The Archipelago
As a single mother, I have the tendency to assume that I am on my own solitary island,
surrounded by an ocean of ‘normal’ families. Yet, when I bumped into the mother of
one of my son’s classmates the other day, it turned out that she too was a single
mum. A look of surprise and even what seemed like relief washed over her face as
she heard me say that I was a single parent. We had immediately joined forces and
become members of the club. ‘I always thought you looked like the perfect family’,
she said, referring to my ex-
Another big difference between us was that she was unemployed. She wanted to work
but was stuck with her limited hours. I could imagine her sense of isolation, so
I attempted to give her pointers as to how to make a start for herself. Perhaps it
was easy for me to talk being in the luxury position of receiving child alimony,
allowing me to work part-
We then got talking about another mother from our children’s class who also turned
out to belong to our club. She is English and as far as I could gather had no family
network here in Holland. In my eyes, completely alone. Her son never saw his father
either. What really saddened me was to hear that her boy had been placed under the
supervision of a child psychologist as he was showing signs of aggression and antisocial
behavior with the added concern of not seeming to care about the consequences. We
all know these children; they stand out, they irritate us. Yet, there is nearly always
a very good reason for that child’s non-
My hairdresser, my partner, my colleague, an old school friend are all either products
of single-