upon me as a single mom, as it is somehow my fault that I am in fact that: a single mom. I feel like stepping away from a destructive and pessimistic relationship is in fact the best possible thing I could have done for my child. Back to the factor of being a single mom, some people may think that I have to have a significant other in order to be truly happy. I do not believe this to be true either. I do not believe in absolutes. For some, maybe this is the case. Maybe they need someone else in order to create some “perfect” world. For this single mom, my happiness comes in the form of my child and doing everything I can to make her happy to create a better future, and for our situation, that does not include a significant other for Mommy, and that’s okay. Everybody has his or her own equation as to what makes life work. Just because someone is labeled a single mom, it should not hold a characteristic of deeming that something must be wrong or bad. There is such a stigma of single moms that either that mom had their child when she was a teenager, out of wedlock, a divorce, etc.… all of which can hold a devalued definition. The conversation needs to begin with the fact that being a single mom is okay. Being a single mom and wanting to date is okay. Being a single mom and wanting to stay single is okay as well. When we want everyone to conform to this universal stigma of what is socially right and wrong, it will lead to a loss of the individual. Being a single mom is part of my identity, and dating may not be in my near future, and that is okay.