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Your pub for personal essays, inspiration, joyful anecdotes, self-awareness and life lessons. To write for Namaste Now! email namastenow9@gmail.com with your Medium profile link

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Why Are So Many Men Afraid to Date Single Moms?

Sometimes I find the double shift of single momhood very challenging

4 min readJun 16, 2025

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Woman with long dark hair.
Photo by Raamin ka on Unsplash

I wish I could spare my kids the pain and fear of growing up in a household where one parent ruled the roost with an iron fist and any slip, especially from the mom, was swiftly punished.

When I got divorced and could finally breathe a sigh of relief, my priority was to provide my kids with a stable and peaceful home. They had been through enough. I had been through enough. And even though I longed for affection and emotional support, too, I knew the odds were stacked against me.

Even after spending most of my life outside India, the culture and traditions follow me everywhere. People don’t always say it, but they think it — that maybe the man left because you couldn’t cook well enough or take care of the home. The older generation expects you to live quietly for your kids and slowly fade into the background, because “who would want a divorced single mom anyway?

Others, like my mom, worry I might “create a bad name” by dating and suggest remarriage, like it’s a damage control plan.

My ex-husband’s parting shot when I asked him to leave still rings in my ears: he pitied me because “no man would have…

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Namaste Now!
Namaste Now!

Published in Namaste Now!

Your pub for personal essays, inspiration, joyful anecdotes, self-awareness and life lessons. To write for Namaste Now! email namastenow9@gmail.com with your Medium profile link

Yana Bostongirl
Yana Bostongirl

Written by Yana Bostongirl

✨ Boston-based| 🖋️A memoir in motion| Indian American| 🌍Third culture soul| Not great at small talk, obsessed with big questions, and still figuring it out💫

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