In search of the thirtysomething mom

I know I cannot be the only thirtysomething mom with children in middle school. Right? I feel like I am hunting Bigfoot or the Chupacabra. Where are you? Why do I feel like I am the only free woman who had children in her twenties, and more specifically around Y2K? I know this can’t be a thing, but it sure feels like it.

Where are you, thirtysomething moms?

For example, I take my kids to one of these indoor trampoline jumping spots that are found throughout suburbia. There’s one here called Jumpstreet that has a few locations in the Dallas area.

The situation runs that either the moms that are there are all in their forties. Basically, women who had their kids later in life, sometimes those who eventually conceived with help from science. Otherwise, the ones in their forties are the grandmas. This means the moms are really young, like in their twenties, and their kids are really little.

If the mothers I find happen to be in the thirtysomething range, their kids are still too young. Like in their early elementary school years young. This means I am not going to have anything in common with them anyway because my kids are now in their teens. More disappointment. Where are all the thirtysomething moms?

Maybe women my age in their mid-thirties are all working and that’s why I don’t see them when I am out and about. Maybe I can’t find women like me, thirtysomethings with teenagers, because I am currently unemployed. There is nothing like jumping back into the workforce after a seven-year hiatus with no degree and then moving three times in three years to make it hard to find a job.

Am I the social piranha?

I feel like a social pariah oftentimes when I go grocery shopping during the day.

I am alone, I am not a senior citizen and my children are not with me because they are in school all day, so I am usually the only woman in my age bracket shopping alone.  It’s not like we with teens have a certain “look” to help identify our status to others like ourselves.

Maybe it’s because having moved around so much in the last three years, I haven’t had the opportunity to establish myself in the community like I did when I was living in Virginia. I had plenty of friends and acquaintances who, like me, had teenage children, and were either stay-at-home mothers like me, employed, or a little of both. This reason is very likely playing a large role in the isolation that I have experienced.

What are women my age supposed to be doing?

I certainly never thought I would be where I am right now. I thought for sure I would still be in the military. I also thought that if I wasn’t still in the military at this time, I would have finished my degree by now. Yet none of these things have happened.

Instead, I am thrust back into the world without the false security I cultivated being married, and a stay-at-home mother, allowing the husband to support the family and be the only breadwinner. This was a huge mistake.

I read an article when I was filing for divorce that certainly did not fill me with hope:  Stay-at-Home Divorced Mothers Can Face Economic Disaster. As much as it scared me, it made me wake up to the reality of what I was about to undertake. The unfairness of the world I was re-entering, and how I was going to have to work harder and smarter to get myself back on track.

If other thirtysomething moms are like me, divorced and with teenage children, they are too damned busy scraping a living to have time to meet me.

A cruel, and unjust world for thirtysomething single mothers

I am pissed off about the injustice that my life choices have placed on me. Thanks to my supportive cultivation of a comfortable family life budgeted on one income, mr horrible was able to transition himself straight from the military into a career in the civilian sector. Despite the fact that it required him to relocate states, we did it and I made it possible.

What do I get for all my efforts? Being ejected into a life where I had no contacts, no network, and that was too expensive for me to live only on the child support and alimony I would receive. So I made the decision to go where my fixed budget could go a little further and where I knew I would be close to family and far, far away from mr horrible.

I am fortunate that as a military Veteran, I have the benefits of my GI Bill to at least help me get my degree and at least use that as a launchpad to get me on some sort of career path. That is more than most women in my position have.

Since mr horrible dropped me from his medical coverage as soon as he could with no regard to the conditions of our Settlement Agreement or the fact that I can’t afford to cover myself on my fixed income, it’s a good thing I have what little I can count on from the Veterans Affairs benefits should I get sick.

What a jerk. He’s not saving any money taking me off his policy either. It was just another way he could add insult to injury. I can only imagine how many others in my position have their health hanging in the balance because they can’t afford adequate coverage.

If other thirtysomething moms are like me, divorced and with teenage children, they are too damned busy scraping a living to have time to meet me. I may come to recognize the sweat-on-the-brow look, the pockets stretched to within an inch of our lives appearance that marks the look of a thirtysomething divorced, single mom.

We will then become instant comrades at arms, together in the rat race I have only just re-entered, years late and at a fiscal disadvantage.