What I Wish I'd Known

'Life as a single mum. With self-belief and Blippi*, anything is possible'

For financial advisor Dasa Medvecka, being a single mother to her 3-year-old son has opened up a whole new world of friendships, fun and multi-tasking. Here she explains how it has changed her life for the better.

By Dasa Medvecka

*Blippi is an American kids' television entertainer and educator.

Like most young girls of my generation and traditional upbringing, I found myself wearing my mother’s high heels and putting a white doily over my head looking in the mirror humming 'Here Comes The Bride'. Oh, the innocence of youth.

Sadly, that’s the closest I came to a white wedding, or any kind of wedding for that matter. And my mother’s beautiful white shoes soon became an inheritance, slthough it was some years before they actually fitted. Never went out of fashion though.

Childhood dreams fade as you enter the reality of adulthood. Although sometimes I wonder. Times and values change, that’s for sure, but what drives that change?

Gone is the idea that procreation is sinful and a family should consist of two parents of different sex and have two point four children, where Daddy is the bread winner and Mummy stays at home to cook his dinner and mind the house and kids. Ironically, for some today that would sound ideal – sometimes after a particularly busy day at work, let me tell you, it does.

Some would say it’s a breakdown in society and standards that has led to this being no longer the ‘norm’, whilst others would look up and thank whoever they believe in - be it some omnipotent entity or (dare I say) Richard Dawkins - that man will always reproduce regardless of what society dictates.

Today it is accepted that individuals have free will and don’t have to conform to the standards laid down by tradition. With the increase in divorce rates, gone is the taboo of being a single parent with no man for support.

I believe divorce rates are the biggest single reason for the change in people’s views on single parenthood. Now it’s no longer considered odd for women to have a child and support them on their own just because they never met their knight in shining armour.

This is the position I have found myself in

That said, the difficulty of being a single parent, as pointed out by the nay-sayers, is a reality. Life works differently.

Still, it will all be worth it. I may never have any time to myself, but I’ll never, ever be alone. And my genes will live on in him and - who knows - maybe in his children.

So what does it take to be a single working mother? How do you juggle all those plates at once without one losing momentum and without another coming crashing down, closely followed by all the others?

Everyone knows the saying that women are better at multi-tasking. But there’s multi-tasking and there’s... well, you know, this takes multi-tasking to a whole new level.

So I am fortunate that knowing what my future was going to look like many years ago, when all my knights armour ceased to be shiny no matter how much I polished them, that I trained to be able to earn a living and look after my beautiful child should I have one alone.

And I do. And he’s gorgeous and clever and naughty. And time-consuming and demanding and costly. And everything he should be and I expected him to be.

He doesn’t have aunts or uncles close by, as I was the only one of my parents’ two girls with an overwhelming sense of adventure and desire to seek my fortune away from a small village in a Slovakia.

It’s not just family you leave behind - it’s all those people you grew up with.

Whilst it’s easy to find new friends when young, free and single, that all changes when you become a mum, especially a single mum. You don’t really notice at first as your life becomes that little bundle you give 100 per cent of your time to.

And then one day you ask yourself, where’s everybody gone? Where are my best friends? And you look down and realise. Ah - there they are. And now, because of him, I’m meeting new friends.

Friends who are becoming clients because they understand I run a business and have a silent partner… well, I say "silent".

You may hear Blippi in the background, but they understand it’s not easy being a businesswoman and a single mother, and that with determination and self-belief and understanding and lovely clients, anything is possible.