How Single Are You with a Whole Bunch of Kids?

Rapper Lil Wayne has a song out right now called “Single”. In it he brags about sleeping with a lot of women, not caring about any of them and dropping them at the first sign of trouble, pretty typical stuff.  The song irritates me and it’s not just the fact that his voice on the song is irritating or that the content is fairly degrading because those are both things that unfortunately I have come to expect. It’s the fact that he is making this song boasting about the single life when he has four children by four women, two of whom are less than a year old and one-month apart. If that seems like it’s a lot of math it’s because it is, and it all adds up to the fact that he should be singing “Single” with shame instead of pride. I should probably just chalk this up to the fact that it is Lil Wayne and I shouldn’t expect much, and I would, if I didn’t hear so many men, and occasionally women, singing this song in real life.

Years ago I briefly dated a guy who I assumed did not have any kids. I assumed this because we were both in our early 20s and he was one of those guys that prided himself on being single and the life of the party. Every night he was at a happy hour, followed by the club, followed by an after party. About six weeks into hanging out and talking on the phone I casually mentioned the fact that he had no kids because neither he nor his lifestyle led me to believe otherwise.  It was at that time that he let me know that not only did he have a child, he had three kids with three different women.

At that point I was pretty shocked. I was a single parent with one child at the time and while I did go out, I was never really living what I would call the “single life”. The “parent” part of being a single parent seemed to take up a whole lot more time than the “single” part did. As a married mother of two I feel like I can barely take a shower unless I schedule it ahead of time, so I can’t imagine how a parent of three children can have the time for so much partying. Yet as I get older and several friends and acquaintances become single parents, I notice that more and more people don’t seem to be putting the traditional single life aside. I believe that all parents are entitled to some part of their lives that is their own, but at what point do kids cancel out that single life for you, whether you are married or not?

If you have ever been a single parent, were you able to live the single life with kids? Are single parents ever truly single?

Aja Dorsey Jackson is a freelance writer and public relations consultant in Baltimore, Maryland. Find out more about her at www.ajadorseyjackson.com or follow her on twitter @ajajackson.

About the author

Aja Dorsey Jackson is a freelance writer and public relations consultant in Baltimore, Maryland.

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