I just couldn’t stand still.
We were mid-conversation — relaxed …
Until someone casually said:
“Is it not because he was raised by a single mother?”
And suddenly, everything in me tightened.
Because it wasn’t just a statement — it was a judgment.
A full life reduced to a stereotype.
A person’s story explained away in one sentence… with zero context, zero grace, and zero understanding.
So I asked — gently, but deliberately:
“What exactly do you mean by that?”
There was a pause. Some backtracking.
Then came the all-too-familiar explanation:
“I mean… maybe that’s why he’s a bit off. You know… he didn’t have both parents at home.”
And right there, I realized — again — how deeply these biases run.
How casually we assign blame.
How we’ve normalized associating struggle with single parenthood, especially single motherhood.
Now let me be clear — I was raised by both my parents.
My mother and father are still together. I’ve seen consistency. I’ve seen shared responsibility. I’ve had the covering of a two-parent home.
And I don’t take that for granted.
But because of the work I do — because of the lives I walk alongside — I know better than to reduce a person’s character or potential to their family structure.
I’ve seen too much. I’ve sat with too many stories. I’ve witnessed too much quiet strength.
I’ve worked with single mothers who show up every day with resilience that humbles me —
Waking up before dawn, packing lunchboxes, holding down full-time jobs, attending every school meeting, praying over their children while silently grieving the support they never got.
And I’ve worked with single fathers who carry the emotional weight of raising children alone —
Cooking dinner while responding to emails, trying to understand daughters growing into women, explaining hard truths with no one to help translate the world.
It is not easy.
But they do it. With love. With fight. With grace.
And still — society speaks about them like they are broken. Like they are less than.
As if raising a child alone is proof of failure instead of proof of courage.
Here’s what I’ve learned:
Parenting is not powerful because of numbers — it’s powerful because of presence.
Because of consistency.
Because of emotional safety.
Because of the quiet ways a parent shows up when the world isn’t clapping.
I’ve seen children raised by single parents who are confident, grounded, emotionally secure, and deeply loved.
And I’ve seen children raised in two-parent homes who are deeply bruised — not by absence, but by emotional neglect.
So when we say things like, “He acts that way because he was raised by a single mother (or father),”
We’re not just making observations.
We’re reinforcing a mindset.
We’re building a world where some people are judged before they’ve even been heard.
And here’s where this becomes a parenting conversation:
If you’re raising sons and daughters, be intentional about the narratives you’re planting in them.
Because those little comments? Those jokes you make? That tone you use?
It will shape how they see others.
It will shape how they carry compassion — or fail to.
Let’s raise boys who honour every kind of strength — not just the traditional one.
Let’s raise girls who know that their value doesn’t decrease if life doesn’t go according to plan.
Let’s raise children who recognize the weight of single parenting not with pity, but with respect.
Because being a single parent — whether mother or father — is not a sign of brokenness.
It’s a daily act of selflessness.
A sacred kind of strength that deserves more honour than judgment.
So no — I didn’t stand still.
I asked the question.
I pushed back.
And I’ll keep doing it.
Because if we don’t challenge these quiet prejudices in real time, they’ll continue — one comment at a time, one child at a time.
And maybe next time, you’ll say something too.
For the one becoming, the one rebuilding, the one rising—
I write so you remember you were never alone.
— Nicole Ruvimbo Marara