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In honor of Blog Action Day on Poverty, a few statistics:
According to a study in the journal Pediatrics, 55% percent of children who live in single-parent, mother-only families are poor, compared with only 10% of children in two-parent families.
A Census Bureau demographer told the NY Times: Poor two-parent families were about twice as likely to break up as were two-parent families not in poverty.
And a Brookings Institute study found that women and children experience substantial financial declines upon divorce while divorced men’s relative income remains stable or even increases.
Given these somewhat bleak numbers — which I’m determined to prove wrong as I feel more financially responsible and driven out of marriage than I ever felt in it — it’s ever more important to support each other. Darkening days, literally and figuratively between winter and the economy, mean that anything we can do to lean on one another is good for our souls. As I go down the path of Experiments in Single Motherhood, I am thankful to the friends who prop me up. D brought me castor oil from Ireland – she said it would help my mood. C took me to hot yoga and M taught the kickass class. R has provided me a standing offer to watch my kids, which is worth tons in peace of mind. S has me over for Project Runway every week. H calls from the West Coast to see if I’m ok, and A listens from Indiana … and listens and listens. The women in my writing group read whatever I put in front of them. And my next door neighbor, J, comes over to fix things now and again.
“Leap and the net will appear,” said yesterday’s post. Indeed. The net is there in so many people and so many ways. We have to keep holding it up as a people, supporting one another AND electing people who will patch back the net that’s been destroyed. So vote. Take your friends leftovers and help them when they have painting projects. Watch each other’s kids and have parties for no reason. Give your friend a pedicure and accept a backrub from another one. Don’t forget: You are the net.
